Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher?: How Government Decides and Why

by Donald J. Savoie

Overview

Thirty years ago, Anglo-American politicians set out to make the public sector look like the private sector. These reforms continue today, ultimately seeking to empower elected officials to shape policies and pushing public servants to manage operations in the same manner as their private-sector counterparts. In Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher?, Donald Savoie provides a nuanced account of how the Canadian federal government makes decisions. Savoie argues that the traditional role of public servants advising governments on policy has been turned on its head, and that evidence-based policy making is no longer valued as it once was. Policy making has become a matter of opinion, Google searches, focus groups, and public opinion surveys, where a well-connected lobbyist can provide any answers politicians wish to hear. As a result, public servants have lost their way and are uncertain about how they should assess management performance, how they should generate policy advice, how they should work with their political leaders, and how they should speak truth to political power - even within their own departments. Savoie demonstrates how recent management reforms in government have caused a steep rise in the overhead cost of government, as well as how the notion that public administration could be made to operate like the private sector has been misguided and costly to taxpayers. Abandoning "textbook" discussions of government and public service, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? Is a realistic portrayal of how policy decisions are made and how actors and institutions interact with one another and exposes the complexities, contradictions present in Canadian politics and governance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773588042
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Donald J. Savoie holds the Canada Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Université de Moncton and is the author of numerous books including Power: Where Is It?
Donald J. Savoie holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance (Tier 1) at the Université de Moncton and is the author of several books.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 3

1 Public Administration without Romance 16

2 Parliament: Try a Blank Piece of Paper 37

3 Ministers: Where Have All the Characters Gone? 62

4 The Prime Minister: Give Me Time to Learn 85

5 The Machinery: Running on Its Tracks 107

6 Let the Manager Manage So Long as It Squares with RPPs, DPRs, MAF, OCG, PCO, TBS, OAG, OLA, IBP, PSC, ATIP, CIEC, OPSICC, DAGs, QFR and That It Does Not Create Problems for the Minister and Deputy Minister or Draw the Attention of the Prime Minister and His Advisers 127

7 Program Evaluation: Turning a Crank That's Not Attached to Anything 149

8 The Public Service: The Ambivalent Institution 170

9 Management with a Capital M Never Interested Me Very Much 193

10 You Can Fudge Reports but You Cannot Fudge Rules 220

11 So What Happened to the Music Teacher? 239

Notes 255

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

"These days, questions about the role and accountability of the public sector are being raised more and more in both the media and Parliament itself. Savoie provides an excellent introduction to the terms of the debate, and a useful intellectual framework for understanding many of the complex issues involved." The Quill and Quire


"What Ever Happened to the Music Teacher? is a highly informative and insightful discussion of recent trends in government decision-making and the operations of the bureaucracy. Based on Savoie’s skillful mining of official sources and his insider contacts, the book provides readers with an interpretation of trends and developments inside the federal public service that is unmatched in its breadth and depth of information and interpretation." Paul G. Thomas, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba

From the Publisher