Public management means the act of conducting public activities for the welfare of the people. It is a sub-discipline of public administration that involves conducting managerial activities in public organizations.
Public management is meant to improve the quality and efficiency of services delivered by public organizations. Managers interpret public policy to implement public services in ways that are expected to achieve the most desirable outcomes for the interests they serve.
Internally, public managers must understand how to manage risks and change within their organizations. It demands that they stay informed of societal conditions that may impact their organizations to function optimally. Managers have to take preemptive measures to diminish identified risks and prepare their staff to adapt to the instability those adverse conditions may have on the organization.
Externally, on the other hand, public management involves leading efforts to collaborate with the private sector to support the adoption of public policy.
Areas of Public Management
1. Plan Management
For the all-around development of a nation, public management formulates appropriate plans, increases public participation, and operates them effectively. The entity has to formulate policies on the basis of needs and formulate and implement plans as per the need of the people.
2. Staff Management
Eligible, efficient and skilled human resources are a prerequisite for the effective formulation of policies and implementation of plans. Hence, obtaining such resources, developing, utilizing, and maintaining them is the responsibility of public management.
3. Development Management
Public management addresses the citizens’ aspirations of State’s development. Public management is needed to participate directly for identification, operation, utilization and maintenance of development.
4. Organizational Management
Only an organization that is swift, decentralized and equipped with modern technology can give the desired results. Thus, it is the public management’s responsibility to form an appropriate organization.
5. Service Management
Public sector should adopt the good qualities of the private sector and provide economical, swift and effective services. New public management emphasizes the effectiveness of services and satisfaction of beneficiaries.
6. Budget Management
Delivery of service and development works cannot be performed without budget. Therefore, public management has to manage the necessary budget for the organization.
What’s New Public Management?
New public management, developed in the 1980s, is a concept of adopting the managerial practices of the private sector in public institutions. It is an approach that seeks to build an administration by implementing flexibility, transparency, minimum government, de-bureaucratization, decentralization, the market orientation of public services and privatization.
New public management (NPM) makes a citizens-friendly administration from a rigid, hierarchical, disciplined bureaucratic administration that needs to make weak public administration strong and effective.
NPM is also an acknowledgment that the private sector is more effective, efficient, and superior in the delivery of services than the public sector. It encourages the public sector to introduce and adopt business management techniques, performance management systems, benchmarking, autonomization, etc. of the private sector.
