Set-up for failure: racial redress in the Department of Public Service and Administration

Abstract

The way in which the public service is often analysed or discusses obscures the problem that this chapter wants to identify. Although it is common to discuss the performance of the public service and state agencies, in general, in terms of a skills deficit compounded by affirmative action, this chapter highlights a different dimension of the problem. It views the pursuit of equity as happening in the context of a particular politics on the sate. As a result, dysfunctions arising from the NPM come across as deficiencies resulting from affirmative action itself.