An era of governance through performance management – New Labour's National Health Service from 1997 to 2010

Ferry, L.; Scarparo, S.

doi:10.1080/21552851.2015.1091673

An era of governance through performance management – New Labour's National Health Service from 1997 to 2010

Ferry, L.; Scarparo, S.

Authors

Professor Laurence Ferry laurence.ferry@durham.ac.uk
Professor

S. Scarparo

Abstract

In 1997, the New Labour government inherited a ‘crisis’ in the UK National Health Service from the outgoing Conservative government. To address this perceived crisis, New Labour offered investment and, contrary to expectations, further neo-liberal health service reforms. In particular, the government extended the scope of performance management beyond financial numbers to encompass all aspects of managerial and organisational performance. Drawing on an analytics of government framework, this paper demonstrates how reforms were framed and given meaning through a framework of hierarchical accountability and centralised control. These panoptical arrangements relied on performance-management technologies of targets and ratings, which were linked to patient choice and a prospective funding system called ‘Payment by Results’. In turn, these top-down technologies disciplined knowledge, identity, and visibility and control of practice.

Citation

Ferry, L., & Scarparo, S. (2015). An era of governance through performance management – New Labour's National Health Service from 1997 to 2010. Accounting History Review, 25(3), 219-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2015.1091673

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jul 29, 2015
Publication Date	Sep 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Oct 23, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 1, 2017
Journal	Accounting History Review
Print ISSN	2155-2851
Electronic ISSN	2155-286X
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	25
Issue	3
Pages	219-238
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/21552851.2015.1091673
Keywords	Accountability, Accounting history, Governmentality, Health care, National Health Service, Performance management.
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1419493

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Accounting History Review on 01/09/2015, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21552851.2015.1091673.