The applicability of an operations management approach to councils' waste services

Purpose – This paper arises from a study examining the causality of change by exploring whether best value and performance management had caused change within councils' waste services. The purpose of this paper is to represent one of the unforeseen findings arising from the research programme. Design/methodology/approach – The paper was an exploratory, inductive theory‐building study using a practitioner‐researcher approach to develop a conceptual model based upon a literature review and a case study research methodology. Findings – The paper finds that, despite much publicity, the cases studied did not use performance management frameworks to structure change and, in this regard, operations management may offer a better approach by which councils could include operational service delivery within the development of corporate strategy. Research limitations/implications – The practitioner‐researcher approach provided particular insights to this paper, which may not be apparent otherwise. One of the principal findings was that there appeared to be an absence of coordinated independent research relating to management theory and councils' service delivery, as opposed to private sector applications of theory and practice, which appears unbalanced, especially given that the public sector is one of the largest employers in the UK. Simply transferring private sector performance management approaches without scrutiny and amendment to the different cultural and structural working environment within councils would appear imperfect and likely to create ad hoc success. These findings relate specifically to councils' waste services but may have a relevance outwith these operations. Practical implications – This paper recommended that further research should be conducted to develop a greater understanding of council management practice and how this could be positively affected. Simply recommending the transposition of private sector approaches was unlikely to work and, similarly, the current hands‐off approach adopted both between government and councils and between councils' corporate centres and their operational services suggested the emergence of strategic/operational divides. This could be overcome with a more balanced approach and secondments between the different tiers. Originality/value – As practitioner‐research, this paper provides an insight into how councils' waste services are prioritizing change, which highlights the emergence of an apparent, growing dislocation between different government tiers. These findings emerge following case study research from a service whose perspectives on management theory rarely get expressed, due to the demands arising from daily operational delivery.