Professor Rodney Scott

Chief Policy Advisor for the Public Service Commission of New Zealand

Rodney Scott is the Chief Policy Advisor for the Public Service Commission of New Zealand, responsible for advising on the overall design and direction of the public service. He has worked for the New Zealand public service for 14 years, establishing the Public Service Fale to support public service strengthening across 16 Pacific Island Nations, and advising on numerous major legislative reforms including the creation of New Zealand’s Public Service Act 2020.

‘The New Zealand model’ of public management, introduced 1988, is taught at universities all over the world. However, practice has changed considerably since then, culminating in the passage of the Public Service Act in 2020. At the Bennett Institute, Rodney is examining the ‘new’ New Zealand model of public management, exploring and explaining how this has changed since 1989, and elucidating implications for global public management practice.

Rodney is an Adjunct Professor of Public Management at the University of New South Wales and was a visiting fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government (Oxford University) and Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University). He sits on the Boards for the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand, the New Zealand government’s Chief Science Advisor Forum, and the Victoria University of Wellington School of Government Trust, and is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors New Zealand.

He has a PhD in system dynamics and public management from the University of Queensland, and has written numerous articles and several books on public management including Targeting Commitment: Interagency Performance in New Zealand (Brookings Institution Press).

Rodney Scott
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