Making Government Work

If you want to help your city save more than $ 100 million without cutting service levels, as Indianapolis did; if you need to do more with half the staff, as New Zealand's state-owned enterprises did; if you want to double the effectiveness of your organisation, as the U.S. Tactical Air Command did, read this book. In the pages of this book, the author provides a road map by which reinventors and political thinkers of all persuasions can actually make "reinvention" work. Reinvention is not just another word for reform nor is it synonymous with downsizing, or privatization, or simply cutting waste and fraud. It is about something much deeper, something tantamount to changing the very "DNA" of public organisation so that they habitually innovate, continually improving their performance without having to be pushed from outside. It is about building an entrepreneurially minded public sector with a  built-in drive to improve - what some could call a self-renewing system. Obviously, this is a complex work that requires careful strategy, and that is just what the book provides. The author lays out what he calls the "Five Cs" for successfully reinventing public organizations: The Core Strategy, to help them create clarity of purpose. The Consequences Strategy, to introduce consequenences for their performance. The Customer Strategy, to make them accountable to their customers. The Control Strategy, to empower organizations and their employees to innovate. The Culture Strategy, to change the habits, heats, and minds of public employees. Drawing on a rich base of American and international case studies the book delivers the battle-tested, strategic thinking that has proved itself around the globe, in every area of government - from national to local, from defence to day care. The book is a breath of fresh air for everyone who cares about the quality of public service - from taxpayers to the President of India. This fine book takes examples from around the world to show how a government can become an agile and efficient provider of common services.