REINVENTING LOCAL GOVERNMENT? SOME EVIDENCE ASSESSED

Abstract

Osborne and Gaebler's Reinventing Government offers a powerful image of a revolution in government. This article explores some of the assumptions of that seminal work as they relate to the nature of the change process. Parallels are drawn with the debate on the nineteenth‐century revolution in government, and Osborne and Gaebler's work is judged unlikely to survive the critical perspective of history. Their work may nonetheless be taken as providing a research agenda for the study of the recent extensive changes in British local government. To this end, the findings of the two major surveys of organizational change conducted by the Local Government Management Board are examined to see if such a revolution is indeed occurring. The conclusion is drawn that some, but by no means all, of Osborne and Gaebler's propositions are supported by this evidence, although their account of how change has come about is rejected.

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