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Over the last three decades, in what has become known as the "new public sector" (Hood, 1991) services in advanced economies have been reformed to provide better quality, while reducing demands on taxpayers. Concepts once belonging almost exclusively to a private-sector environment have been transferred to a public-sector context, e.g. economy, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability, choice and value for money.
In the UK, the New Labour administration has put great emphasis on the provision of public services. A number of influential reports have been recently published in this area and have created a lively response from official bodies and the media.
This research article discusses three reports:
1. "Public aervice productivity: health" (Office for National Statistics, 2004), published in December 2004 on National Health Service (NHS) productivity, issued by the Office for National Statistics;
2. The Atkinson Review (Office for National Statistics, 2005), published at the end of January 2005 on the measurement of Government output and productivity for the national accounts;
3. The Gershon Review (HM Treasury, 2004), known also as the "Efficiency Review", published in July 2004 - an independent review of public sector efficiency.
Although these reports are very specific in their content, they received considerable media coverage, particularly in the case of the Gershon Review, which has been adopted to drive efficiency savings throughout the public sector. The analysis of the reports and the related press coverage raise the issue of how to disclose information regarding public sector organisations performance, if at all. In the case of reports, such as the ones this paper considers, there are issues very much related to the way information is communicated to the public. Therefore, it is important to realise the fundamental role played by the media in filtering and conveying the message to the audience.
First of all, the analysis of the press coverage associated to the reports shows that very often journalists quoted comments made by politicians, rather than citing the original source of information. second, the article titles are written in order to draw the attention of the readers, rather than to convey relevant information. Third, it could be argued that the contents of the reports are usually not accessible by a wide audience, given their level of detail. Therefore, they should...