Core Articles: Best Value—Total Quality Management for Local Government?

This article argues that Best Value is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM). At the core of Best Value are the TQM principles of customer focus, continuous improvement and team--working. To discover if Best Value will deliver the performance improvements expected of local government, the authors examine evidence on the relationship between TQM and performance. Performance is most likely to be improved if the whole TQM approach is implemented in the Best Value framework.