Management practices in Australian local government

There has been considerable reform in the Australian public sector to bring it into line with 'New public management' (NPM) principles. Implementing such reform successfully requires the use of new management practices. This Australia-wide study identifies the incidence of contemporary management practices in local government which are consistent with NPM, and examines differences which may occur due to the different geographical locations of local government. The results suggest the tyranny of distance impacts on rural and remote councils. which have a lower take up rate of contemporary practices. Further. people management practices are more important to local governments than other more 'efficiency' oriented practices.