Imprint: Triarchy Press
Published: December, 2016 List Price: £15.00 Use code to save 20% Format: Paperback Extent: 100pp. Size: 15.2 x 22.9 cm ISBN: 978-1-911193-08-1 Tags: Public Sector, Public Services Kittens are Evil: Little Heresies in Public Policy Charlotte Pell, Rob Wilson, Toby Lowe Save 20% when you buy any book direct from us. Use promotion code tpdirect at checkout for an automatic 20% discount.
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(pdf text cannot be edited, printed or copied - email us if you need this capability.) Readership
Government policy designers, public sector workers and managers, research academics and practitioners and, of course, kittens.
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Kittens are Evil: Little Heresies in Public Policy
"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.." (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’: to suggest that private sector management methods and policies developed using private sector thinking create perverse incentives and lasting damage to the social fabric is a heresy. Public services’ management and policy practices, underpinned by neoliberal thinking, were proposed by Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s - the belief was that using private sector management methods would not only improve the quality of services but increase effiency as well. Successive governments have continued to subscribe to this belief - they believe that New Public Management (NPM), as it is now called, is the right approach to public services, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. 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: Marketisation: Kathy Evans explains why marketisation is deeply destructive in the provision of all public services and for care services in particular; Performance Management Practices: John Seddon, Toby Lowe and Simon Guilfoyle show how 'Payment by Results', 'Targets', ' League Tables', 'Inspection' and the like, guarantee failure of purpose, inefficiency and costly services; 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 (if only we ate less, exercised more, and made more of an effort to be perfect in every way... government could absolve itself from its responsibilities); Government interference: Simon Duffy, John Seddon and Simon Caulkin show how and why '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 do well to listen to these experts in designing practices for the future. Visit the dedicated Kittens Are Evil website here.
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The editorsCharlotte Pell is 'chief heretic' and founder of the Little Heresy series. She is a visiting fellow at Newcastle University. She edited 'Delivering Public Services that Work: Volume 2' and has written for many blogs and other publications on public services.
Rob Wilson is Director of the Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE) and Professor of Information Systems Management at Newcastle University. Toby Lowe is a leading thinker and writer on complexity and the Performance Management of social interventions. He is a Senior Research Associate at Newcastle University Business School, where he helps to co-ordinate North East Together: The Leaders Network for Social Change, and the Little Heresies in Public Policy seminar series. The ContributorsKathy Evans, CEO, Children England
Simon Duffy, Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform Simon Caulkin, Writer and editor John Seddon, Leader of the Vanguard organisation Toby Lowe, Senior Research Associate, Newcastle University Business School Simon Guilfoyle, serving police officer and university lecturer Stephen Crossley, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, Northumbria University Sue White, Professor of Social Work, Sheffield University David Wastell, Emeritus Professor, Nottingham University Business School Explore |
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