Local Government Modernization in Germany: Between Incrementalism and Reform Waves

In taking a historical-institutionlist approach, this paper looks at the development of administrative reforms in German local government which, because of the comparatively high degree of political and administrative decentralization of the Federal Republic has played a crucial role in the latter's entire politico-administrative setting and, hence, in its institutional reforms. The paper mainly identifies three stages in the post-war development of administrative reforms. During the 'planning movement' of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany's local level government and administration underwent significant and, to a considerable degree, lasting institutional changes. The 1980s were a period of incrementalist adaptation. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conspicuously later than in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, but earlier and faster than the federal and the Länder levels, Germany's local government has embarked upon dramatic changes particularly on two scores. First, in a growing number of municipalities and counties, administrative modernization was incorporated under the heading of a 'New Steering Model' (NSM) that largely drew on the dominant international New Public Management (NPM) debate. The dynamics of the ongoing administrative reforms are marked by an 'amalgamation' of NPM/NSM and earlier ('traditional') reform concepts. Secondly, at the same time, the political institutions of local government have under-gone a significant shift as a result of the introduction of direct democratic procedures (direct election of mayors and heads of counties, binding local referenda). The paper argues that it is this co-incidence and co-evolution of administrative and political reforms that make for the peculiarity of Germany's current modernization trajectory, distinguishing it from the Anglo-Saxon and, to a lesser degree, from the Scandinavian modernization paths.     

Path Dependency and the Reform of English Local Government

This paper uses the concept of path dependency to examine the changes to the political management structures of English local government. We note how the possible experience of decreasing returns among some local authority actors combined with the powerful intervention of politicians within New Labour at the national level led to a significant break from past policy and the imposition of measures to establish a separate executive that was claimed as a radical step forward for local democracy. Using survey data from the Evaluating Local Governance research team ( http://www.elgnce.org.uk ), we explore the establishment of a separate political executive in all major local authorities and map out the style of decision-making that is emerging. We find that some established institutional patterns reasserted themselves in the process of implementation, but that increasing returns are not as great as some theorists of path dependency would suggest and they may be a force for system change as well as for stability.     

Faces and Phases of Transparency Reform in Local Government

Abstract

The authors draw on public and official perceptions to discuss the discontinuities between various interpretations of transparency in local government jurisdictions. The article seeks to establish a theoretical understanding of transparency in public administration literature. Transparency in the formative years of a nation is not necessarily the same idea as transparency in a globalizing information age. Likewise, the meaning of transparency in least developed countries is changing with their acquisition of sophisticated information technologies and pressures to reduce corruption. Scholarship on transparency needs to recognize the different changes in meaning ascribed to this very important administrative principle. Evidently, universal lessons might be brought to bear to help develop a coherent theoretical basis on stages and interpretations of transparency reforms in local governments.     

Health and Local Government Partnerships: The Local Government Policy Context

This article explores partnerships between health and local government from the local government perspective; placing developments between the two sectors within the wider context of the Local Government Modernisation agenda. A number of commentators have argued that developments since 1997 – in particular the emphasis on community leadership and the new power of well-being – have provided local authorities with an exciting opportunity to reclaim a more pivotal role in shaping the health agenda at the local level. Such a role would be based on promoting well-being and a good quality of life, in keeping with the social model of health. In the longer run this reclaimed role could produce a shift in what has become the main boundary between health and local government: the health–social care boundary. The article reviews developments in three key areas: the health–social care boundary; the core components of the Local Government Modernisation Agenda; and the relationship between regeneration and health. The paper concludes that although progress has been made in regeneration and health and there is potential in elements of the Modernisation Agenda that these do not equate to a paradigm shift in local government's perspective on health. Instead, the social care boundary continues to dominate local government's vision of health. Central to this picture of modest progress is the substantial barrier to more radical change provided by the performance management frameworks governing both sectors.     

Between Democracy and Efficiency: Trends in Local Government Reform in the Netherlands and Germany

In this article attention is drawn to a striking difference between recent attempts to reform local government in the Netherlands and in Germany. What has been the prime focus of attention in the Netherlands in the 1980s is being emphasized in Germany in the 1990s, and what is being emphasized in the Netherlands in the 1990s has been the prime focus of attention in Germany in the 1980s. Trends in local goverment reform in the Netherlands have been going from a focus on more efficiency to a focus on more democracy, while trends in local government reform in Germany have been going the other way around. Likely explanations for these intersecting reform trends are built on four pillars: financial crises, legitimacy crises, formal institutions and informal institutions     

Evaluating Public Management Reform: Designing a'Joined Up' Approach to Researching the Local Government Modernisation Agenda

This article examines the major programme of research on the'Local Government Modernisation Agenda' which is currently being funded by the UK's Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It argues that this heralds a new approach to government-funded research which seeks to address some of the weakness of previous evaluations. In particular it involves longer-term studies than have been conducted in the past and an attempt to achieve a much greater degree of collaboration between research teams. It is also trying to ensure effective application of the learning derived from evaluations. This new approach raises a number of practical and methodological problems, including in particular the need for effective data sharing among research teams and with other agencies. If this can be achieved there is though a real prospect that the research will provide useful insights that help to inform current and future policy and practice at both national and local levels.     

The Local Government Review: An Inter-Organizational Perspective

This article uses Benson's 'political economy' model of inter-organizational relations to interpret inter-authority relationships during the course of the local government review process in England (1992-95) and in particular to explain the preparedness of large numbers of district councils to support proposals which implied their own destruction. Six more specific influences are identified which led to this outcome:
(i) The changing pattern of expectations and perceived possibilities as the Review progressed.
(ii) The conflictual context of relations within the network linking individual counties and districts, and their respective associations.
(iii) The influence of the districts' national representative body - the ADC - which was arguing strongly for a 'super-district' solution.
(iv) The plausibility of the view of some mergers as de facto takeovers of one authority by another.
(v) The special nature of local authorities as (party) political institutions as well as public sector bureaucracies.
(vi) The rationing of information through central-local networks, in the context of 'unclear rules'.
It is concluded that with certain modifications Benson's framework provides a helpful explanatory mechanism.     

'Unprecedented in Local Government Terms'– The Local Government Commission's Public Consultation Programme

The purpose of this article is to describe and evaluate the public consultation exercises mounted by the Local Government Commission for England under its successive Chairmen, Sir John Banham and Sir David Cooksey. The Commission was evidently proud of this aspect of its work, emphasizing repeatedly its unprecedented nature: in itself an unremarkable claim in the context of British local government structural reviews. This article suggests that, in terms of quality and value for money, as opposed to sheer scale, the consultation programme - and particularly the three principal tranches of MORI residential surveys - was less laudable. The article examines each of these surveys: the stage one community identity polls, which might have contributed to the government's intended 'community index', had the latter not previously been rejected by the Commission; the stage three option consultation surveys, the Banham Commission's instrument for the hybridization of English local government, which prompted accusations of policymaking by opinion poll; and the stage three 're-review' surveys for the Cooksey Commission, which had already indicated its disinclination to accord local public opinion any special weighting in its deliberations. The article attempts to summarize, in two key tables, both the results and the impact of the Commission's public consultations, and in doing so to trace the progress of the review from an initially proposed 99 new unitary authorities, down to 50, then 38, and back up to the final total of 46.     

Labour's Modernization of Local Government

The modernization of local government is central to the government's plans to revitalize the UK's constitutional arrangements. Implicitly managerialist, the modernizing local government project also contains centralist and localist themes. Translated into policy, these themes are articulated as leadership, community, democracy and regulation. However, these elements are potentially contradictory and may produce tensions in the project that may be difficult to resolve. By reviewing the government's aims to promote leadership, community and democracy in local government, it is also argued that the planned modernization of local government will extend further and into new areas the regulation of local authorities.     

Understanding the Local Government Review: A Retrospective Analysis

Reorganizations have provided fertile ground for researchers and practitioners seeking to draw lessons about the nature of public administration. The review leading to the reorganization of British local government in 1991-96 sustains the tradition. In an extraordinary unfolding of events key features of the policy and political system are laid bare. This article provides a background analysis of the review, examines the main turning points in the process, assesses the performance of key players and concludes with a judgement about the sustainability of the settlement that ultimately emerged. A number of lessons are drawn about the nature of the British political system as revealed through the impact of the challenge of a large-scale structural review of local government.     

Local Government Finance: Assessing the Central Governmant's Contribution

It is widely believed that between 60 to 66 per cent. of local authority expenditure (or income) is met by grants from central government alone. This popularly held view is challenged in this paper through a consideration of the current system of funding. We begin with the rate support grant procedure and identify some common sources of misunderstanding; these concern the definition of the rate support grant itself and the true nature of relevant expenditure. This leads us to examine the question of local authority miscellaneous income from fees, sales, rents and other sources from which we conclude that its contribution is underestimated. However it is general knowledge that besides miscellaneous income local authorities derive their income from two other principal sources namely, government grants and local rates. Accordingly the remainder of the paper examines in turn the contribution of these three sources towards (i) local authority revenue expenditure in respect of rate fund services, (ii) local authority revenue income and (iii) local authority income including both revenue and capital receipts. In no instance does central government's share approach 60 per cent. Thus, it would appear that the contribution of government is being overestimated while that of miscellaneous income underestimated. The implications of this are discussed.     

Contingent and Non-Contingent Working in Local Government: Contrasting Psychological Contracts

Given that the contingent worker is likely to be a familiar presence in the public service workplace of the future, this paper explores the consequences of contingent work arrangements on the attitudes and behaviour of employees using the psychological contract as a framework for analysis. Drawing upon survey evidence from a sample of permanent, fixed term and temporary staff employed in a British local authority, our results suggest that contract status plays an important role in how individuals view the exchange relationship with their employer and how they respond to the inducements received from that relationship. Specifically, contingent employees are less committed to the organization and engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to a lesser degree than their permanent counterparts. However, contrary to our hypothesis, the relationship between the inducements provided by the employer and OCB is stronger for contingent employees. Such findings have implications for the treatment of contingent and non-contingent employees in the public services.     

Ethics in Local Government: Evaluating Self-Regulation in England and Wales

Local government in England and Wales is subject to the implementation of the Labour government's 'new ethical framework' legislation. This involves a statutory code of conduct for councillors, local standards committees to promote good practice and external investigative and adjudicative bodies to deal with allegations of misconduct. Prior to this many local authorities had adopted a self-regulatory approach to improving their ethical practice. This article charts the development of non-statutory policy towards standards of conduct - largely due to the generally high ethical standards in councils. A study of councils who have introduced self-regulation through standards committees shows that it provides a positive strategy for strengthening the ethical climate, although there is a role for external verification and, potentially, intervention where councils face structural problems of misconduct and/or corruption. The current creation of a statutory system with powerful investigatory agencies is not justified in the context of levels of misconduct and the experience of self-regulation.