Lobbying in the United Kingdom
Formal procedures enable individual members of the public to lobby their Member of Parliament but most lobbying activity centres on corporate, charity and trade association lobbying, where organisations seek to amend government policy through advocacy. Companies and individuals who operate in this sector commonly use the terms "public relations", "public affairs", "political consultancy" or "corporate affairs" to describe their activities (though this was also a reaction to the negative publicity surrounding the word "lobbyists" following the 1994 Cash-for-questions affair). Professional public affairs agencies, representing multiple clients, undertake a significant proportion of lobbying activity in addition to individual organisations conducting lobbying on an in-house basis.
Public administration
The more specific term "public management" refers to ordinary, routine or typical management that aims to achieve public good. In some definitions, "public management" refers to private sector, market-driven perspective on the operation of government. This typically involves putting senior executives on performance contracts, rather than tenured positions, instituting pay-for-performance systems for executives, creating revenue-generating agencies and so on. This latter view is often called "new public management" (NPM) by its advocates. New Public Management represents a reform attempt that emphasizes the professional nature of public administration. NPM advocates aim to replace the academic, moral or disciplinary emphasis of traditional public administration with a professional focus. Some theorists advocate a "bright line" differentiation of the professional field from related academic disciplines like political science and sociology; it remains interdisciplinary in nature.