"Coercive and simplistic thinking informs a whole range of practices aimed at improving public services, and good people try hard to make bad initiatives, based on bad theory, work. Teething troubles, poor governance, bad apples and unintended consequences are cited as reasons for high-profile failures, such as disability assessments, Universal Credit and the Troubled Families initiative.
This book argues that best efforts and poor excuses aren’t good enough.
The authors describe how a bad system beats well-meaning individuals
every time. They argue that no amount of tinkering, re-branding or good
governance can compensate for the serious and widespread harm inflicted
by a fundamentally flawed set of beliefs..." (excerpt from the Foreword)
The ‘Little Heresies’ seminars provide an important public platform to debate the future of public services. This book takes its title from the first seminar, ‘Kittens are Evil’ - suggesting that what appear to be well-intentioned policies create perverse incentives and lasting damage to the social fabric.
Public services’ management practices, underpinned by neoliberal thinking, were imposed by Margaret Thatcher. Successive governments continue to be duped into believing, against plenty of evidence to the contrary, that New Public Management (NPM), as it is now called, works.
In this first publication from the Little Heresies series, eight heretics, all leading thinkers and practitioners in their professional fields, explain the effects of NPM across a range of services:
- See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/kittens-are-evil.html#sthash.RfjP0Sib.dpuf
Marketisation: Kathy Evans explains why marketisation is deeply destructive in the provision of all public services and for care services in particular;
Performance Managment Practices: Toby Lowe and Simon Guilfoyle show how 'Payment by Results', Targets and League Tables guarantee failure of purpose;
Family policies: Stephen Crossley reveals the true cost of the failed thinking behind the Troubled Families program, and Sue White and David Wastell share some alarming research being carried out to build designer parents and children.
Government interference: John Seddon, Simon Caulkin and Simon Duffy show that 'Whitehall' and interference from government in innovative new services and the management of basic services is deeply problematic.
Each heretic offers an alternative way of thinking about and developing policies. Government would to well to listen to these experts in designing practices for the future. - See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/kittens-are-evil.html#sthash.RfjP0Sib.dpuf
This book argues that best efforts and poor excuses aren’t good enough.
The authors describe how a bad system beats well-meaning individuals
every time. They argue that no amount of tinkering, re-branding or good
governance can compensate for the serious and widespread harm inflicted
by a fundamentally flawed set of beliefs..." (excerpt from the Foreword)
The ‘Little Heresies’ seminars provide an important public platform to debate the future of public services. This book takes its title from the first seminar, ‘Kittens are Evil’ - suggesting that what appear to be well-intentioned policies create perverse incentives and lasting damage to the social fabric.
Public services’ management practices, underpinned by neoliberal thinking, were imposed by Margaret Thatcher. Successive governments continue to be duped into believing, against plenty of evidence to the contrary, that New Public Management (NPM), as it is now called, works.
In this first publication from the Little Heresies series, eight heretics, all leading thinkers and practitioners in their professional fields, explain the effects of NPM across a range of services:
- See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/kittens-are-evil.html#sthash.RfjP0Sib.dpuf
Marketisation: Kathy Evans explains why marketisation is deeply destructive in the provision of all public services and for care services in particular;
Performance Managment Practices: Toby Lowe and Simon Guilfoyle show how 'Payment by Results', Targets and League Tables guarantee failure of purpose;
Family policies: Stephen Crossley reveals the true cost of the failed thinking behind the Troubled Families program, and Sue White and David Wastell share some alarming research being carried out to build designer parents and children.
Government interference: John Seddon, Simon Caulkin and Simon Duffy show that 'Whitehall' and interference from government in innovative new services and the management of basic services is deeply problematic.
Each heretic offers an alternative way of thinking about and developing policies. Government would to well to listen to these experts in designing practices for the future. - See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/kittens-are-evil.html#sthash.RfjP0Sib.dpuf
