The impact of two decades of reform of British public sector industrial relations

The results of some 20 years of industrial relations reform in the British public sector are assessed, along with current trade union responses and fu ture prospects for industrial relations in the public services. The author pinpoints limitations in the perspectives that have driven reform processes in labour practices, and in the outcomes achieved, and concludes that the process of convergence that is often assumed to have occurred between publi c and private sector industrial relations arrangements may be more apparent than real.