University of Tasmania, Australia

Ms Siobhan Harpur

Graduate Research Candidate

Contact Details

Project title: New Leadership in Health Policy Implementation

Abstract
The research starts from an assertion that a new leadership is required for public services that is different from the leadership that may be expressed in the corporate sector because of the complexity of players, processes and interest groups.

The authors interest is particularly in relation to the implementation of policy that takes account of new governance models including matrix management internally, and the use of partnerships and collaborations with stakeholder organisations. The author is interested in notions of leadership as distributed, and in iterative policy development that is co-produced and expressed as ideas are shaped by the players and interests involved.

Deborah Stones Policy Paradox (1988) has provided a useful basis for the political analysis of the process of decisions making in government, and Frank Fischers Reframing Public Policy is a seminal review of discourse as an analytical framework for making sense of contemporary public policy. The author is a senior Director in the Department of Health and Human Services Tasmania, with a current responsibility for the implementation of the Tasmanian Health Plan which was launched by the Deputy Premier and Minister for Health and Human Services in May 2007. This provides a unique opportunity to be an insider researcher and observer to a process of policy implementation as it unfolds, and as the organisations shapes and re-shapes itself and its leadership to respond to the challenges it faces.

The research to date has included the establishment of an interagency executive leaders group, which, with the support of the Minister and Secretary to the Department, has provided an opportunity to explore the extent to which ideas are co-produced. This group will meet for a further six months. A diary has been maintained that includes a collection of papers from the implementation process, and it is intended to undertake some interviews with some of the key participants to the implementation of the Health Plan and to the senior leaders group.

This PhD is being undertaken part time.

Keywords
Leadership, public services, policy implementation, postmodern, discursive, health services reform, action learning.