Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- List of abbreviations
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- one Policy networks and new governance
- two Education, network governance and public sector reform
- three ‘New’ philanthropy, social enterprise and public policy
- four Policy influence, boundary spanners and policy discourses
- five New policy lions: ARK, Teach First and the New Schools Network
- six Networks, heterarchies and governance – and the beginning of the end of state education?
- Appendix Research interviews
- References
- Index
two - Education, network governance and public sector reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- List of abbreviations
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- one Policy networks and new governance
- two Education, network governance and public sector reform
- three ‘New’ philanthropy, social enterprise and public policy
- four Policy influence, boundary spanners and policy discourses
- five New policy lions: ARK, Teach First and the New Schools Network
- six Networks, heterarchies and governance – and the beginning of the end of state education?
- Appendix Research interviews
- References
- Index
Summary
“As part of building the Big Society, we want to open public services up to small and medium-sized enterprises, employee co-operatives, voluntary sector organisations and social enterprises, who may often partner with the private sector. We believe that this will create more innovative and localised services, while also decreasing costs and increasing efficiency. We need all parts of society including businesses, social enterprises and charities to play a part in this radical reform and there's no reason the state shouldn't keep a stake so that taxpayers benefit from the increased value of improved services.” (Cabinet Office spokesperson commenting on the Open Public Services White Paper [Cabinet Office, 2011a])
In this chapter we will trace some of the developments and changes in forms of governance in England as these relate to the public sector, and specifically education through New Labour (1997–2010) and into Coalition policy (2010–): that is, from the ‘Third Way’ to the ‘Big Society’, from government to governance. These changes are multifaceted and multi-scalar and they work at different levels and move at different speeds. They rest upon both structural reconfiguration, the displacement of some actors and organisations and the introduction of others, and the introduction of new working relationships, incentives and subjectivities. They replace bureaucracy with management and leadership, service with ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’, professionalism with enterprise and, importantly, ‘commitment’ with contract. They are moves towards a ‘differentiated polity’ (Bache, 2003). They restructure the organising principles of social provision right across the public sector. That is to say, the forms of employment, organisational structures, cultures and values, systems of funding, management roles and styles, social relationships and pay and conditions of public welfare organisations are all subject to generic changes. Heuristically these changes may be situated as a part of the transformation that Jessop (1994) represents as from the Keynesian Welfare State to the Schumpeterian Workfare State (SWS).
According to Jessop this transformation replaced the Fordist discourse of productivity and planning with a post-Fordist rhetoric of flexibility and entrepreneurialism. The SWS ‘goes beyond the mere retrenchment of social welfare to restructure and subordinate it to market forces’ (pp 27–8).
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- Information
- Networks, New Governance and Education , pp. 19 - 46Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012