The vision is to create an arena in which Europe's public sector institutions can excel and become an exemplar for the rest of the world. Against this backdrop, the EPSA aims to achieve the following goals:
The award categories have promoted awareness of key dimensions of public value; in doing so, the EPSA has encouraged and will encourage governments to modernise their administrative structures and practices and address the essential themes of administrative reform in Europe.
This book aims to demonstrate that various creative and smart routes to excellent solutions are possible, by analysing success stories in different areas of local public management from seven European cities in the EPSA scheme – Bilbao (ES), Birmingham (UK), Mannheim (DE), Milan (IT), Tallinn (EE), Tampere (FI), and Trondheim (NO). It concludes by presenting seven steps leading to excellence. The only thing left to find out is: are other cities ready to take on the challenge?
What kind of ideas are behind the remodelling of the state and public sector, and how have these ideas materialized in practice? In this book the authors illustrate what are the driving forces behind the huge amount of public management reforms over the last three decades. Trends and ideas of public management reforms in practice are validated by data from European Public Sector Award cases (2009 and 2011).