Foreword

Lord Neil Kinnock Chair British Council

All democratic governments must manifestly seek to ensure that public services and enterprises are responsive to the needs of citizens and capable of adapting to changing needs and policy challenges. The responsibility to act in a fair, open and accountable manner and pursue equity and quality must be at the core of any reform. The United Kingdom has a strong and widely recognised tradition of public service. The willingness to innovate and change is also well established but less readily acknowledged.

The United Kingdom has experienced considerable reform that has changed the way that policy is designed and delivered and re-shaped the boundaries of the public sector. Public Management and Policy Association’s new pamphlet, The State of Britain is an accessible introduction to the United Kingdom’s Public Sector because it illuminates its complex workings and its core functions, institutions and public service standards and values. In particular, the pamphlet provides an overview of recent developments in constitutional and administrative affairs and explores emerging forms of governance and public service delivery.

The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational and cultural relations. We work with people in one hundred and ten countries to facilitate the exchange of ideas and learning between the UK and other countries and, naturally, we recognise that policy and practice cannot simply be transferred from one system to another. We also believe it to be essential to appreciate the economic, political, social and cultural influences that shape the way government and society operate before introducing new models and approaches. The State of Britain is a useful resource for UK and international readers, not least because, alongside the descriptions of operation, it charts the impact of global trends in public administration and shows how new thinking has been tried and tested, accepted and rejected at different levels of government in the United Kingdom.

In short, it is handy – and amidst the plethora of works on the same subject that are much longer but no more instructive, there is no higher commendation than that.