Policy and practice: An investigation of organizational change for service quality in the public sector in Northern Ireland

Throughout the 1990s, the public sector has experienced a period of intense scrutiny focusing on what it does, and how it does it, so much so that themes such as r̀einventing’ , `reforming’ and `modernizing’ , appear commonplace in its every day language. Further, as government becomes increasingly nervous about public expenditure the whole issue of eVective public sector management (incorporating value-for-money) has been pushed to the centre stage. Such is the degree and extent of the change taking place that terms such as business/service excellence, quality management, re-engineering and strategic management, once considered the sole domain of manufacturing, have become watchwords for public sector management (Burns, 1992; Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996; Walsh, 1990). To many, we are now encountering `a sincere and growing interest’ in the management of change within public sectors (Orwig et al., 1997) world-wide. As a result, this new public management focuses on the principles behind the 5E: economy, eYciency, eVectiveness, excellence and enterprise. How can the public sector eVectively enhance its performance, improve its productivity by `doing more with less’ , develop and implement its policies so that public users and not providers are the focus and ultimately champion customer service (Durst & Newell, 1999; Hardiman & Mulreany, 1991)? In other words, how can a `government for people’ truly be created (Modernising Government, Command Paper 4310, 1999)? In this vein, the following paper reports on some preliminary ® ndings from an ongoing research project investigating the nature of continuous improvement (CI), business excellence (BE) and other change management practices throughout the public sector in Northern Ireland. Many issues were explored, including: initial motivations for pursuing CI/BE; types of practices currently in use along with the outcome measures employed; perceived success or otherwise of such practices; barriers to adoption of CI/BE; and the potential for public sector units to learn from each other. One of the main aims of the preliminary research is to gain an accurate insight into the awareness, understanding and use of such practices in the Northern Ireland public sector before undertaking in-depth case studies. Further, this issue