Institutionalizing national leadership development interventions for English public services

Abstract

AbstractThe direct contemporary legacy of the extreme case is examined through a desk research-based review of the political and economic context, and of investment in a suite of national leadership development interventions. Successor governments have continued pursuing public service neoliberalization through regulated marketization reforms and have retained the suite of interventions in variably modified form, including those for school education and healthcare. The representative bodies that mounted the intervention for higher education have reconfigured it, and government core funding has ceased. National leadership development interventions have become institutionalized as an enduring contribution to the professionalization of senior staff in public service organizations as leaders, while the accountability regime continues to delimit their scope for corporate agency. A review of illustrative recent research on service provision and coordination in school education, healthcare, and higher education indicates that the generative mechanisms identified in the research whose findings were reported in Part II still broadly apply.