Introduction The frenzy of new public management reform associated with the Conservative government appears to have abated somewhat with the election of New Labour, although the attractions of introducing the market into service provision and adopting private sector management techniques in the public sector remain strong. Many of the principles of new public management have been accepted by the Blair government; some have been continued in familiar forms (such as the Private Finance Initiative) while others have been restructured to fit New Labour principles (such as "best value" replacing compulsory competitive tendering). The dust seems to be settling on one of the prominent features of the reforms of the Conservative years the Next Steps agencies. The government has declared that it is "closing off' the "agency creation stage" of the process (although it "might create" some new agencies). The threat of privatisation that hung over agencies in the options reviews appeared to have been lifted as David Clark, the Minister for Public Service, declared in March 1998, shortly before he lost his job, that Treasury's interest in asset disposals, was 'not on the agenda'. Of course it is possible that the government will develop more radical plans to restructure national administrative institutions (Timmins 1998). However, at present it appears that any development of the Next Steps programme is less likely to be based upon systematic transformation of the agency pattern than on picking off bits of government operations that can be contracted out, and some of these bits picked off are likely to be located within the agencies agencies are more likely to be affected by collateral damage, as it were, rather than any fundamental challenge. A full assessment of the impact of the Next Steps agencies remains to be written. One of the key difficulties with any sort of assessment will be the variability between agencies. The Child Support Agency, the Army Purchasing Agency and the Benefits Agency all have different tasks, structures, as well as diverse political and administrative environments. Any characterization of Next Steps Agencies as a whole is therefore hazardous. A second difficulty of any