The book closes the gap between politicians' rhetoric, public expectations and the day-to-day dilemmas facing managers wanting to improve the quality of public services. It offers a mixture of conceptual clarification and practical awareness of the environment in which public service managers have to work. This is no 'missionary' or 'how to' book that peddles instant solutions. Instead, a variety of approaches to quality definition, implementation and measurement are critically examined. Lessons and experience from practice and research in the public and private sectors give a solid background for readers to develop their own views.

Lucy Gaster disentangles the important aspects of quality, challenges assumptions, and shows that there are no simple solutions. At the same time she provides a framework to enable public service managers to develop and integrate ideas about quality in ways which are relevant to their own day-to-day practice. This framework shows that real choices are available to managers. Values and participation, combined with a real commitment to the ideal of 'public service', are at the heart of the approach adopted in this book. It will appeal to all those wanting a more objective and informed approach to providing quality services.