Rural local government finance in Kenya: The case of Murang'a County Council

The Murang'a County Council is recognized in Kenya as one of the country's most effective rural local authorities. Compared to other county councils, Murang'a raises substantial revenues and provides a wide variety of services. This case study presents some background on the local economy of Murang'a District, details available information about the county council's excellent fiscal performance, and highlights some of the major factors behind the effectiveness of Murang'a in resource mobilization and service delivery.     

Is Biggest Best? A Comparative Analysis of the Financial Viability of the Brisbane City Council

Structural reform through forced mergers has been a dominant feature of Australian local government for decades. Advocates of compulsory consolidation contend that larger municipalities perform better across a wide range of attributes, including financial sustainability. Although empirical scholars of local government have invested considerable effort into investigating these claims, no one has yet examined the performance of Brisbane City Council against other local authorities, despite the fact that it is by far the largest council in Australia. This paper seeks to remedy this neglect by comparing Brisbane with Sydney City Council, an average of six southeast Queensland councils and an average of 10 metropolitan New South Wales councils against four measures of financial performance over the period 2008–2011.     

OVERCOMING A DECADE OF CRISIS: ZIMBABWE'S LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN TRANSITION

The world's attention has focused on Zimbabwe as the country has moved from the turmoil of the 2008 elections to a tentative democratic transition under the current Inclusive Government. The country's newly elected local authorities and an apparent interest in decentralization have been largely ignored in the process, however. This essay thus provides an extensive, survey‐based examination of local governance in Zimbabwe as of 2009. Four areas are discussed. First, with the growth of the political opposition to the ruling regime, local governance has also suffered from the deep polarization among all the country's institutions. The inexperience of the new local councilors vis‐à‐vis local administration officials also holds significant ramifications. Second, although local officials believe that public participation in decision‐making is strong, citizen involvement is actually quite weak. Third, reeling from the country's 2008 economic crisis, local authorities were operating as best as they could on minimal income and barely functioning in many areas. Financial transfers ended long ago; revenue generation remains poor. Finally, this essay captures the poor state of public services. Achievement of a national democratic consensus, decentralization that actually promotes democratic local governance and strengthening once‐strong local institutional capacity will determine the future progress of local governance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Urban local government finance in Benin: The case of Cotonou Urban District I

The centralized system of government in the People's Republic of Benin was established when the country was a French colony. During the 1970s and 1980s, the government system was reorganized to conform to the principles of the ruling Marxist–Leninist regime. Deteriorating economic conditions have negatively affected the public sector in recent years. The capital city of Cotonou, however, has managed to perform better than other urban governments despite facing serious economic problems and many constraints imposed by a strict system of central control over local authorities. This paper examines the nature of and reasons for Cotonou's performance.     

Recognition of innovation and diffusion of welfare policy: Alleviating urban poverty in Chinese cities during fiscal recentralization

This article explores the complicated triangular architecture among innovation diffusion, fiscal recentralization, and authoritarian welfare regimes. We argue that local governments' adoption of innovative welfare policies attracts the attention of central authorities who tend to recognize spontaneous local innovation by releasing central administrative signals. During the era of fiscal recentralization starting from the Chinese Tax‐Sharing System Reform in 1994, cities with higher fiscal dependency are more likely to behave innovatively by adopting a new welfare policy for potential fiscal transfer rewards. The central government's recognition of this innovation stimulates cities' adoption but would reverse the effects of fiscal dependency because of the loss of the “innovativeness” of the adoption and its effectiveness in attracting the attention of superior authorities. We test our theories on the dynamic diffusion with the case of China's Urban Minimum Living Standard Assistance system, an urban poverty‐alleviation policy implemented fully in 1999.     

Four years of the Ghana district assemblies in operation: Decentralization,democratization and administrative performance

Ghana's District Assemblies were created in 1989 as ‘integrated’ decentralised authorities, combining oversight of deconcentrated line Ministries with the revenue powers and functions of devolved democratic local government. The frequently invoked but little studied relationships among democratisation, decentralisation and changes in the performance of government institutions are analysed on the basis of two case-study Districts, defining performance as output effectiveness, responsiveness and process acceptability. Although development output did increase after democratisation, it remained inadequate and did not show any significantly closer responsiveness to popular needs. This was mainly because local accountability was undermined by continuing central control over staffing and finances, the clash with national policies of retrenchment and the continued power of central government agents. The communal, non-party basis of representation also had a perverse effect on the ability of elected representatives to enhance the legitimacy of local taxation, particularly as the system embodied an unresolved contradiction between notions of community based self-help and representative district government. One of the lessons of the Ghanaian experience is that genuine local autonomy in an agreed area-the basic condition for effective accountability-is better based on more modest, local-level authorities, leaving larger, expensive functions as well as supervision of a deconcentrated civil service to more powerful regional administrations.     

Applying rapid results approach to local service delivery: issues,lessons and challenges from Nairobi City Council

Over the years, the Kenyan Government has pursued wide‐ranging public sector reforms to improve local service delivery, but little has been achieved due to lack of a wide‐ranging decentralisation policy and institutional framework. To precipitate the reform process, the rapid results approach (RRA), commonly applied in private sector organisations, was recently introduced thorough out the public sector, including local authorities (LAs). This article assesses the efficacy of the rapid results approach (RRA) methodology in local service delivery using Nairobi City Council as a prototype; highlighting the success stories, pitfalls and challenges. The analyses are based on the findings obtained using current literature on the subject matter and the author's interactions with the council staff, councillors and other stakeholders. On the basis of the analysis, the article draws the main conclusions and policy advice on what could be considered critical for further debate, highlighting issues, lessons and challenges that could be raised to improve the practice of RRI. The key messages presented here will help policy makers, scholars and practitioners of reform to re‐think the envisaged countrywide replication of RRI to the rest of LAs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public management reform and organizational performance: An empirical assessment of the U.K. Labour government's public service improvement strategy

We present the first empirical assessment of the U.K. Labour government's program of public management reform. This reform program is based on rational planning, devolution and delegation, flexibility and incentives, and enhanced choice. Measures of these variables are tested against external and internal indicators of organizational performance. The setting for the study is upper tier English local governments, and data are drawn from a multiple informant survey of 117 authorities. The statistical results indicate that planning, organizational flexibility, and user choice are associated with higher performance. Conclusions are drawn for the theory and practice of public management reform. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Personnel Constraints in Public Organizations: The Impact of Reward and Punishment on Organizational Performance

In recent years, many public sector reforms have attempted to loosen personnel constraints on the assumption that more managerial flexibility will increase organizational performance. The authors mount an empirical study to test this assumption using data taken from English local government authorities. Personnel constraints are operationalized using Rainey's long‐standing measures of the concept. Statistical results from multiple regression analyses indicate that “difficulty in removing poor managers” is harmful to organizational performance, but “difficulty in rewarding good managers” has no effect. The authors delve inside the organizational hierarchy and find that attitudes toward personnel constraints vary by organizational level and managerial rank: for example, frontline managers feel more constrained overall, while senior managers’ perceptions of constraints are more closely linked to organizational performance but in some unexpected ways. The implications of these findings, including the fact that personnel constraints have varying impacts on organizational performance, are considered.     

An economic theory of governability: Choosing policy and optimizing performance

When collective violence occurs, a management and decision-making crisis exists for governmental authorities. We examine this situation with an economic model of governability within states. Political decision-makers wish to minimize two goals that enter as components of the government's performance function: political violence and revolutionary change of regime. We further assume that authorities have only a scarce supply of two policy instruments available with which to respond to violence: the accommodation and repression of the demands of their oppositions. Moreover, these elites confront a number of structural determinants of violence and revolution. After laying out these basic components of the model, we propose several theorems about the causes of political performance and about the regime's decision-calculus. These are then proven through a comparative static analysis of the model and by optimizing the performance function. The deductions indicate that the regime's policy instruments produce contradictory effects on the targetted levels of violence and revolution. In general, both accommodation and repression of opponents will, up to some point, reduce violence (an intended consequence) but increase revolution (an unintended consequence). Thus, upon close examination the goals of political decision-makers, to simultaneously minimize both violence and revolution, turn out to be inconsistent. Authorities therefore select an optimal level of performance by balancing the costs and benefits that come from accommodating and repressing their opponents.     

Raising local authority district revenues through direct taxation in a low-income developing country: evaluating Uganda's GPT

Uganda's graduated personal tax represents a rather unusual attempt at applying a local income tax as a means of financing local authority operations in a predominantly informal, rural economy. Statistical and other analysis and comment reveal it to have serious deficiencies in terms of standard tax criteria and as a result of associated social costs, despite which local authorities have been led to increase rather than to decrease their reliance on it. Some alternative revenue-raising instruments which could serve to reduce this reliance are indicated. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSLAND

In 1974–75 the Queensland Government will spend approximately $1 million on the co-ordination of activities directed towards development of the State. Each year the Co-ordinator-General is required by the government to furnish to the Minister—in this case the Premier—a plan for a co-ordinated programme of works, which programme, if approved by 'the Minister, is submitted for approval to the Governor in Council. This programme includes not only those works carried out by government departments but also the loan works proposals of local authorities and semi-government bodies such as Harbour Boards, River Improvement Trusts and Abattoir Boards which borrow on the debenture loan market or are granted Treasury loans.     

Media relations in the Council of the European Union: insights into the Council press officers' professional practices

Government communication plays a key role in democratic societies as it helps public understanding of government policies and raises awareness of the roles and actions of decision makers. Within the European Union (EU) polity, communication plays a crucial role for citizens' support for the European integration process. Despite the increasing relevance of communication about major activities of the EU, studies on the EU institutions' communications are scarce, and very little is currently known about the external communication of the Council of the EU. Focusing on the media relations activities of the Council, this paper investigates the communication practices and roles of press officers working in the Council's General Secretariat as perceived by these government communicators themselves. Qualitative interviews with the press officers, analysis of Council documents, participation in their work processes and observations of their professional behaviour were used to establish the empirical basis of the study. The findings highlight the apolitical and reactive nature of these European civil servants' communication activities and identify some of the institutional and political challenges that they face in the performance of their professional duties. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Localizing the Human Rights Council: A case study of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants

The Human Rights Council (HRC) can enact and proclaim global human rights standards. To date the impact of local communities on such international standard-setting remains unclear. This study analyzes how local communities gain access to the HRC's mechanisms and investigates whether standard setting “from below” has been taken up by the HRC. As a case study, the research studies the trajectory of the network of organizations that have lobbied for a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants at the HRC.     

Extending the “voting with the feet” proposition: the impact of local economic development actions on immigration across Mexican municipalities

Tiebout's “voting with the feet” proposition directs attention to the role of local authorities in delivering public services, and the implications of their decisions in people's choice of place of residence. Similarly, the bottom-up approach to economic development places a relevant role of local governments in promoting higher standards of living. By considering the latter, the former can be extended as citizens can choose a jurisdiction not only on the basis of a combination of taxes and public services but a broader mix of public goods. This paper analyses the effects of the fundamental features of the bottom-up or local economic development (LED) approach on population mobility among Mexican municipalities. This study finds significant evidence of a positive impact of LED elements on immigration during the period between 1990 and 2005.     

The 2004 Greek Election: PASOK's Monopoly Ends

What determines a government's position inside the Council of the European Union? This article takes up recent arguments according to which Council decision-making is driven not only by ‘objective’ national interests but also by the ideological preferences of the member states' representatives. On the basis of a study of Germany, Austria and Sweden and their positions with regard to the Services Directive, it seeks to advance the debate by specifying the conditions under which ideological preferences are more likely to dominate. Applying a principal–agent model it is argued that the relative impact of ideological preferences crucially depends on the relationship between the ministers sitting in the Council and the governing parties at the national level: the less a minister is exposed to parliamentary and intra-governmental control, the more a country's position is susceptible to the ideological preferences of the minister.     

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource‐related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance‐related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.     

The usefulness of key performance indicators to public accountability authorities in East Asia

Has the mandated reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs) by public agencies to public accountability or reporting authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore helped these authorities in their task to hold the agencies to account? This article argues that the sheer existence of KPIs in public agencies' annual reports and budget papers does not automatically lead to their effective use by the authorities for making decisions about the agencies' performance achievements. The utilization of KPIs for making decisions by the participating authorities in these countries could be best described as careful and cautious because of their perceptions that the KPIs have failed to meet their performance information needs. Since the implementation of a performance measurement and reporting system has been linked to both instrumental and symbolic benefits, perhaps the main value of the current systems lies less with their ability to bring about instrumental benefits to reporting authorities and other stakeholders. Instead, their primary strength may be skewed towards their capacity to accrue symbolic benefits for the government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preliminary Submission to the House of Representatives Economic, Finance and Public Administration Committee Inquiry into Cost Shifting by State Governments to Local Governments

The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) is the peak body for local authorities across Australia. Representing 698 councils, shires and other local governing bodies, ALGA advocates on behalf of local institutions, the local communities they represent and the process through which they interact. Founded in 1947 by the six states, ALGA now represents all states and territories and is a full member of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). This article is an edited version of the ALGA's preliminary submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee inquiry into the Financial Position of, and Cost Shifting onto, Local Government.     

Cutting Edge Thinking

The Credit Crunch ushered in an era of austerity with massive cuts and job losses. It highlighted the gulf between the world of real people and the abstraction of high finance. Put simply, to prevent the melt‐down of the global economy, the needs, hopes and ambitions of millions are being sacrificed. Who controls and issues money is key. To be viable any system must be big enough for people to have faith it won't fail, and it has to be administered soundly. Local government is accountable to its electorate and, as such, should put their welfare first. It is essentially an administrative machine and certainly isn't going to go away. A truly local economy could emerge with authorities initially paying part of their staff's wages in local currency and accepting it in payment of rates. At a stroke, job cuts could be reversed and people's skills and experience valued again.