UK expert counts costs of continuous reform

Esther Duffy

12 December 2006: In his first visit to Canberra, renowned British scholar Christopher Pollitt presented a seminar at the University on the cost of continuous reform that has occurred under UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The October seminar was the first time Professor Pollitt had presented his paper, entitled Blair's Re-disorganisation, Hyper-modernism and the Costs of Reform: A Cautionary Tale. He focussed on the continuous reform within the UK government using Western Europe's largest single organisation, the National Health Service, as a case study.

"Continuous reform has been ongoing for more than 20 years," Professor Pollitt said.

Although he said reform in itself is not bad, he highlighted three possible consequences of continuous reform.  

"The first consequence is the rate of change makes it impossible to find out which organisational designs work well and which do not, the second consequence is that rapid change inevitably brings transition costs and the third is a general loss of faith in stability within an organisation."

He concluded: "The one thing that we can be sure about is the (UK) Government cannot possibly know the effects of what it is doing".

Convenor of the Governance Research Group John Halligan said it was a great pleasure to host Professor Pollitt for his first presentation in Canberra.  

"Pollitt is well known as a pre-eminent international scholar and has written a number of books on managerialism, aspects of quality in public management and public management reform," Professor Halligan said.

The seminar was part of a series hosted by the Governance Research Group to support collaborative, interdisciplinary research and the sharing of expertise to engage with the complexities of real world innovation.

Other recent GRG events:

"Un-packing Intuition: Implications for Management Education and Practice", Professor Eugene Sadler-Smith, University of Surrey

"Motivating employees in a New Governance Era: The Performance Paradigm Revisited", Professor James L Perry, Indiana University with Associate Professor Deborah Blackman, University of Canberra and Adam McInerney, Australian Public Service Commission

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