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Autonomy and control are important dynamics in each advisory system. Autonomy is important because it ensures independent and critical advice and allows advisors to ‘speak truth to power’ (Wildavsky 1989; Pielke 2010). At the same time, government control is also an important aspect (Van Twist et al. 2015; Craft and Halligan 2015; Halligan 1995) to assure that advices are on-topic, on-time, in the right format, and relevant for government decision-making,- and policymaking processes. This paper describes the trade-off the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom make with regard to the level of ‘autonomy’ and ‘control’ of their policy advisory bodies. We make a distinction between legal, economic, and operational means (Kunneke 1991) through which autonomy is stimulated or control is exercised on a managerial and policy (primary processes) level of policy advisory bodies.

In the European Union over 2,50,000 public authorities spend around 14% of GDP procuring goods, services, and works. Being the biggest spender in the EU allows public organisations to use their procurement to apply leverage to certain policy objectives. Despite the massive impact that public procurement has on the market, economy, public organisations, citizens, and businesses, it has neither been recognised within public administration research as an important policy instrument, nor has it matured into an academic field (yet). This chapter therefore seeks to shed light on public procurement as a key topic within the field of public administration in Europe, by discussing what it is, what distinguishes it from private procurement, and how it evolved as a management function into a policy tool.

© The Author(s) 2018. With citizens being considered customers, public administration scholars have become interested in explaining satisfaction with public services and studying the consequences of high or low satisfaction. This chapter reviews current scholarship on satisfaction with public services and in particular the mechanisms and theories to explain such satisfaction. Differences between objective performance and subjective evaluations are discussed, as well as the impact of a halo effect in attitude formation and of direct user experience with service. Special attention goes to the expectancy disconfirmation model of satisfaction. The chapter does not only look at satisfaction as an attitude but also at voice and exit behaviours from which satisfaction or dissatisfaction can be inferred. It ends by critically assessing the value of behaviours as signals of public dissatisfaction with public services. ispartof: The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe pages:221-241 ispartof: pages:221-241 status: published