Career
From 2004–2010 he was director of the Economic and Social Research Council Research Programme Public Services: Quality, Performance and Delivery. His books include The Limits of Administration (1976), The Tools of Government (1983) (updated as The Tools of Government in the Digital Age (2007) with Helen Margetts), The Art of the State (1998 and 2000) and A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? (2015, with Ruth Dixon). He chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics" Working Party on medical profiling and online medicine from 2008-2010.
He specializes in the study of executive government, regulation and public-sector reform and has written on New Public Management.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2011 Birthday Honours.
