Public sector quality: political project or legitimate goal?

Abstract

Are quality initiatives in the public sector part of a political project or can they be a legitimate goal? These contrasting, but not necessarily incompatible, interpretations will be examined in this paper, first, by reviewing approaches to quality and their application in the public sector in general, and second, with reference to a case study based on assessment of the Government Purchasing Agency (Northern Ireland) against the European Quality Model (EQM) criteria. Through this, the paper concludes that quality improvement can be a legitimate goal and political project at the same time; that private sector quality models need to be adapted and integrated with other methods to fit public sector organisations; and finally, that their application to a commercially oriented departmental agency (whose customers are largely internal rather than the public at large) is easier than to other public sector organisations in more contentious, politically charged areas.