New Public Management and the Queensland Police Service

"The changes brought about by the adoption of New Public Management principles in policing related organisations have resulted in little improvement in the areas of performance and accountability."
New Public Management and the Queensland Police Service
Introduction
The early 1990s saw a change in the way business was conducted and services delivered by Australian public sector organisations. This change was in synchronisation with the rising tide of globalisation that hailed in the ongoing necessity for the public sector to put into practice the processes that deliver effective and efficient public management (Brunetto and Farr-Wharton 2004, p. 221). Mention of globalisation brings to mind the ‘Macworld’ view (Dunleavy (in Cope, Leishman and Starie 1997, p.446) of approaching discussion about not only product choices being standardised across nations but also standardisation of ideas regarding best practice systems and processes. This paper defines NPM, performance and accountability and describes their relationship as it is applied to policing related organisations in general and more specifically the Queensland Police Service (QPS). Discussion regarding the QPS’s performance and accountability of police inevitably features the 1987 Fitzgerald Inquiry because that is the point at which police management systems and practices once examined were found to lack standard principles of governance. It is no accident then that police and policing related organisations are more than ever held to account for their performance, efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.
Origins of New Public Management
Professor Christopher Hood (2000, p. 3) argues that changes to public management systems take place due to ‘international competitiveness and represent an international or even global set of received ideas about institutional design and managerial best practice. Subsequently there has been large scale revolution in public sectors in most westernised countries

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