The literature on local government contracting out

Privatisation of Local Government Services, Jill Walker and Roger Moore, Workers’ Educational Association, 1983, pp. 24, 90p.

Public Jobs for Private Profit: Fighting Contractors in Wandsworth, Dave Benlow, Peter Ramage, Mike French, Dave Simmonds and Dexter Whitfield, Wandsworth Trade Union Publications, pp. 64, £1.40.

Contracting Out in the Public Sector, Keith Hartley, Cyril Tomkins, Cecil Rix, Brian Whitworth, Clifford Smith, Leslie Paine, RIPA, 1984, pp. 59, £3.50.

Fighting Privatisation: The Victory in Gloucester, Tony Williams, Institute for Workers’ Control, 1983, pp. 44, 90.

A Review of Private Approaches for Delivery of Public Services, Harry Hatry, The Urban Institute Press, 1983, pp. 105.

Hands off Bury's Bins! Manchester Employment Research Group, Bury Joint Trade Union Committee, 1983, pp. 32.

Contractors’ Failures: The Privatisation Experience, TUC, 1984, pp. 38, £2.00.     

Professional leadership in local government

Local public service professionals are experts who temper their use of expertise with public service ethics. Public service ethics differ from the ethical codes of most professions in that they stress external accountability. Ethical codes of private sector professions create a sense of responsibility to the profession and help undergird professional autonomy. Public service ethics emphasize public responsibility and help create public accountability. City and county managers show how public service ethics can help make experts accountable to the public.     

Transformation in Philippine local government

This research examined the challenges, enablers and outcomes of organisation transformation in Philippine local governments. We combined a multi-case study research design and backward mapping approach in collecting and analysing narratives from 55 leaders in 9 Filipino local government units (LGUs) that have successfully undergone transformation. Results show that the transformations of the LGUs appear to have been catalysed by three interrelated elements: vision, LGU leadership and citizen engagement. The transformation in the local governments concentrated on multiple foci of reform including structure and systems improvement, culture change, human-resource development as well as policy and programme development. This holistic approach enabled the transformation of bureaucratic and unprofessional government service to transparent, professional and efficient public service that engendered pride, transparency and social equity. Implications of the proposed model for transforming LGUs and in developing LGU leaders for good governance are discussed.     

Europe and local government

The Care in the Community initiative has resulted in a renewed interest in collaboration between local and health authorities. The focus of such collaboration is commonly on the transfer of long‐stay patients from psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals that are due to close, though the extent of local authority involvement in closure programmes varies considerably.

Joint planning typically involves a number of local authority departments: social services, housing, chief executives’ offices and legal services. It sometimes also involves education, recreation and leisure departments. Joint planning can be very time‐consuming and can call for considerable effort. It frequently gives rise to a good deal of conflict between the participating agencies. The pay‐offs, on the other hand, often appear to be small. Such plans as are finally implemented tend to be small‐scale: attempts at broader strategic planning almost invariably come to grief. The question then has to be asked, whether joint planning is worth all the effort. In the end, the primary justification for such planning has to lie in its ability to produce more appropriate services for service‐users.

This paper examines one local authority's experience of joint planning in relation to the closure of a large psychiatric hospital. Despite several setbacks, joint plans were eventually agreed and a number of former long‐stay patients were able to move into the community. The paper considers both the achievements and the shortcomings of the authority's collaboration with the health service.     

Administrators and professionals in local government

This article evaluates the shift to an executive and scrutiny model in local government by assessing the changes at Devon County Council. Interviews were used to evaluate support for the changes and identify the key issues and problems. Most members had little enthusiasm for the reforms, support for the changes was dependent on the loyalty of Liberal Democrat backbenchers towards the leadership and central government's legislative agenda. The analysis revealed substantial problems with the operation of the reformed structure and suggested that the changes might fail to deliver the benefits expected by central government.     

The wheel turns for policing and local government

The article examines the impact of two main forces, localism and centralism, together with their interaction within a common law legal system, which have influenced professional policing since its inception after 1829. In particular, it assesses the ways these forces have conflicted and in doing so created a police service which although closely related to local government subsequently drifted apart. Now, through the ‘partnership approach’, developed within the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, local government and policing appear to be re‐establishing a closer relationship. In this context, the article examines the significance of the concept of community safety and the partnership approach on the relationships between local government, police authorities and the force itself.     

Innovation in local government homelessness strategies

This study examines innovations in local government homelessness policy, specifically, the use of comprehensive and targeted programs. Traditionally, homelessness efforts have focused on emergency assistance, and have not included efforts in homelessness prevention or long-term care responding to the housing, job training and placement, health and mental health needs of homeless persons. In this article, findings are reported from a national survey of local homelessness efforts in cities over 50,000. It is found that 13 percent of cities have adopted the innovation of comprehensive homelessness efforts. Driving forces of this innovation include a broad range of private and public actions, including the use of community-based action strategies, as well as local conditions such as increased domestic violence and the use of emergency shelters. Popular apathy and a lack of city funding are important barriers to the adoption of this innovation.     

Rethinking organisational learning in local government

The article outlines the results of research undertaken with 146 local authorities in England and Wales. There are two aims to this paper. First, to identify some of the ways in which local government understands and puts into practice the notion of organisational learning. Second, to encourage a broader understanding and practice than exists at present. Our research suggests that local authorities have created a self‐limiting notion of organisational learning particularly based on performance management and management development imperatives orientated towards the individual employee. We suggest various ways in which authorities might shift the focus from individual to organisational learning.     

Territorial changes and changing identities: how spatial identities are used in the up-scaling of local government in the Netherlands

This article analyses the use of local identities by local communities in two Dutch municipalities. This research was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior to better understand the role of local identities in municipal amalgamations. This article develops a conceptual framework based on the distinction between a primary identity based on the widely recognised dominant characteristics of the local community, and a secondary identity based on how communities within a municipality have learned over time to deal with these different primary local identities. During an amalgamation, this secondary identity disappears with the old municipality. The disappearance of the protective shield of a secondary identity exposes the underlying primary local identities, and can bring local identities into the centre of the local political debate. They can become more ***inward-oriented and focus more on their historical roots and their differences with others; they ‘thicken’ into resistance identities. In other cases, the secondary identity of a municipality is too weak and indistinct to support the primary local identities. Municipal amalgamation can then help to promote a new more attractive secondary, ‘thin’ regional identity based on a selection of characteristics of established primary local identities.