Is there a new model of public sector HRM

Abstract

It is now commonly accepted that a new model of public management is firmly in place across all levels of government in Australia. Governments of all political complexions pursue policies of relentless down-sizing, privatisation and contracting out. The role of government as producer and provider of an extensive range of goods and services has been supplanted by the much simpler notion that government should 'steer' rather than 'row'. The Weberian paradigm of bureaucratic organisation that characterised public management in Australia for much of this century is thus distinctly out of favour. Public services at both state and Commonwealth levels are being re-structured to remove those characteristics most closely associated with the discredited bureaucratic model. In all of this, the objective is to make the management of the public sector resemble as much as possible that of the private sector. It would be reasonable, therefore, to expect that there should be a new model of public sector human resource management to complement the new public management. However, early signs suggest that this is not yet the case and that human resource management in the public sector is currently an uncomfortable Weberian/managerialist hybrid which is unlikely to be displaced until a suitable replacement becomes available.