Public Sector ‘Ethos’

The term public sector ‘ethos’ encapsulates the defining characteristics of what working in the public sector actually involves and why it is different from working in the private sector. However, it is also a subjective term that can be interpreted in both positive and negative ways. For many public sector workers, it is what makes their work special and different from working in the private sector. For others, it is what makes the public sector appear bureaucratic, out of touch and unresponsive to service users. This chapter uses the word ‘ethos’ in inverted commas, because it is a contested and nebulous term. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.