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Public Sector Reforms: Changing Contours on an NPM Landscape
Author(s) -
Hyndman Noel,
Liguori Mariannunziata
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/faam.12078
Subject(s) - new public management , public sector , politics , corporate governance , public administration , accounting , government (linguistics) , political science , state (computer science) , public management , public economics , economics , management , law , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
Previous studies suggest that public sector accounting has moved from Public Administration (PA) to New Public Management (NPM) ideas and, more recently, towards a New Public Governance (NPG) approach. These systems are presented as mutually exclusive and competing. Focusing on accounting changes in the UK central government, this paper explores whether movements towards NPG ideas can be identified at the level of political debate. No evidence is found that NPM is a transitory state. Rather, the findings demonstrate that political debate continues to utilise predominantly NPM arguments, with the three systems viewed as containing complementary, rather than competing, schemes.