Public value is a philosophy of public sector management. The Work Foundation has placed itself at the forefront of the debate about public service reform by arguing the concept of public value should be used to reinvigorate engagement with the public and inspire public sector workers around the goals of their employers
The central purpose of all publicly owned and funded organisations should be to increase public value. In return, organisations gain legitimacy from the public they serve, and – ideally – leadership, innovation, improved service and greater job satisfaction should follow.
Since 2006, The Work Foundation has been running a consortium research project on public value in the UK context (the founder of the idea was the American academic Mark Moore). We have run workshops, published papers and disseminated the idea of a public value approach to the management of public services.
The project’s objectives were to:
- Provide a clear definition of public value
- Provide public managers with a set of guiding principles that orient institutions to the creation of public value
- Use sector and case studies to illustrate how organisations might understand where gaps occur in achieving public value
- Clarify the components and processes of public value in order to facilitate its future capture and measurement.
In November 2006 the report Deliberative Democracy and the Role of Public Managers completed the first phase of the research project and provided an in depth exploration of the theory of public value and its implications for public managers operating in the UK's political system.
Phase 2
The second phase of the research began in January 2007 and was sponsored by the following organisations:
- BBC
- Capita Group plc
- Department for Culture Media and Sport
- London Borough of Lewisham
- Metropolitan Police
- NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
- Ofcom
- Quality Improvement Agency
- Royal Opera House
- The Scottish Government.
The final report of the consortium is now scheduled for publication in the autumn of 2008 to coincide with our programme of events for the party conference season. This will examine how public institutions understand what the public value as well as how they shape expectations and public demand. The report will build on the practical insights gained from in depth research, case studies and position papers that we have completed for each of the sponsor organisations.