Introduction: the contract state and the future of public management

This Special Issue looks at some of the radical changes which have taken place in the management and organisation of the UK public sector, focusing in particular on the separation of purchaser and provider roles and on the extensive use of contract and market relations. Most of the articles in this issue originate from the 1994 Employment Research Unit conference 'The Contract State? The Future of Public Management'. Specialist contributors address: new modes of control in the public service; the role of markets and contracts; evidence from the NHS of contracting in theory and in practice; managing local mixed economies of care; comparability, decentralisation and control in public sector pay bargaining; contracting for social and health services in the US, and a review of contracting for public services from an antipodean perspective.