The prevailing orthodoxy of public service management is that it should be marketized, commissioned, contracted, managed, measured, and evaluated. Futures in Public Management introduces and develops the alternative argument that the objectives for and outcomes sought by institutions working with the public in contexts of health, care and welfare are inherently relational phenomena – they are always complex and cross-boundary, always co-produced by the individuals who experience them through interaction with those who are delivering them in relationship with those providing help/support.

This volume of Critical Perspectives on International Public Sector Management questions the potential trajectories, risks and opportunities in taking relational approaches including the transition from existing and/or emergent forms of organising public management. The implications for the governance and management of organisations and practice of relational public services are discussed, as well as the requirements for new roles and responsibilities for stakeholders that a relational management to public service reform.

Drawing from wider literature to set out the emerging lessons and reflections on relatively long running attempts to create exemplars of what is broadly a relational approach to public service management, the chapters explore the systemic hinterland required to develop and sustain relational public service approaches.