Citizens, Charters and Concordats : how the Major Government confronted the challenge of engagement with civil society in public sector reform
John Major arrived in power with the aspiration to put a “human face” on the policies of his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher. The main device which he and his advisors produced to achieve this outcome was the “Citizen’s Charter”, designed as means to secure improvements in public service delivery by...
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| Publicado no: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/osb, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicado em: |
Observatoire de la société britannique
2011
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| Assuntos: | |
| Acesso em linha: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Resumo: | John Major arrived in power with the aspiration to put a “human face” on the policies of his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher. The main device which he and his advisors produced to achieve this outcome was the “Citizen’s Charter”, designed as means to secure improvements in public service delivery by treating users as consumers, with better access to information about the services they receive and scope for complaints. After the 1992 Election efforts were made to implement the Charter across a whole range of public services. These attempts were at first apparently successful but eventually fell into disrepute, as critics exposed various weaknesses in the approach adopted, of treating citizens as individual consumers. The incoming New Labour government retained the basic idea of setting standards and incorporated much of Major’s approach into their “target culture” for services. However, Major’s claim in his autobiography to have radically changed the nature of British public administration can be accepted only with qualifications. |
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