Public Sector Bargains

8/1/2024

Over the next few weeks, I will offer a few frameworks for those of you wanting to better understand the work of the executive.

This is the first one.

These are high-level introductions only. But I will link you to the primary scholarship.

Public Sector Bargains are the explicit and implicit agreements between public servants and ministers.

They look a bit like this:

The bargains have two basic features: what ministers and officials agree not to do and what they get in return from one another for not doing those things.

They are a widely used concept in public administration and public management.

Christopher Hood (who is a Kiwi) and Martin Lodge built on the idea of the Schafferian bargain to give us some clarity about the nature of the relationship between ministers and officials.

While we have seen the idea of public service bargains ebb and flow, it has been used across a range of jurisdictions and is pretty much canon.

Why do I think this one matters right now?

Well, if you are an official leaking against a current government or releasing personal and private information about ministers, then you are probably undermining the public service bargain and probably don’t understand your constitutional role: i.e., an unelected official who ought to be indifferent and unconcerned about the politics, and instead be facilitating the voice of communities and implementing the policies of the government of the day.

Similarly, if you are a minister who wants the right to hire, fire, and directly set the remuneration of officials, then you are also probably undermining the public service bargain. If you don’t want a constitutionally independent public service, then you ought to change the relevant legislation. If you want a more accountable public service, then confirm your theory of the state, clarify your strategy and set your outcome measures.

Next week I will cover off the purple zone and the concept of the authorising environment.

Remember, these are normative frameworks. I am making no judgement about what is currently happening or what has happened. These frameworks enable us to have a shared lens or window into the executive.

References:

Primary Research : Hood, Christopher, and Martin Lodge, The Politics of Public Service Bargains: Reward, Competency, Loyalty – and Blame (Oxford, 2006; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Sept. 2006), https://academic.oup.com/book/1624
Review of primary research : Eichbaum, C. (2007), The politics of public service bargains: reward, competency, loyalty—and blame. Edited by Christopher Hood and Martin Lodge Oxford University Press Oxford, 240 pages, 2006; ISBN 0-19-926967-X. J. Publ. Aff., 7: 407-411. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.279
Application to our context : Shaw, R. and Eichbaum, C. Bargains, compacts and conventions in the core executive: the New Zealand case, Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on Public Policy, Singapore, 28th – 30th June 2017: https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org/file/paper/593dbbccd2b10.pdf

Disclaimer

These are my evolving thoughts, rhetorical positions and creative provocations. They are not settled conclusions. Content should not be taken as professional advice, official statements or final positions. I reserve the right to learn, unlearn, rethink and grow. If you’re here to sort me neatly into left vs right, keep moving. I’m not the partisan you’re looking for. These in...

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