New Public Management (NPM) and the Impacts of Reformations in Decentralization of Administration and Bureaucracy in Sri Lanka

Abstract

New Public Management (NPM) is world recognized ideology of public management raised to office a better a service delivery to fulfill the gap in bureaucratic administration. The main pillars of the NPM are efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability and economy and they are obligatory elements of administration. Sri Lanka introduced NPM reforms through decentralization, restructuring, privatization, public privet partnerships, out sourcing of the services and haring contractual services and etc. Sri Lanka mainly introduced reformations in decentralization with the provincial council system under the Provincial Councils Act No. 42 of 1987. This Act enabled the devolution of political, fiscal and administrative powers to a system of Provincial Councils. It is questionable that application of NPM and achieving the outcomes of decentralization by Sri Lanka. The research is aim to study and evaluate the impacts of reformations in decentralization of administration and bureaucracy in view of NPM to make recommendations for further cause of actions. The research philosophy is positivism and the approach is deductive. The method is mixed method simple both with qualitative and quantitative analysis to facilitate in making more precise conclusions. The research strategy is survey and the time horizon are cross-sectional in data collection. The sample size decided on “Morgan Sampling” and “Stratified Random Sampling” is used to select samples. The primary data will be collected from 181 Divisional Secretaries and 63 Heads of the Departments through a web-based questionnaire. The secondary data sources used are relevant government publications. The SPSS software will be used in the analysis.