The impact of neo-liberalism on the idea of public office: Legal office in New Zealand

Abstract

In this paper I shall assess the impact of the recent reviews of the Crown Law Office in New Zealand and the public legal office of Solicitor-General. In 2011 the State Services Commission, The Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet commissioned a review of the Crown Law Office as part of Performance Improvement Framework (PIF). The Performance Improvement Framework " .. .is a framework applied by a small group of respected organisational leaders to provide insights into agency performance, identifying where agencies are strong or performing well and where they are weak or need to improve."3 The PIF is part of the Better Public Services project that is " ... part of a shift to a more explicit standard of defining and tracking performance, changing the nature of incentives in the public sector, boosting the role that the corporate centre can play and enhancing the ability of stakeholders and the public to scrutinise what they are getting for their tax dollars."4 The Crown Law review then was part of a wider review of state agencies that was essentially shifting the focus of the agencies to be more efficiency-based and performance driven.