Advanced Strategic Public Sector Management

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to understand:

• The management of those services which are provided directly by the public sector – financial management, performance management, information technology, customer-citizen orientation & service design, and audit & inspection.
• The management of those services which are outsourced – the uses of the market in public services, the contracting process, the special contractual form, and the Public-Private Partnership.
• The management of services that have been privatised but in which the government maintains the public interest through regulation.

CONTENT

Managing Public Finance

• A brief history of financial management in government
• Budgeting at national level
• The art of cutting budgets

Managing Performance

• Why measure and manage performance?
• The three E’s
• Education
• Individuals and organisational performance
• Performance management and policy evaluation
• Managerial discretion

E-government

• The ambition
• The achievement
• The challenges

Customer-Citizen Orientation

• Customers, voters and citizens
• Approaches to customer orientation
• Contradictions in customer-citizen orientation

The Use of the Market in Public Services

• Markets and ‘quasi markets’
• Why rule by markets?
• A competitive spectrum
• Managing in the competitive environment

Managing through Contracts

• The contracting environment
• Contracting and commissioning
• Obligational and adversarial contracting
• Success and failure in contracting

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

The training methodology combines lectures, discussions, group exercises and illustrations. Participants will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge of the topics. The emphasis is on the practical application of the topics and as a result participant will go back to the workplace with both the ability and the confidence to apply the techniques learned to their duties.