Delivering 'public value': Implications for accountability and legitimacy

The possibility that public servants can act to create 'public value' offers a popular and potentially liberating normative code for the activity of public managers. The adoption of the concept however implies a changed understanding of legitimacy and accountability for policy actions. It is argued this new 'public service contract' is likely to be easier to adopt in local settings than in the core executive although in neither case is the adoption of new modes of working between politicians, officials and citizens unproblematic. Old codes and informal ways of thinking provide an awkward backcloth for the adoption of public value as a guideline for public management.