Variants of transparency: an analysis of the English Local Government Transparency Code 2015

Transparency policies and initiatives at the local level have expanded around the world but our academic understanding is still limited. Few studies have systematically analysed transparency practices at the local government level. This paper develops an analytical framework to examine local government transparency practices based on the literature. The framework is used to analyse the English Local Government Transparency Code 2015. The study shows that the Code delivers openness to a partial extent but has not yet met all criteria for transparent practices. The findings could contribute to the development and improvement of transparency practices at local governments.     

Empowering employees through the performance appraisal process

Increasing demands are being placed on many public servants as civil service organizations seek to increase productivity and operate with fewer levels of management. Moves away from traditional bureaucratic organization structures are often accompanied by attempts to develop a more empowering culture. These typically involve leadership initiatives adapted from the private sector in areas such as vision, values, participation and trust. In order to be successful, however, such initiatives need to be supported by corresponding changes in the systems which underpin human resource management. One of the most important of these is the performance appraisal system. This article describes how performance appraisal can be used to assist in empowering employees, using as an example the Corporate Finance Office of the New Zealand Department of Social Welfare.     

The Dictator's New Clothes: The Relationship Between E-Participation and Quality of Government in Non-Democratic Regimes

It is often assumed that the development of e-participation and e-government initiatives aimed at stimulating citizen participation in the political process and fostering more efficient governmental services harbors a great potential for improved control of corruption and government performance. Thus, it is often argued that e-participation is an efficient instrument for increasing transparency and quality of government in non-democratic and developing countries. However, this article argues that these assumptions should be questioned on theoretical, empirical, and methodological grounds. The results of the empirical time-series cross-section analyses show that positive development in terms of e-participation in non-democratic countries does not lead to corresponding positive effects in terms of control of corruption and quality of government. Rather, in many cases the Internet offers political elites new opportunities in their quest for remaining in power.     

The Fall and Rise of State Capabilities in the Management of the UK Nuclear Legacy

In 2015 and 2017, two large contracts for nuclear decommissioning were terminated early by the UK Government. Rather than re-tender, Government took direct ownership and control of Sellafield and began an inquiry into other sites’ management. The problems with the contract model for management of the UK’s nuclear legacy stem from an inability to adequately specify contracts in uncertain environments. The embrace of management and operations contracts for all sites after nationalized ownership limited the range of “tools” to manage the nuclear legacy. This highlights the role of state capabilities alongside incentivized private sector relationships in contemporary governance.     

E-Governance to Cut Corruption in Public Service Delivery: A Case Study of Fiji

Experience in a number of developed and developing countries has shown that E-Governance initiatives can promote greater transparency with the goal of cutting corruption. This article examines perceptions of public service delivery in Fiji to explore the potential of E-Governance to cut corruption and improve governance. Based on a survey of community perceptions and a review of selected literature it suggests that service-delivery oriented IT initiatives can contribute to an effective, multi-pronged strategy to cut corruption in the Fiji public sector.     

Governance and Hyper-corruption in Resource-rich African Countries

Official corruption is frequently associated with the abundance of valuable extractive resources. This article reviews the worst cases of ‘resource curse’ in Africa—Angola, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria—in light of the most recent developments. Despite its systematic association with public corruption, however, mineral wealth is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition. Corruption is widespread in resource-poor countries as well—in Africa and elsewhere—and some resource-rich African countries such as Botswana have a record of good economic performance and high public integrity, suggesting specific ways in which transparency and accountability for the use of mineral resources can be encouraged and corruption correspondingly reduced. Because corruption in resource-rich African countries is heavily influenced by external interests, particularly the multinational extractive industries, recent initiatives by the United States and the international community to foster transparency carry a significant potential for reducing corruption and improving governance.     

The Design and Execution of Performance Management Systems at State Level: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Malaysia

This comparative study analyses the experience of Italy and Malaysia in the design and execution of performance management systems at the state level. The article investigates how performance management systems have changed over the past decades, the motivations behind their metamorphoses, their common elements across the two countries, and what accounts for the respective progress. It also investigates the role that the institutional framework plays in making performance management systems robust. The study presents policy recommendations on how governments can create more robust performance management systems for enhanced accountability and transparency in an age of resource constraint.     

What about Financial Sustainability of Local Government!—A Critical Review of Accountability,Transparency, and Public Assurance Arrangements in England during Austerity

Austerity strained the financial sustainability of governments and ability of policy-makers to address policy challenges, and so having appropriate accountability and transparency arrangements to assure the public they were getting value for money took on renewed urgency. Comparing and contrasting findings from a critical review of policy developments in English Local Government during the Conservative led coalition central government 2010–2015 with those from related studies on accountability and transparency more generally, the article offers key themes for practitioners and policy-makers seeking to build stronger democratic systems of governance that go well beyond the UK jurisdiction.     

A street‐level perspective on government transparency and regulatory performance: Does relational distance matter?

This study investigates the extent to which inspectors perceive government transparency as impacting regulatory performance. It theorizes that when inspectors perceive an increase in transparency, they find that the perceived relational distance between themselves and their inspectees rises and this, subsequently, increases regulatory performance. The findings from a survey among Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority inspectors (n = 466) confirm that inspectors view an increase in transparency as enhancing regulatory performance. This study further investigates this mechanism by comparing two divisions with different levels of factual relational distance (i.e., frequency of inspector–inspectee interactions). The findings reveal that only in the division with small factual relational distance does perceived relational distance mediate the effect of transparency on regulatory performance. More specifically, in divisions with small factual relational distance, more perceived transparency increases perceived relational distance; this in turn, increases perceived regulatory performance.     

Criteria for developing performance measurement systems in the public sector

The United States Government is placing increased emphasis on the development of financial measures, and measures of program effectiveness. The authors discuss government efforts in these areas. Various approaches and criteria are presented for the development of performance measurement systems, as well as generic criteria for selecting performance indicators, and obstacles to the process. Experience indicates that development of a performance measurement system is best served by a strategic planning approach with top management support, active management participation in goal setting, a small manageable number of goals, a strong link with the budget process, and an independent evaluation process.     

Majority Rule in Consensual Democracies: Explaining Political Influence in Norwegian Local Councils

Norwegian local government has traditionally been strongly rooted in the consensus ideal. When the new Local Government Act of 1992 allowed the municipalities to introduce parliamentary models and abolished the statutory requirement of qualified majority decisions in the councils, this therefore implied a significant change in the local government ideal. Even though the municipalities have been reluctant to formally adopt a parliamentary model, this paper argues that in practice a majority system is replacing the traditional consensual model, with functional roles for a governing majority and an opposition. The empirical analysis employs data on local politicians from 1994 and 1998 to test the proposition that representatives of the governing parties exert more influence on local policies than members of the opposition. Two different indicators of political influence are used: (1) the councillors' budgetary influence measured as the distance between the councillors' ideal point and the actual decision outcome, and (2) the councillors' ability to have initiatives accepted in the various local political bodies. In addition to the variable representing membership of the governing majority or the opposition, the model also controls for factors such as the representatives' formal institutional affiliation, individual characteristics and community context. Even when controlling for these determinants, the empirical results strongly support the hypothesis.     

eGOVERNMENT AND THE TRANSFORMATION AGENDA

Government policy-making emphasis worldwide is moving increasingly to how ICT can be used to achieve efficiency savings ( Gershon 2004 ) or to transform activities ( Cabinet Office; Transformational Government 2005 ). The role of ICT in achieving efficiency benefits or supporting transformational change is almost universally accepted by policy-makers, despite the fact that little robust evidence exists.
eGovernment evaluation methodologies are reviewed and evidence is provided in this paper to demonstrate that transformational eGovernment projects produce greater benefits than other types of initiatives. The level of benefits for different groups of beneficiaries is examined. A key factor determining benefits and impact of any project is the number of users of the service and/or the frequency of use of a system.     

The Relationship Between State Government Performance and State Quality of Life

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between government performance and quality of life in the American states. We contend that the management capacity of state governments should have direct, tangible impacts on the overall social and economic well‐being of state citizenry. In order to test this idea, we examine the influence of state management capacity (using the 1999 Government Performance Project grades), alongside other economic and political variables, on two prominent measures of state quality of life—The Morgan Quitno “Most Livable State” Index and State Policy Reports' (SPP) “Camelot Index.” We find that both state economic conditions and governmental policy priorities have significant impacts on state performance levels. But, our results clearly indicate that the management capacity of state governments also contributes directly to improving the overall quality of life for state citizens.     

De-radicalizing Pakistani society: the receptivity of youth to a liberal religious worldview

The reported rise in radicalism among youth in Pakistan since 9/11/2001 has been attributed to religious education in madrasas and schools. However, education in Pakistan is only part of the historical and contemporary forces that contribute to the prevailing exclusivist religio-political discourse. Although most policy papers have recommended a secularization of public education, such efforts by the Pakistani Government have been counterproductive. These efforts by the Pakistani Government to reshape education, with massive funding from international donors, have faced strong opposition and there are signs of psychological reactance as evidenced by even greater levels of religious radicalism among Pakistani youth. The current study suggests a viable alternative for reshaping education in Pakistan. A nationwide survey of educated urban youth (N = 386) conducted by the first author, revealed that when considering radical religious, Western secular and liberal religious ideas, Pakistani youth were overwhelmingly supportive of a liberal religious approach to education that highlights an inclusive Islam emphasizing freedom and compassion. Findings have implications for Government reforms, peace education initiatives and long-term conflict transformation in Pakistan.     

Counting the Cost: A Critical Evaluation of the Australian National Broadband Network Roll-Out under the Rudd/Gillard Governments

A nascent literature has examined recent controversial policy initiatives by the Australian Government using insights from the literature on public policy evaluation. Scholars have considered inter alia the Mineral Resources Rent Tax, the Home Insulation Program, the Green Loans Program, the Building the Education Revolution and the macroeconomic stimulus package after the global financial crisis. The present paper adds to this literature by considering the National Broadband Network (NBN). The costs of implementing the NBN are examined and the paper attempts to draw some broader public policy ‘lessons‘ to inform future public policy making both in Australia and elsewhere.     

CHASING SHADOWS? PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF POLICY ADVICE IN NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

Performance measurement is an integral part of the New Zealand model of public management, as it is for many other modern systems of governmental administration. This article examines data on performance indicators for the policy advice function in five government departments, for the years 1992 to 2005, to determine which types of indicators are used, and to gauge the extent to which they offer meaningful information about the quality of policy advice. As part of its managerialist drive in the early 1990s, the government developed conceptual material designed to improve policy advice and management in departments. In general, our findings indicate that these initiatives did not lead over time to the further development of genuinely meaningful measures of the quality of policy advice, and that the indicators that have been used meet narrow managerial rather than broader political needs.     

Managing governance complexity and knowledge networks in transparency initiatives: the case of police open data

Public organisations are often described as being subject to types of complexity that result from the interorganisational structure of governance networks. Transparency programmes add another level of complexity due to increased information openness. However, neither the nature of this complexity nor the network management approaches needed for transparency programmes has been conceptually developed. To address this gap, this article brings together governance complexity theory and knowledge management theory. An empirical model is tested using the case of police open data with regression analysis and 22 expert interviews. The results show that institutional and environmental complexity such as budget pressures, legal-normative constraints, and task complexity exert a negative influence on police information openness. However, network knowledge management practices including developing mission focus on people and communication and overcoming organisational boundaries through interorganisational collaboration can counteract these problems of complexity.     

Performance pledges–power to the consumer or a quagmire in public service legitimation?

One of the latest initiatives in Hong Kong's public sector reform is the launch of “performance pledges” in 1992, which have essentially been modelled on citizen's charters in the United Kingdom. While the stated aims of performance pledges, citizen's charters, or similar initiatives, are to raise the standard of public services and to make such services answer better to the needs of ordinary people, hence “empowering” the public service consumers, this latest consumerist trend in public management has more far-reaching implications, both in terms of the organization as well as the legitimation of public service provision. This article examines such implications, with specific reference to the Hong Kong situation, and argues that the outcome of the development seems to point to the empowerment of public managers rather than the consumers as the official rhetoric would imply.