What you will study
This module aims to develop your expertise and understanding of what leadership and management embody in public services. The different examples that you'll explore across the units, as well as activities that you complete, will enhance your learning through application to real-world situations. Even if you're not a public sector employee, you'll have concrete experiences of receiving and interacting with public service provision that will bring to life your learning. You'll also analyse and discuss two course-long case studies, a public sector case and a third sector case, to consolidate your understanding of how leadership and management work in practice.
The module is divided into the following five units:
Unit 1
You'll first be introduced to the key notions of this module: public service; public administration and public management; public leadership; public governance. You'll then see how these concepts can be used in practical cases. You'll also reflect on the importance of public leadership and collaborative governance.
Unit 2
You'll explore the significance of context and contextual influences and how managing public services requires taking account of contextual differences. One-size-fits-all approaches are doomed to fail in public management. Effective public management depends on the capacity to take into consideration the specific context. Context will be analysed in terms of the specific features of a cultural, political and administrative system.
Unit 3
You'll explore the notion of space and place, and the related topic of territorial development. Public services inextricably have a spatial dimension: whether the public service is about urban planning or social care, it is defined by the territory where the service is being delivered. Entitlement to receive a public service is, in most instances, connected to the very fact of being resident in a given locality. As technological developments and digitisation transform the notions of space and place, this is reflected in the changing nature of delivering public services.
Unit 4
You'll analyse patterns of decision-making in public services. These include: decisions on financial resources (financial management and processes of public budgeting and accounting); decisions on human resources (human resources management systems); the use of performance measures for making decisions in public services management; and the issue of public values (in the plural) as well as the creation of public value (in the singular) as guiding principles and criteria for public decision-making.
Unit 5
You'll study patterns of service delivery and how to organise public services. Issues analysed include: alternative governance arrangements for service delivery; inter-agency coordination and joined up government; processes for involving private providers in service delivery; the involvement of users in public services towards forms of co-production and collaborative governance; and the distinctive nature of public services in which coercion is a constitutive requirement (the example, policing and security).
The five linked units in this module will require you to study six hours per week, for 22 weeks between May and September.
Please be aware that this module may engage with topics that are considered distressing in society. Contact us if you would like to discuss this further with an advisor prior to registering for the module.
You will learn
This module is designed for professionals from a wide range of contexts and backgrounds who wish to actively engage with the challenges of leadership and management in public services. You'll learn about the complexity of management in this realm and the many and varied links and dependencies within public services and the private sector. You'll develop your ability to analyse public services from different perspectives, such as contextual influences, and employ a range of managerial tools for leading and managing public services.