Discuss the concept of New Public Service.

 The concept of New Public Service (NPS) has evolved in the writings of J. V. Denhardt and R. B. Denhardt to reorient the focus of conventional administrative systems in order to make them better equipped to meet the challenges of administering the growing complexities of the modern societies. NPS may be considered as an ideological antidote to the hegemonic assertion of the Neo-liberal perspective as the only plausible framework of constituting administrative systems in the contemporary times. In other words, it is a strong rejoinder to the universalistic aspirations of the free market forces that have sought to reverses the democratic and socialistic credentials, albeit focus, of the public administration in the majority, if not all, of the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. NPS is considered a subtle effort at reintroducing the ethos and values of New Public Administration (NPA) that have been ruthlessly eroded in the wake of the consolidation of Neo-liberal economic agenda in almost all parts of the world. Amidst the importance assumed by marketisation principles, NPS argues for resetting the agenda of administrative reforms in order to make public administration responsive to the needs of the people instead of serving the interests of the market.

In putting forward the notion of NPS what Denhardt and Denhardt do is in fact argue for such a reorientation in the nature and functional dynamics of administrative system that it becomes the mainstay of serving the interests of the common people. In other words, the proponents of NPS seeks to provide certain functional indicators to reshape the public administrative system, so that it truly becomes a servant of the public rather than remaining a mute spectator to the free play of the predatory market forces out to devour the public interests. Hence, instead of the prevalent focus on making public administration a facilitator of the market forces in delivering goods and services to the people, NPS asks for an activist role for the public administration to serve the interests of the common people in place of just playing a second fiddle to the market forces. At the same time, such a role can be played by the public administration only, when it is sure of its vision and mission of pursuing public interests in the place of being a facilitator to the serving of the interests of the private players and big corporations.

In calling for reorienting the ideological focus of public administration, NPS does not seem to undermine the universal core values of efficiency, economy and effectiveness of the administrative processes. Its focus is mainly on putting the people first in the entire process of public administration in such a way that public interest does not suffer at the cost of market forces in any eventuality. Further, it argues for fullest use of the administrative and managerial innovations and creativity, so that the administrative activities reflect the contemporary state of things in the discipline. However, in making the administrative processes efficient and economic, NPS does not seem to compromise with the objective of effectiveness in delivering the goods and services to the people. That way, it seeks to bring the clock back by reinforcing the identity of people as citizens, rather than customers. Such a conceptualisation of the beneficiaries of the public services is quite reassuring in view of the fact that citizens of a country are entitled to certain rights and privileges to be provided to them by government agencies, without minding the loss or gain arising out of them. But in the conceptualisation of people as customers, the profit motive of the service provider becomes the foremost concern to serve which, quite often; the agencies breach the norms of civility, humanity and democracy.

With the understanding of people as citizens with sovereign rights and entitlements, the administrative system is expected to work in an ambience of responsibility. It needs to be accountable for whatever it does to the public institutions as well as people at large. For instance, in democratic societies like India the elected government in the form of ministers and other functionaries are put to scrutiny for their performance every five years. And, if they are found to be wanting in discharge of their responsibilities as per the expectations of the people, they are simply voted out and replaced with another set of people. Hence, NPS argues for a paradigm shift in the accountability structure of the administrative systems in such a way that keep in mind the expectations and aspirations of the public bodies including the basic law of the land or Constitution, rather than that of the corporate and other private interests. This seems to be quite important reinforcement on the part of the NPS given the current phase of corporate and other private interests claiming the hegemonisation of public interests.

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