Gaming in Targetworld: The Targets Approach to Managing British Public Services
Abstract
To what extent did the extensive system of managing public services by targets, introduced by Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the United Kingdom in 1998, reproduce the classic gaming responses associated with the Soviet Union and other centralized performance-setting systems? Combining evidence from documentary sources and interviews with high-level officials in the Whitehall bureaucracy, the author suggests that the three classic types of target gaming can be identified in this public management regime. However, the central managers of the target regime did not put substantial resources into checking performance data, took reported performance gains at face value, and had no coherent antigaming strategy.
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Overt diversion of policy to meet implementing staff demands is usually accompanied by presentation or skewing of information to demonstrate that original policy is being met.
“Overt diversion of policy to meet the demands of implementing staff is usually accompanied by the presentation of information to management that is designed to demonstrate that the original policy is being met, or by the skewing of information to allow it to appear that policy is being met (Goddard et al. 2000;Hood 2006).”
From Museums and the ‘new museology’: theory, practice and organisational change (2014) · cites this paper as Hood 2006
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Constructing and contesting legitimacy and accountability in polycentric regulatory regimes
Black, J. (2008) · Regulation & Governance · doi:10.1111/j.1748-5991.2008.00034.x · Cited by 1,215 · see citing works
Museums and the ‘new museology’: theory, practice and organisational change
McCall, V., & Gray, C. (2014) · Museum Management and Curatorship · doi:10.1080/09647775.2013.869852 · Cited by 255 · see citing works
Dougherty, K. J., & Natow, R. S. (2020) · Higher Education · doi:10.1007/s10734-019-00491-4 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hood, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Hood, Christopher
- ORCID
- Hood, Christopher
- Venue
- Public Administration Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-07
- Volume
- 66
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 515-521
- ISSN
- 0033-3352 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-6210
- OpenAlex
- W2041294800
- Cited by
- 490
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 32 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 53.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Accounting and Organizational Management
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration in Developing Nations
- Keywords
- target management, gaming, public service management, New Labour, performance goals, performance measurement, public sector management
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