Public Services and Financial Austerity

The authors suggest that some of the problems of the public sector are self-inflicted and that current policies may only deliver partial success "at a price we cannot afford". It proposes a radical alternative and discusses practical ways it could be implemented. It also explores the threats and opportunities that such an approach might face.

ROGER LATHAM is Visiting Fellow at Nottingham Business School, UK,and the current President of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). After a nearly career in the City he worked extensively in the public sector, reaching senior positions as Treasurer and Chief Executive of Nottinghamshire County Council. He was widely regarded as an original and radical thinker on public sector finance issues, and contributed to or chaired a number of groups and working parties on reforms to public services. He was also President of the Society of County Treasurers in 2000/1. He continues to research and write about public sector issues.

MALCOLM PROWLE is Professor of Business Performance at Nottingham Business School, UK and Visiting Professor at the Open University Business School, UK. He has over forty years experience of public services (in the UK and overseas) in central government, local government, health and education. He is a member of CIPFA and has held senior financial management posts in public service organisations and sad many years of consultancy experience with two international consulting firms (KPMG and PWC). He has advised Ministers, Ambassadors, senior civil servants, public service managers and service professionals on a variety of public policy and policy implementation issues and has had several periods of secondment to Whitehall departments of state. He has also been financial adviser to a House of Commons Select Committee, adviser to two shadow ministers and a consultant to the World Health Organisation. He has led and participated in many funded research projects on public sector themes, and has published six books and numerous research reports and papers in academic and professional journals.