This report highlights the subject of the book reviewed in the Fall 2006 issue of the ARPPS Newsletter, Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector, by Stephen Goldsmith & William D. Eggers (2004).
One of the six keys is:
"Using networks and partnerships. As society becomes more complex, agencies cannot succeed in delivering services or programs on their own any longer, the IBM report says. Agencies will probably be more successful by creating collaborative efforts that reach across agencies, across levels of government, and across the nonprofit and private sectors, according to the report.”
We noted in our book review:
“Increased speed of response and an increased reach are also advantages as governments tap into outside expertise [by using networks] and in the process are also able to deepen their connection to the public consumers of the service.
“A great example of this in the parks arena is the public private partnership that the Central Park Conservancy entered into with the city of New York which has allowed a great increase in the diversity of services offered and has brought the park back from long-term neglect and abuse that characterized it in the 1980’s.
“A related example locally is the partnership between the Sacramento Zoological Society and the city of Sacramento to manage the zoo which the Society has now done successfully for almost 10 years.
“Moving to that type of arrangement to take care of the Parkway, would be the appropriate and evolutionary, public administrative culmination of the vision of the people who founded it so many years ago.” (p. 3.)
An excerpt.
Report Offers 6 Keys to a More Successful Government
By Stephen Barr
Monday, September 18, 2006; Page D04
Federal managers looking for that road map to the future may want to check out a report, to be released today, on six trends that are keys to overhauling government operations and improving federal performance.
The trends were identified by three senior staff members at the IBM Center for the Business of Government with an eye to helping federal agencies prepare for an era in which incremental change may not be enough to meet public expectations or to address such megaproblems as terrorism.
The challenges facing governments call for comprehensive and profound change," Jonathan D. Breul , a senior fellow at the IBM Center, writes in the report. He adds, "Those that play a waiting game, postponing these changes, will find their fiscal strength and programmatic effectiveness eroding."
For the report, Breul, Mark A. Abramson , the IBM Center's executive director, and John M. Kamensky , an IBM senior fellow, pull together themes from 150 research papers prepared for IBM since 1998. The center, a component of IBM's federal consulting practice, awards $20,000 stipends to researchers who produce papers on federal management issues.
