Powell, Martin

Ian Greener

Simmons, Richard

This book challenges existing stereotypes about the 'consumer as chooser'. It shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services. The analysis shows that there are many different 'faces' of the consumer and that it is not easy to categorise users in particular environments. Drawing on empirical research, The consumer in public services critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Choice may grab the policy headlines but other essential values are revealed as important throughout the book. One issue concerns the 'subjects' of consumerism, or who it is that presents themselves when they come to use public services. Another concerns consumer 'mechanisms', or the ways that public services try to relate to these people. Bringing these issues together for the first time, with cutting-edge contributions from a range of leading researchers, the message is that today's public services must learn to cope with a differentiated public. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of social policy and public administration. It will also appeal to policy-makers leading 'user-focused' public service reforms, as well as those responsible for implementing such reforms at the frontline of modern public services.

Choice, Values and Difference

The Consumer in Public Services

This book, the third in Martin Powell's New Labour trilogy, analyses the legacy of Tony Blair's government for social policy, focusing on the extent to which it has changed the UK welfare state.

The Blair Legacy

Modernising the Welfare State

Glendinning, Caroline

Kirstein Rummery

Current policy encourages 'partnerships' - between statutory organisations and professionals; public and private sectors; with voluntary organisations and local communities. But is this collaborative discourse really as distinctive as the Labour Government claims? How far do contemporary partnerships exemplify an approach to governing which is based on networks (as distinct from hierarchies and markets)? Partnerships, New Labour and the governance of welfare: provides an up-to-date critical analysis of partnerships; addresses the highly topical theme of 'partnerships' as the means of achieving joined-up government; presents empirical evidence from a wide range of welfare partnerships; examines the relationships between local welfare partnerships and the management of those partnerships by central government; reveals the imbalance of power which characterises many contemporary partnerships. · It is essential reading for academics and students of contemporary social and public policy and for those with an interest in networks and other theories of welfare governance.

Powell, Martin

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