What the public wants and how it is best served: forensic scientists’ perceptions of the drivers of public value creation

Abstract

Government agencies are embracing the rhetoric of public value, but what does the empirical evidence tell us about drivers of its creation? One critical source of insight are the practitioners who turn public investment into public value through complex forms of labour. This article identifies how public value is interpreted and created by forensics scientists in the Criminal Justice System using Q Methodological interviews. The results indicate that two very similar types of forensic scientist exist The study finds that while the decisions of scientists are grounded in their expertise, their public value motivations are to ‘add value’ to the public through their science. They serve the citizen through their science. They do not serve the consumer, client or victim directly. The findings also indicate that there is a need to recognise hidden forms of value-added activity that take place upstream in public-value chains, ensuring that there are systems in place to maximise their impact downstream.

Points for practitioners

• Forensic scientists are motivated to serve the public, not the consumer or customer.

• In order to build capacity within Criminal Justice Systems, agency leaders need to build a relationship based on mutual professional respect rather than a supplier–consumer relationship.

• If administrative reform is to be guided by academic research, practitioners should use the language of public value rather than the language of new public management.

• Public value is often created through inter-institutional value chains that can conceal the contribution of upstream value-added activity to desirable public outcomes. It is critical that the value-added process is traced on an inter-institutional basis, and maximised through effective forms of inter-institutional collaboration.