Reinventing government

Description

Reinventing Government details the most revolutionary idea of our time -- an idea whose time has come. Its authors give proof positive that government does not have to be a gigantic and inefficient bureaucracy. Instead, it can govern in the true sense of the word, by tapping the tremendous power of the entrepreneurial process and the force of the free market. In case after case, the authors show how this approach already has proven its worth all over the country -- in schools, in slums, in sanitation, in a host of other areas where enterprising and innovative public officials have delivered a far bigger public service bang for every budgeted buck. To cut taxes and improve services at the same time may seem too good to be true. Yet now we have in our hands a way to make it come true -- if we and politicians of all parties and persuasions read it and use it. - Back cover.

Description

"A revolution is stirring in America. People are angry at governments that spend more but deliver less, frustrated with bureaucracies that give them no control, and tired of politicians who raise taxes and cut services but fail to solve the problems we face." "Reinventing Government is both a call to arms in the revolt against bureaucratic malaise and a guide to those who want to build something better. It shows that there is a third way: that the options are not simply liberal or conservative, but that our systems of governance can be fundamentally reframed; that a caring government can still function as efficiently as the best-run businesses." "Authors Osborne and Gaebler describe school districts that have used choice, empowerment, and competition to quadruple their students' performance; sanitation departments that have cut their costs in half and now beat the private sector in head-to-head competition; military commands that have slashed red tape, decentralized authority, and doubled the effectiveness of their troops. They describe a fundamental reinvention of government already underway--in part beneath the bright lights of Capitol Hill, but more often in the states and cities and school districts of America, where the real work of government goes on." "From Phoenix to St. Paul, Washington, D.C. to Washington state, entrepreneurial public managers have discarded budget systems that encourage managers to waste money, scrapped civil service systems developed for the nineteenth century, and jettisoned bureaucracies built for the 1930s. They have replaced these industrial-age systems with more decentralized, more entrepreneurial, more responsive organizations designed for the rapidly changing, information-rich world of the 1990s." "Osborne and Graebler isolate and describe ten principles around which entrepreneurial public organizations are built. They:" "1) steer more than they row" "2) empower communities rather than simply deliver services." "3) encourage competition rather than monopoly" "4) are driven by their missions, not their rules" "5) fund outcomes rather than inputs" "6) meet the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy" "7) concentrate on earning, not just spending" "8) invest in prevention rather than cure" "9) decentralize authority" "10) solve problems by leveraging the marketplace, rather than simply creating public programs." "To civil servants and elected officials, to business people and community activists--to anyone who cares about government in America--Reinventing Government offers a breath of fresh air."--Jacket.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Reinventing government: how the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sectorAddison-Wesley Pub. Co.1992-01-01
• Reinventing governmentPaperbackPlume1993-01-01
• Reinventing governmentPaperbackAddison Wesley1993-02-01