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.