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Provides policy guidance on how to rebuild public services in postconflict settings. It conducts a comparative analysis of public service reform trajectories in five postconflict countries: Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste.

Managing the Fiscal Metropolis: The Financial Policies, Practices, and Health of Suburban Municipalitiesis an important book. This first comprehensive analysis of the financial condition, management, and policy making of local governments in a metropolitan region offers local governments currently dealing with the Great Recession a better understanding of what affects them financially and how to operate with less revenue. Hendrick's groundbreaking study covers 264 Chicago suburban municipalities from the late 1990s to the present. In it she identifies and describes the primary factors and events that affect municipal financial decisions and financial conditions, explores the strategies these governments use to manage financial conditions and solve financial problems, and looks at the impact of contextual factors and stresses on government financial decisions.Managing the Fiscal Metropolisoffers new evidence about the role of contextual factors- including other local governments-in the financial condition of municipalities and how municipal financial decisions and practices alter these effects. The wide economic and social diversity of the municipalities studied make its findings relevant on a national scale.

Counties, as fundamental administrative units in China, play a pivotal role in advancing digital inclusive finance and improving public services. Despite their significance in bridging regional disparities and promoting grassroots development, research focusing specifically on counties remains insufficient. This article aims to explore the relationship between digital inclusive finance and county-level public service quality by constructing a comprehensive evaluation system. Selecting data from 1445 counties across three regions of China between 2008 and 2022, public service quality across five dimensions—education, healthcare, ecology, municipal, and transportation facilities—is assessed through the entropy weighting method. Empirical analyses using threshold, intermediary, and moderation effect models reveal that digital inclusive finance enhances livelihood-related services but negatively affects infrastructure-related services. A “U-shaped” nonlinear trend is identified in the impact of credit depth, with the development of the primary industry mitigating negative effects. Mediation analysis shows that digital inclusive finance can improve public services through two pathways: boosting the tertiary industry and increasing financial institution loans. This article offers theoretical and practical guidance for integrating digital inclusive finance to enhance the quality and equity of county-level public services.

Background Data-driven decision-making is an implementation strategy to improve system performance and health outcomes for individuals with substance use and mental health needs interacting with criminal-legal systems. We currently have limited understanding of how agencies define and use data in their decision-making processes. A qualitative study was conducted with agency leaders from jails, probation and parole, and community mental health and substance use service agencies to characterize (1) how respondents defined data and data use, (2) current level of data use for decision-making, (3) data capacity needs, and (4) agency perspectives on best practices and their recommendations. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with 68 mental health, substance use, jail, and probation leaders from a representative group of 52 U.S. counties from December 2020-March 2022. Data were analyzed using applied thematic analysis. Results Four themes emerged. For defining data and data use, respondents characterized their current level of data use as rudimentary. In terms of current level of data use, individual-level health or legal information needed to coordinate services, and risk prediction scores were used over system measures. Data capacity needs identified as capacity to track and share data across agencies and inadequate data management. In terms of best practices and agency recommendations, participants highlighted the need for data sharing, standardized data management systems, data dashboards, and in-house data expertise. Conclusion Findings from this study highlight the limited capacity of counties to implement data-driven decision making in mental health, substance use, and criminal legal settings. Addressing gaps in infrastructure, staffing, and data expertise will require technical assistance and targeted policy incentives. System-level metrics and benchmarks, such as the cascade of care, are essential for evaluating cross-agency performance and improving outcomes for individuals with mental health needs.

Public Services Inspection in the UK provides a detailed account of the changing role of inspection in public services management. It analyses the key debates about the role that inspection plays in increasing public accountability and encouraging service improvement. Contributors describe current inspection methods across the key public sectors of education, social care, the criminal justice system, local government services and healthcare, and examine the underlying issues and tensions associated with public services inspection. They compare approaches adopted in different parts of the UK and present evidence that can be drawn on to develop more effective practice, as well as offering recommendations for future policy and research. Public Services Inspection in the UK is essential reading for public service managers, social workers, policy makers, researchers, academics, students and professionals working in public services who have an involvement in the inspection process.

China's rapidly aging population and rise in chronic diseases put immense strain on the country's healthcare system. To address these challenges, Yuhuan People's Hospital established County-level Integrated Health Organization (CIHO) as part of the Healthy China 2030 initiative. Based on the Kaiser Permanente (KP) model, the CIHO takes a multi-disciplinary, collaborative approach to deliver integrated care. It brings together various medical specialties, collaborates with community organizations and companies, and implements reforms in information technology and payment models. Through these efforts, the CIHO has significantly improved healthcare delivery in Yuhuan county. Population segmentation relies on data integration and segmentation tools to identify targeted healthcare needs. The allocation and collaboration of health workforce for residents with different health conditions are suggested to be dynamically designed according to both internal and external factors. Corresponding payment mechanism is also an important factor that needs to be taken into consideration. The CIHO's success has provided a model for integrated, efficient healthcare that could be replicated in other regions of China and offer insights for rural areas in other countries facing similar demographic and epidemiological pressures.

The fragmentation and uneven quality of primary medical resources in China call for a deepening of integrated healthcare reform. China is promoting its county medical community (CMC) reform on a large scale in county-level administrative regions to promote the integration of local primary healthcare systems through information technology, which is consistent with the current trend of the digital governance era. Considering that the construction of a county medical community involves collaborative relationships between multi-level subjects, the evolutionary game theory was adopted in this study to construct a game model between the lead hospital of a CMC and primary healthcare institutions, and then the incentives of government department support were introduced to analyze the behavioral evolution of these three subjects. Taking into account the uncertainty of the real-life environment and information transformation, white Gaussian noise was introduced as a random disturbance term, and a numerical simulation was performed. In the two-subject model we focus on four parameters: information and management authority ceded by the primary healthcare institutions, integration coefficient of CMC information construction, intensity factor of information integration in the CMC, and medical resources delivered by the lead hospital. In the three-subject model we focus on three parameters: information and portion of authority ceded by the primary healthcare institutions and government departments, policy effect coefficient of CMC construction, and intensity of government departments’ support for CMC construction. The simulation results show that there is a positive incentive for the concession of management power and information from the primary healthcare institutions to the lead hospital, but further determination of empowerment boundaries is needed. The lead hospital can improve the balance of medical resources in the county through the downward transfer of medical resources, but long-term resource delivery may inhibit the enthusiasm of the lead hospital. An improvement in the information integration intensity of the CMC can promote the efficient flow of information and knowledge and enhance the organizational closeness of the county medical community. At the same time, the integration of CMC information construction reduces the cost of collaboration among medical community members and streamlines and consolidates business modules, which can promote more efficient use of medical resources. The government departments’ policies and funds provide obvious incentives to the lead hospital and primary healthcare institutions, but there is a need to explore appropriate financial payment ratios to balance the government’s financial pressure.

Enhancing public service efficiency is crucial for the Chinese government to ensure sustainable economic development. This study compiles data from 288 cities in China from 2011 to 2022 to construct an evaluation framework for the digital economy and public service efficiency. It also develops relevant econometric models to examine their impacts and underlying mechanisms. The results show that the digital economy significantly boosts local public service efficiency, with a more pronounced effect in cities with high or low initial efficiency levels and a less pronounced effect in those with moderate efficiency. The positive moderating roles of the political environment, government autonomy, urban innovation capacity, and social attention are also observed. This study suggests that local governments develop adaptive digital roadmaps to promote the digital economy and enhance public service efficiency. These findings enrich our understanding of how the digital economy influences public service efficiency and offer valuable insights for enhancing public service efficiency.

Accountability of government to citizens–the idea that the public sector must answer to the people for its performance–is the foundation for good governance. Under good governance, public expenditures are allocated to maximize welfare, revenues are collected efficiently, and the public at large has access to a number of public services including water and sanitation, infrastructure, education and health. Unfortunately in many developing countries, the people suffer the results of dysfunctional governance systems that fail to provide even minimal levels of vital public services. This happens because of an acute deficiency in government accountability, such that public servants lack the incentives to show results or manage government resources more efficiently. The key message of the New Institutional Economics is that incentives matter. In the public sphere, incentives for public servants and policymakers are derived from the countries’ accountability frameworks–the rewards, sanctions, and measurement of performance–that shape public sector performance. Fiscal Management and Accountable Public Governance applies this fundamental insight to fiscal/budgetary analysis and public service delivery, giving the reader tools and real world examples from around the globe of institutional arrangements to help citizens hold government accountable for their performance.