New Public Management
Also called: NPM · Topic: Civil Services: Role, Accountability and Reforms · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
New Public Management (NPM) is a way of reforming government by borrowing ideas from business and markets. It was popularised by Osborne and Gaebler (1992). It stresses performance targets, contracting out work to private firms, competition, and treating citizens as customers. It matters because it changed how governments judge their officials, moving the focus from following rules to producing results.
Example
Indian examples of NPM include Results Framework Documents (yearly targets for ministries), public-private partnerships (PPPs) and service guarantee laws that promise services within a fixed time. Critics reply that a citizen is not a customer, and that fairness to the poor can suffer when markets set the rules.
Don't confuse with
- Development administration: development administration is about using government to bring planned social and economic change, with people's participation. NPM is about making government work like a business.