Administrative reform in Whitehall and Canberra in the 1980s The FMI and FMIP compared.

This study examines new administrative reforms in Whitehall and Canberra in the 1980s. More particularly it compares and contrasts two programmes of managerial change which were central to the British and Australian governments' drive to introduce a more managerially oriented administration. Whitehall's programme was the Financial Management Initiative (FMI) which, later in the decade, was succeeded by 'The Next Steps'. Canberra's initiative was the similarly entitled Financial Management Improvement Program (FMIP). The study has three purposes: (i) To describe and analyse the progress of the two reform programmes during the 1980s. (ii) Through a comparison between the experience of the two, to illuminate those factors which were critical in advancing the cause of reform and those which retarded it. (iii) On the basis of this analysis, to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of the process by which administrations are changed. Each of these purposes was informed by one more fundamental question. Why is it that administrative reforms seem so often to fail. This dissertation is devoted to an examination and extrapolation of that basic inquiry.