CHANGING PATIERNS OF BUDGETING IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Worsening financial circumstances have prompted local authorities to review the appropriateness of traditional budgetary arrangements. Using Wildavsky's concept of incremental budgeting as a guiding framework this paper examines how and why authorities have altered their budgetary processes. Results indicate that underlying incrementalism is the assumption of growth, although certain aspects of incrementalism are more affected than others by declining revenues.     

TRADITIONS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delineation of multiple traditions heightens the sense that local government is not a unified homogeneous organizational entity, but rather a melange of voices, interests and assumptions about how to organize, prioritize and mobilize action. They can be used to engage practitioners with the idea that different traditions inform political and managerial practices and processes in local councils. The approach embraces the significance of participants' constitutive stories about local government rather than the search for essential truths about the politics and management of the public sector.     

DECISION-MAKING IN CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE ABSENCE OF POLITICAL MAJORITY

A possible outcome of the next general election is that no party will have a majority in the House of Commons, a situation experienced only briefly in recent central government. In local government, by contrast, more than half the county councils in England and Wales and many district councils have no overall political majority. Some have been so for many years. This paper examines the style of decision-making in one such local authority, Cheshire County Council, in terms of the roles of politicians and officials and the relationship between them. Recognizing the constitutional differences between central and local government, it goes on to discuss how much of this experience would be relevant to central government in the event of no overall parliamentary majority. The paper argues that many of the working practices developed in local authorities would be valid in a central government context, though they would not necessarily take the same form. To avoid value judgments, the absence of overall majority, whether in a local authority or in parliament, is referred to simply as 'no-majority'.     

COMPULSORY COMPETITIVE TENDERING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: THE FIRST ROUND

This article presents the results of a survey of the initial impact of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) under the Local Government Act 1988. After an outline of the provisions of the legislation and the mechanisms for their implementation the outcome of the first round of CCT is described. While most services have been retained in the public sector, a number of authorities have chosen to use private contractors. Differences in the patterns between different types of authority are examined. Finally, the paper considers the prospects for subsequent phases of CCT.     

COUNCILLOR/OFFICER RELATIONS IN IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT: ALTERNATIVE MODELS

The models of Irish local politics that dominate the literature offer inadequate explanations of the elected politiciad officer relationship. This article analyses the behaviour of the most senior local officer (the county or city manager) vis-à-vis elected representatives by first reviewing the relevant parts of four current models and then offering an alternative explanation by way of a fifth 'divergent interest' model. This final model is in part an amalgam of the other four though it also aims to disaggregate the notion of policy as it is currently used. In particular, it seeks to compromise between the neglect of substantive policy concerns inherent in the brokerage explanation and the epiphenomena1 model's ambivalence on the initiatives available to the manager. A feature of this model is that both managers and councillors have policy and administrative interests but in largely non-competitive areas. The divergence of interests between official and politician arises from differing perspectives established by both consideration of time-scale and socialization. The stability of their relationship is reinforced by the temporal fragmentation of the formal policy making process, and b the non-competing resources over which the manager and his councillors seek command: It is hoped that the divergent interests model offered here will be a useful tool in understanding the relationship between Irish politicians and bureaucrats at the local government level.     

THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE

The 'dual state' thesis provides a useful starting point in analysing the relationship between the central and local state. However the history of reform in local government finance suggests that the dual state approach underemphasizes a number of important features of the relationship. Notably the degree of diversity which exists between the interests displayed by different sectors of the central state, the vertical linkages which exist between national and local levels and the difficulty of pursuing coherent long term strategies in local finance.     

URBAN MANAGEMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS NEW INSTITUTIONS IN THE NEW UKRAINE

Local government and modern urban management techniques will play a key role in the transition of Ukraine's institutions from a communist to a free economy and society. This paper provides a historic context for this transition, discusses the problems encountered in building urban management capacities and local government institutions, and explores what it will take to achieve real change.

The paper places the problems of revitalization and rebuilding of these Ukrainian institutions in historical perspective, with special attention to inherited patterns of Soviet administrative culture. The Sovietization of urban planning and administration, and living standards and the creation of nomenklature (the main governmental “human resource”), are analyzed as the starting point for rebuilding Ukraine's local governments. The paper traces the main sources and consequences of “continuous institutional crisis,” such as distrust, corruption, and deterioration of the capabilities of the Ukrainian state. Also examined are the current effects of economic globalization on the development of local and urban governments.

Following a review of Ukrainian “path dependence” and recent difficulties in institutional building, the paper outlines the most important tasks for future development and an agenda for Ukraine's “institutional entrepreneurs.” The paper emphasizes that it is vital to create a professional, rule-based bureaucracy and merit-based municipal civil service.     

THE SEPARATION/SPECIFICATION DILEMMA IN CONTRACTING: THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE IN VICTORIA

This article draws on evidence from case studies of local government contracting in the Australian state of Victoria. It argues that one of the key elements of competitive tendering – the separation of purchasers from providers – undermines another of its essential mechanisms – the specification of services – at the point where previously in‐house services are exposed to competition. The managers who are to become purchasers lack the requisite knowledge of services, which instead resides in the minds of the service delivery staff whose work is to be subjected to competitive processes. Separating purchasing from service‐provision ‘distances’ the staff from the managers, impairing employees’ willingness to share the relevant information. At the same time, the introduction of competition increases the probability that staff will withhold that knowledge, and makes it harder on probity grounds to maintain the type of collaborative relationship which might overcome their reluctance to share it.     

EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.     

ANALYSING POLITICAL CHOICE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY APPROACH

Despite the centralizing trends which have characterized the 1980s, local authorities have displayed considerable skill in their pursuit of policies designed to cope with effects of the government's grant abatements and other, legislative restrictions. Indeed, it is paradoxical that a continued diversity in response has characterized the strategies of various local authorities over the period. However, our theoretical understanding has often failed to keep pace with the reality of a still vibrant local government. Even those 'output' studies which identified the different influences at work invariably failed to explain why localities diverged in their responses. Similarly, the expository power of sophisticated intergovernmental relations (IGR) models has not fully accounted for such divergence. This research builds on the IGR model but explicitly acknowledges the importance of a 'localities effect' in shaping the application of the model in specific local authorities. This is facilitated by a comparative case study approach based on evidence from Glasgow and Liverpool.     

REINVENTING LOCAL GOVERNMENT? SOME EVIDENCE ASSESSED

Osborne and Gaebler's Reinventing Government offers a powerful image of a revolution in government. This article explores some of the assumptions of that seminal work as they relate to the nature of the change process. Parallels are drawn with the debate on the nineteenth-century revolution in government, and Osborne and Gaebler's work is judged unlikely to survive the critical perspective of history. Their work may nonetheless be taken as providing a research agenda for the study of the recent extensive changes in British local government. To this end, the findings of the two major surveys of organizational change conducted by the Local Government Management Board are examined to see if such a revolution is indeed occurring. The conclusion is drawn that some, but by no means all, of Osborne and Gaebler's propositions are supported by this evidence, although their account of how change has come about is rejected.     

CORPORATISM, PAY NEGOTIATIONS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The era of the 'Social Contract' between 1974 and 1979 has been seen as the epitome of 'corporatism' in British government. This article explores the utility of the concept of 'corporatism' for the study of intergovernmental relations, examining pay negotiations in the fire service between 1976 and 1980. It identifies the central characteristics associated with a corporatist system; describes the institutional and procedural context of pay negotiations in the fie service; catalogues the events surrounding the firemen's strike of 1977; and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of corporatism in explaining these events. It concludes that the concept of corporatism has now acquired so many multiple and contiguous meanings that it adds little to the analysis of relationships between government, local government (employers) and the trade unions. Such terms as network, compliance and executive authority are of greater use than the corporatist terminology of hierarchy, regulation and order.     

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN POLAND: EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE PROCESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

The subject of this investigation is the performance of Polish local government and its ability to make and implement environmental policy. The article proposes an assessment of national policy implementation based on policy outputs in the form of local policy programmes. National policy is implemented inter alia through elaboration, adoption and execution of environmental protection programmes at three subnational levels of self‐government. Self‐government is solely responsible for preparation and execution of the programmes. For every municipality, the rules for adoption including timetable, the structure of the draft, consultation of the draft and formal vote by local council to adopt the draft are the same. Therefore, the process of elaboration and adoption provides opportunity to compare municipalities across the country. Survey and interview based data from the study gives evidence about municipal performance in the programming and allows verifying possible influence of three macro factors on this performance.     

BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Gerry Stoker and David Wilson (eds)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 304 pp., £50.60 (hb), £18.99 (pb) ISBN: 1403918724     

THE INSTITUTIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local government is the subject of official review. This paper suggests that any review of the system of local government should consider at the outset the purposes or values which provide the rationale for local government, and should examine how the institutional framework and prevailing organizational practices promote or hinder achievement of those values. The values of local government as traditionally understood are summarized and aspects of the institutional framework and organizational practices are explored.