Geoffrey Kingdon Fry and the British road to public sector reform

Page, Edward C. (2023) Geoffrey Kingdon Fry and the British road to public sector reform. Public Policy and Administration. ISSN 0952-0767

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Abstract

To mark the 2023 death of GK Fry this note focuses attention on the approach to public sector reform in Britain discussed in his many works. Starting with his criticism of the 1968 Fulton Committee Report, his work developed a view of reform that foreshadowed debates that later went under the label of ‘new public management’ by at least 20 years. This note explains how he argued that a ‘positive state’ or Fabian approach dominated thinking about public administration for so long and largely accounted for the failure of most of the reforms of the postwar period until the 1980s. Fry’s background and interests to some degree help explain how he reached this perspective and how he set it out, so this note begins and ends with some outline of his life, career and outlook.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PPA
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2023 09:30
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2023 09:39
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/119807

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