The MSc Public Management and Governance was closed following a detailed programme review in 2016. It was then incorporated into the Master of Public Administration (MPA) to embed management teaching into the core curriculum of a top public administration programme. Students will benefit from the inter-disciplinary approach to learning within LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs, whilst alumni will have greater opportunities for networking in the consultancy, development, government and NGO sectors.
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Programme overview
The MSc Public Management and Governance was a one-year programme designed to provide an in-depth interdisciplinary education. Its core courses were taught by public management specialists and focused particularly on economics and political science. These courses enabled students to understand how to assess costs and benefits of policy options, examine the roles of hierarchies and regulated markets in running governments, and design and manage change in the public sector. The programme was designed around two compulsory core courses, along with a 3,000-word Capstone project, and students received at least 165 contact hours (lecture and class time) during the programme.
The core courses included group work on real-world projects with sponsors such as the World Bank, KPMG and the English Department of Health. Students also benefited from a broad curriculum through a wide range of optional elective courses from departments across LSE. A broad range of elective courses allowed students to customise their programme and explore their own interests through the LSE’s departments concerned with the principles and practice of public management and governance.
Students of the programme were taught a conceptual framework that enabled them to work out practical responses to a variety of policy problems and managerial challenges. The teaching of the two core courses drew on research by faculty on major areas of public services in the UK and international trade. This was learnt through studying case studies of particular services to illustrate general principles and, through comparative analysis, to understand the importance of context through differences in the types of service (e.g. hospitals, schools, universities, water) and country (developed and middle-income countries).
Much of the research and evidence on what does and does not work in governance of public services is from studies of health care. This is because health care is so problematic for all governments: none has successfully achieved the three objectives of cost control, equity of access and high quality. Therefore, the aim of the programme was for students to know this literature on governance in health care and learn from it by being able to generalise its findings to other services. The English National Health Service was used as a laboratory to examine principles and evidence of using hierarchies and regulated markets in the search to achieve these three objectives.
Curriculum
The programme was designed around two compulsory core courses, along with a 3,000-word Capstone project.
Students received at least 165 contact hours (lecture and class time) during the programme.
Compulsory core courses:
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MG414 Designing and Managing Change in the Public Sector [New course title from 2016-17] (1.0 unit)
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MG4E4 Enabling Governments to Make Hard Choices by Assessing Costs and Benefits (0.5 unit)
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MG4E5 Running Governments by Hierarchy and Regulated Markets (0.5 unit)
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MG4E3 Capstone Project (0.5 unit)
Career development
Upon graduation, MSc Public Management and Governance students were prepared to enter staff and junior managerial positions in governments, multilateral organizations, consultancies and NGOs engaged in public action.
Over time, students should be able to reach executive positions in public service organisations inside government; senior management positions in organisations contracting with governmental bodies, including consultancies; senior staff positions in multilateral organisations; and expert advisers to professional bodies concerned with public management.