THE THATCHER GOVERNMENT, THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE, AND THE 'NEW CML SERVICE'

The Thatcher era has been a traumatic one for the career Civil Service, so much so that one leading civil servant has suggested that the order of change is such that a 'new Civil Service' is emerging. This paper examines, first, interpretations of what has happened to the Civil Service under the Thatcher government; next, it reviews the developments relating to the economy programme and the Financial Management Initiative; then it considers the current state of the Civil Service pay and promotion system; finally, it concludes that thus far at least, essentially, the 'old Civil Service' has survived.     

THE QUASI-MARKET,THE ENTREPRENEUR AND THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE NHS BUSINESS MANAGER

The recent changes in the UK National Health Service were heralded by the publication of the Griffiths report in 1983 which highlighted the need for a business-like’approach to management. The policy makers’generic strategy of the late 1980s and early 1990s centred around the concept of‘quasi-markets’. These were artificial internal markets encompassing the purchasers and providers of public services. Little research has been undertaken into this new phenomenon of the‘quasi-market’but entrepreneurship economic theory would suggest that for markets to be efficient would require a supply of alert and aware entrepreneurs. Within the restructured NHS, the mantle for entrepreneurial management seems to have been placed firmly on the shoulders of the newly created‘business managers’. A 1993 survey amongst NHS business managers in first and second wave trust hospitals in the Trent Regional Health Authority indicated that whilst business managers were knowledgable of what entrepreneurial activity is, they currently feel constrained in their new roles for a variety of reasons. The authors suggest that rational economic analysis is insufficient to explain this lack of innovatory endeavour. Instead policy makers’attention should be devoted to liberating health managers from their current constraints to encourage their entrepreneurial development.     

THE IMPACT OF OPEN DATA IN THE UK: COMPLEX,UNPREDICTABLE, AND POLITICAL

This article examines the democratic impact of the UK coalition government's Transparency Agenda, focusing on the publication of all local government spending over £500 by councils in England. It looks at whether the new data have driven increased democratic accountability, public participation, and information transmission. The evidence suggests that the local government spending data have driven some accountability. However, rather than forging new ‘performance regimes’, creating ‘armchair auditors’, or bringing mass use and involvement, the publication creates a further element of political disruption. Assessment of the use and impact of the new spending data finds it is more complex, more unpredictable, and more political than the rhetoric around Open Data indicates. The danger is that the gap between aims and impact invites disappointment from supporters.     

THE CENTRE STRIKES BACK: META‐GOVERNANCE,DELEGATION, AND THE CORE EXECUTIVE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, 2010–14

A growing literature on ‘agencification’, ‘quangocratization’, and the ‘autonomization’ of the state has highlighted a coordination dilemma in contemporary public governance whereby governments rely on delegated governance but are frustrated by the lack of control that arises from such structures. In the run‐up to the 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom this coordination dilemma was prominent as the capacity of the Cabinet Office to exert control over arm's‐length bodies, either directly or indirectly, received intense criticism. This article presents the findings of the first detailed research project to examine the subsequent Coalition Government's approach to this dilemma. It argues that in relation to the governance of public bodies, the role and capacity of the Cabinet Office has been transformed. In mapping this development the article explores the implications of the centre striking back in the context of ‘post‐New Public Management’ reforms.     

GENDER,GREEDY INSTITUTIONS,AND THE DEPARTMENTAL COURT

This article seeks to identify, map and understand the ways in which the everyday beliefs and practices of British central government departments embed social constructions of masculinity and femininity. It draws on observational fieldwork and repeat interviews conducted between 2002 and 2004 to analyse the everyday practices of departmental courts. We argue these courts have gendered practices and are ‘greedy institutions’. We unpack their practices of hierarchy, civility, rationality, gendered division of work, and long hours. We argue that these practices have significant gender consequence most notably women have few institutional options but to ‘manage like men’.     

THE SPATIAL LEGACY OF INFORMAL EMPIRE: OIL,THE SOVIET UNION,AND THE CONTOURS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA'S FAR WEST

Abstract

Beginning in the 1930s, Soviet geologists, engineers, and economic planners began laying the infrastructure of informal empire in China's westernmost province of Xinjiang. Seeking to gain access to its rich petroleum wealth in particular, these Soviet state agents helped create a blueprint for state investment and development in Xinjiang that continues to resonate today. Confronting the substantial Soviet investment in the province and driven by a border policy intent on minimizing capital expenditures for distant peripheries, economic planners in the Republic of China and the People's Republic alike relied heavily on Soviet reports, technology, and infrastructure in their own economic development plans. In the end, the efforts of Chinese and Soviet planners, often working in collaboration, helped create an enduring pattern of state investment in Xinjiang. Focusing on oil extraction, processing, and transport operations in Xinjiang, this work reveals the long-term resonances of informal empire in Chinese border regions.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGULATION: INTERESTS, IDEOLOGY, VOTERS, AND THE UK REGULATION OF RAILWAYS ACT 1844

Government regulation of the railways in the United Kingdom dates back to the 1840s. Between 1840 and 1844 three regulatory Acts were passed, and a system of government inspection set up which has remained substantially unaltered to the present day. The principal Act, that of 1844, contained controversial powers of rate-capping, state purchase of railways, and detailed price and quantity regulation. It is still frequently held that the Victorian era marked the triumph of laissez-faire and that W. E. Gladstone, the promoter of the 1844 Act, was one of its leading spokesmen. The article therefore explores why regulation occurred at all and why it took the forms it did. Gladstone's actions are evaluated in relation to the standard hypotheses about the origins of regulation. Hypotheses on the motives of MPS voting for and against regulation are tested using the Aydelotte dataset which contains very full personal and ideological data on the Mps of the Parliament of 1841–7.     

'SUPRANATIONALISM' IN QUESTION: BELIEFS,VALUES, AND THE SOCIALIZING POWER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION REVISITED

Do international organizations affect the views of the people who work for them? Although increasingly sophisticated methods have been used to address this question, disagreement persists about whether the beliefs of staff are formed before they join, after they enter the institution, or are shaped by instrumental calculation. Drawing on an original dataset based on the first fully representative survey of the European Commission's workforce, this article breaks new ground by putting different definitions of ‘supranationalism’ to the test and by capturing multiple ways in which individuals may be affected by the experience of working for the organization. For the first time, it demonstrates that commitment to ‘supranationalism’ varies between Commission staff groupings, that the influences on belief vary with the measure of ‘supranationalism’ used, and that both post‐recruitment experience and pre‐recruitment roles play a part in shaping beliefs.     

CENTRALIZATION, DECENTRALIZATION AND THE EUROPEAN UNION: THE DYNAMICS OF TRIADIC RELATIONSHIPS

The accession of the UK into the European Community in 1973 and the growth in power and competence of European institutions in subsequent years prompts a rethink of relationships between central and local governance. Rather than a dyadic process between two sets of bodies, the new triadic system is based on varying interactions between the three groups of actors at each level. The article develops six possible scenarios of new relationships which can be simplified into centralization, no change or decentralization. To appraise the nature of the changes, the article examines the operation of the European Regional Development Fund, the additionality controversy, lobbying over the 1994 reform of the structural funds and aspects of environmental regulation. Rather than one scenario dominating, the findings show several types of new relationships emerging.     

THE TREASURY AS THE CENTRAL DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT, 1919–1939

Sir Warren Fisher, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury from 1919 to 1939, tried to make the Treasury a 'general staff', for all of Whitehall. He was official head of the civil service, and his Department co-ordinated policy by persuading ministers to decide priorities within a balanced budget. Treasury advice on what policy should be was influential, partly because of the absence of a fully developed Cabinet Office or Prime Minister's Office. Treasury control of expenditure was also necessary to ensure that spending departments conformed to Cabinet decisions on priorities. The Treasury exercised a powerful influence, however, only so long as the Cabinet accepted the financial orthodoxy of balanced budgets.     

A SYNTHESIS OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF ANDRAGOGY: LEARNING,LEADING, AND LINKING

ABSTRACT

This article reveals that teaching is applicable to far more than just traditional settings of scholarship. It demonstrates the effective (though usually unwitting) application of modern adult learning theory and technique to the effective development, change, and administration of organizations.     

PLANNING AND CONTROLLING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN THE UK, PART II: THE EFFECTS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SURVEY

Part I of this article [spring 19921 examined and explained the processes by which the Treasury plans and controls public expenditure through the Public Expenditure Survey. This second part analyses the survey's effects and effectiveness. Throughout we assess the survey by the extent to which the principal functions of planning, allocating, controlling and evaluating public expenditure are articulated and performed. We use four sets of criteria. Firstly, the survey is assessed as a means of regulating the interdependent relationships of the principal participants. Secondly, as a system for making decisions about public expenditure, the survey is judged by the extent to which it has enabled governments to achieve their broad spending objectives. Thirdly, the survey is assessed b the extent to which it provides directly for the participation of ministers collectively in tie process of decision-making, and how they decide the relative priority of both the total of public expenditure and its composition. And fourthly, its effects are measured by analysing the outputs of the system - the allocation of spending to departments and agencies. In the concluding section we address directly the question of whose interests are best served by the survey.     

EDUCATION,EDUCATION, EDUCATION: THE THIRD WAY AND PFI

In 1997, New Labour set about the task of reforming public services in the United Kingdom through the use of an ideology that became known as the ‘Third Way’. This research examines the context from which this concept emerged, and explores its relationship with the tools of delivery, with particular reference to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The paper begins by reviewing the Third Way, before analysing the arguments for and against PFI. Using an example from the Northern Ireland education sector, the paper argues that the characteristics associated with the Third Way are mirrored in the operational tools of public service delivery, such as PFI. The paper concludes that, within the context of the case study reviewed, there is a ‘consistent pragmatism’ in play in relation to how these delivery initiatives are operated and how they relate to their conceptual underpinnings.     

COMPLAINTS, REMEDIES AND THE HEALTH SERVICE COMMISSIONER

The Government's Citizen's and Patient's Charters see the Health Service Commissioner scheme playing an important part in securing effective remedies for complaints about administration in the NHS. The scheme is assessed against the background of the fragmented nature of the NHS complaints systems. Because of jurisdictional limitations the Commissioner can only deal with a small proportion of NHS complaints. An analysis of HSC cases between 1986 and 1991 shows that it is those about complaint-handling itself which have been most frequently upheld. The most frequent remedy achieved is an HSC-delivered apology, which is not always found satisfactory, but the HSC places equal emphasis on providing a 'quality audit' and feedback mechanism for health authorities. If the HSC is to play the role implied by the charters, it will be necessary to consider removing the limitations on his jurisdiction which exclude clinical Judgement and the work of family practitioners.     

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE BRITISH CENTRAL STATE, PART I: FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS

In the bureau-shaping model of bureaucracy rationally self-interested officials are primarily concerned to maximize their agencies' core budgets, equivalent to their running costs. They are much less interested in those parts of their overall budget which are allocated as transfer payments to the private sector or passed on to other public sector bodies. The varying importance of core budgets and other spending yields a typology of public sector organizations into delivery, transfer, contracts, regulatory and control agencies. In addition, the bureau-shaping model is developed in this article to provide an exhaustive classification of government agencies, and to refine the analysis of spending over and above core budgets.
The methodological issues involved in applying this typology empirically to the central state apparatus in Britain are explored. Previous attempts at 'bureaumetrics' have failed to mesh with 'ordinary knowledge' views of Whitehall. By contrast, the bureau-shaping model provides a framework which is theoretically sophisticated, easily operationalizable, and intuitively understandable. The scale of prospective hiving off from the UK civil service organization over the next decade indicates the value of adopting a framework which can respond methodologically to such changes, and offers a powerful theoretical account of their dynamic. Part II of the paper [next issue] presents the empirical data demonstrating that the bureau-shaping model is highly effective in systematizing and extending our knowledge of how Whitehall and its attached agencies are structured.     

SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE VILLAGE,NATION, AND PROVINCE: FORESTRY POLICY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN EARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY YUNNAN

Abstract

This article compares village, national, and provincial forestry policy in early-twentieth-century China, with a focus on Yunnan, making three important observations. First, by identifying villages as key arenas for the production of forestry policy, it highlights the importance of rethinking the political geography of forestry policy during this period, to establish a proper comparative baseline for evaluating policy implementation. Second, its comparisons reveal diverging interests in forestry at these three levels, ranging from village reforestation for ecological conservation to provincial afforestation for economic development. Third, it shows that policymakers in these three arenas deployed distinctive cultural and political resources to promote their policies. The localized formats and objectives of village policies may have rendered them relatively invisible to national policymakers, who promoted more general and systematic forestry frameworks as novel interventions into a seemingly neglected policy arena that demanded comprehensive and intensive political intervention.