PETTY BUREAUCRACY AND WOOLLYMINDED LIBERALISM? THE CHANGING ETHOS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

Most discussions of the public service ethos (pse) have offered polemical accounts of how recent reforms have eroded the distinguishing values of public servants without ever defining this ethos or considering its relationship to other aspects of the public sector. This article considers the deeper and more structural implications of the pse by characterizing it as a political institution that shares the features of‘new institutionalism’. It concentrates upon the pse as it manifests itself in local government and uses case studies of four authorities to analyse the extent to which external changes are altering the fundamental values of the ethos. In using the‘new institutionalist’perspective it argues that the pse, a vital institution of the UK polity, has been resistant to external pressures for change. Hence, to be successful, public sector reform must take into account the interdependent relationship between the pse and other political institutions.