Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The public services have undergone significant change over the last 25 years, driven in part by the approaches adopted for their management. The UK provides an example from which to discuss the more global changes in this area. These changes did not suddenly emerge at any particular date; however, a convenient point in time to begin this discussion of accounting in the UK public services is 1979. This is when the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher came to power with a particular ideological position related to ideas of economic rationalism. This approach, prevalent across the Anglophone countries in particular, led to the inclusion of a number of concerns on the government agenda. It led to the questioning of the extent to which there was efficiency in the delivery of services. There was a desire to minimize the role of the state, leaving citizens the freedom to purchase the services that they personally required rather than have them provided in a standard format by the state. Equally, concern was raised as to whether there was “producer capture” of services, which was leading to the delivery of services to the benefit of the supplier not the consumer. This led to a series of initiatives that sought to minimize the role of the state, which was informed by what can broadly be seen as a market‐based ideology. The far extreme of the approach was the program of privatizations ... log in or subscribe to read full text