Largely driven by the former Conservative Government's free-market philosophy, public sector reform has led the British government to:
* introduce principles of competition through privatisation, market testing of internal government services, and efficiency audits
* contain costs
* prefer customer-contractor relationships to needs-based services
* focus on outcomes, outputs and results, not inputs and processes
* be accountable to the customer/consumer, not to the claimant/patient
* decentralise to autonomous entrepreneurial state agencies, assigning a regulatory hands-off role to the state
* improve management using performance appraisal and incentives
Joint Project for Public Sector Reform in Israel
In order to improve the quality and efficiency of public sector services in Israel, ELKA (http://jointnet.org.il/elka/en/about.php) has teamed up with the British Council to administer the Joint Project for Public Sector Reform in Israel. The project aims to demonstrate both the array of British reforms and their effectiveness in the real world.
Israeli civil servants have visited some of Britain's most successful civil service bodies, gained access to UK expertise, and met with public sector professionals at the highest levels. They have also been provided with tailor-made training programmes and briefings.
Israeli civil servants have shown particular interest in:
* the development of the Next Steps executive agencies and their associated monitoring systems
* market testing and outsourcing
* quality charters
* the interface between government and voluntary service providers
* evaluation systems such as the Cabinet Offices' Public Sector Benchmarking Project, focusing on the Business Excellence Model (BEM)