1 Analysing NPM-inspired Public Sector Reforms - the Case of Helsinki Metropolitan Area Bus Services Pekka Valkama & Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko University of Tampere, Finland Abstract This paper discusses NPM-inspired public sector reforms in Finland and analyses bus services as an example. It seems that most of the reforms in OECD countries are framed by loosely defined NPM doctrine, thus emphasising such institutional arrangements and measures as downsizing, privatisation, corporatisation, outsourcing and competitive tendering. Nordic countries are not exceptions to this trend, even if they seem to adopt a kind of mixed strategy of traditional and NPM-inspired reforms. In this paper Finland is used as an example. Since the 1980s the Finnish Government has followed fairly straightforward-minded competitiveness policy, which conditions also public sector reforms. Local governments, which provide most of the public services in the Finnish system of government, show occasionally some resistance to this trend, but they follow suit for the most part, thus seeking continuously more efficient ways of providing local public services. One aspect of this trend is competitive tendering, which has become institutionalised part of the functioning of the service and procurement systems of Finnish local government. This paper describes the introduction of competitive bidding of Helsinki metropolitan area bus services and assesses its economic and other consequences. The idea is to discuss whether competitive tendering can be expected to bring significant economic benefits to local authorities, local community and society as a whole. 1. Introduction The concept of New Public Management New Public Management (NPM) is generally known to be quite a loose, yet widely used term in discussions about public management and public sector reforms. Some authors attach it to neo-liberal ideas of minimal state and of need to streamline governance by introducing market-driven solutions for public service delivery (see Table 1). When understood this way, we may define NPM as a management doctrine that emphasises business-style management of public organisations and the use of market mechanism and consumer choice as the basic principles of public service delivery. In essence, its message is that the approach to the management of public organisations and services must be based on managerialism and market-based coordination rather than on allocation of