Myths,Measures and Modernisation: A Comparison of Local Authority Performance in England and Wales

Local Authority performance in Wales is widely perceived as inferior to that in England. We analyse statistical evidence on current levels of performance and rates of improvement in the two local government systems, and find few significant differences between English and Welsh councils. Adverse judgements on Welsh local government seem to reflect perceptions of their management processes and methods of service provision rather than their substantive achievements. This may in turn be symptomatic of UK central government's assumption that public service improvement cannot be achieved unless organisations follow the specific model of ‘managerial modernisation it is currently promoting.     

The Role of Organisational Culture in the Merger of English Local Authorities into a Single Unitary Authority

Cornwall Council is a new ‘unitary’ local authority which was created following the merger of six district councils and one county council on 1 April 2009. A questionnaire survey based on specific ‘dimensions’ of organisational culture was circulated to staff prior to the merger date. Overall, the results indicated a generally congruent culture characterised by a strong team spirit and commitment to the workplace. A number of differences were observed between the cultural orientations of the seven councils, but there was only weak evidence of differences between tiers of management or professional groupings. The study suggests that the new organisation will have to find ways of ‘unfreezing’ staff from their established ways of thinking and working before changes can be properly embedded. It is recommended that the organisational change process shifts from a top-down ‘planned’ approach to a more ‘emergent’ approach to facilitate learning and organisational development.     

STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE: THE IMPACT OF THE REORGANIZATION PROCESS IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Organization theory suggests that structural change has disruptive effects on managerial behaviour and organizational outcomes, and that these effects are likely to emerge in the period between the announcement and the commencement of the new structure. We evaluate the validity of this argument by analysing the performance of English county councils in the transition period before the voluntary restructuring of a sub‐set of these organizations. Disruptive effects are tested while controlling for a range of other variables, including the relative prosperity of the local population and the diversity of their service needs. The empirical results indicate that the performance of local authorities facing reorganization deteriorated prior to the onset of the new structures, and support the view that structural change has disruptive effects on organizational outcomes.     

Death by a Thousand Grants? The Challenge of Grant Funding Reliance for Local Government Councils in the Northern Territory of Australia

In July 2008, the local government sector in the Northern Territory of Australia underwent wide-sweeping reforms whereby 53 councils, most of which were located in remote Indigenous communities, were amalgamated into eight regional shires. The dominant justifications for these reforms focused on internal ‘deficit’ views about the community council sector, including lack of competent and ethical staff, managerial workforce instability, inefficient use of resources, and poor oversight as the primary causes of chronic underperformance and dysfunction. This paper identifies and discusses the under-scrutinised role of grants revenue dependency and volatility in the demise of remote small councils in the Northern Territory. We analyse financial data to demonstrate the extreme volatility in year-on-year grants funding. With their high dependency on grants revenue, such volatility and unpredictability resulted in councils being hamstrung in their ability to strategically plan and ensure stability in service delivery, infrastructure management and employment provision. We argue that these fiscal dynamics, fuelled by hierarchical intergovernmental relations, contributed significantly to dysfunction in the sector, as well as mutually reinforcing pre-existing structural and endogenous weaknesses. This argument runs against the common conceptualisation of the sector as requiring of externally imposed structural reform. We conclude by suggesting that there are factors additional to scale that need to be incorporated into analysis of the effects of amalgamation policies on remote councils.     

STRATEGY CONTENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE PROVIDER PERFORMANCE IN THE UK: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

This article presents an alternative empirical test of the relationship between strategy content and service provider performance. Strategy content, conceptualized as comprising strategic stance and strategic action, has been shown to be a means to improve public service performance. We contribute to this growing body of research by deriving an alternative typology of strategy to better reflect competitive conditions in the public sector, which existing strategy typologies cannot fully explain. By assuming that public service providers must follow strategies best suited to their internal and external conditions for improved performance, we evaluate the significance of ‘fit’ between alternative strategic stances and organizational characteristics. Compromising the delivery of a strategy invariably leads to a misfit between strategy and what the service provider is actually doing. We highlight how to optimize strategic fit, to maximize service provider performance. Conclusions are drawn for public management theory and practice.     

‘Colonizin’ in reverse

Abstract

This is a revised version of a paper presented on 22 June 2006 by Kenneth Parker at The English Academy of Southern Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on the occasion of the presentation of a Gold Medal to Professor Colin Gardner for distinguished service to English. The paper takes a tongue-in-cheek look at ‘Britishness’ and conforming to British standards – including what the British saw as the ‘way forward for the English language’. It shows how the erstwhile ‘colonized’, and more particularly their British-born descendants, have been doing some ‘colonizin’ of their own.     

Roadworks Ahead? Addressing Fraud,Corruption and Conflict of Interest in English Local Government

The current localism agenda, and other legislative and organisational changes, will impact on English local government’s capacity and commitment to address fraud, corruption and conflict of interest from both investigative and preventative perspectives. These have been issues for local government since the nineteenth century onwards, often brought to prominence during specific scandals or periods of extensive change. This article summarises the reforms in terms of a ‘low road’ of a control environment and of a ‘high road’ of an ethical governance framework, and their perceived interrelationship, up to the introduction of the Localism agenda. It discusses how far the current changes may change the emphasis between roads in returning to an amended control environment, particularly in terms of the publication of the Fighting Fraud Locally strategy. It concludes with concerns less about the various initiatives promoted by the strategy than the implications of whether councils have the capacity or commitment to continue along the high road of ethical governance.     

Ambiguous Institutions: Traditional Governance and Local Democracy in Rural South India

In India, ‘customary village councils’ are generally believed to be disappearing vestiges of a pre-democratic, hierarchical socio-political order. However, while remaining informal and maintaining a low public profile, in Karnataka state they are actively taking on new roles, adapting to the democratic, competitive political environment, becoming more representative and pluralist, and providing a wide range of services that are highly valued by the populations they serve. The relationship of customary village councils to the formal, elected local councils (Grama Panchayats) – and to electoral democracy generally – is more synergistic and complementary than competitive.     

From Tuscany to Victoria: Some Determinants of Sustainability Reporting by Local Councils

This paper seeks to respond to recent calls by the academic community for studies investigating sustainability reporting by the public sector, as well as for more engagement-based studies of this issue by examining the views of managers within local councils (LC). The objective of this project is to provide insights as to the possible reasons and explanations for the types of sustainability disclosures among a group of local councils operating in Italy and Australia. In particular, an international comparison is undertaken to ascertain the effect of culture on the adoption of sustainability reporting (SR). Evidence is collected from semi-structured interviews with managers and accountants from ten local councils consisting of five from Italy (Tuscany) and five from Australia (Victoria). The findings suggest that although there are available some general policy documents relating to sustainability reporting, councils are left to their own discretion as to what they consider fit under the definition of sustainability and therefore, determine to a large extent, what to report to stakeholders. Moreover, there was a range of legitimacy type behaviours displayed by a number of councils while others were influenced by notions of public sector accountability and transparency. Adopting Hofstede's cultural framework, the research also highlights the relevance of the Italian and Australian cultural settings in shaping the SR practices used by LCs. The findings suggest that differences regarding cultural dimensions, such as ‘power distance’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance’, influence key aspects of SR.     

Advocating within and outside the shadow of hierarchy: local government responses to Melbourne’s outer suburban deficits

Where urban and regional development processes create deficits in infrastructure, services or employment, governments are expected to respond. One specific dimension is local government advocacy within a multi-tiered state. Although democratically proximate to residents, local government represents a creature of higher government tiers and is subject to the centralist ‘shadow of hierarchy’. To interpret whether advocacy is stunted by hierarchical influences, a distinction is drawn between passive, active and aggressive advocacy. Using interviews conducted with outer Melbourne’s growth area councils, the paper evidences the multidimensional and evolving nature of local and regional advocacy within the shadow. Illustrative of intra-sector variation, some peripheral councils have stepped beyond the metaphoric shadows and adopted politically confrontational or aggressive advocacy. Overarching conceptual framings must be appreciative of spatial and temporal variation in local government advocacy, and the local embeddedness of all government tiers through representative structures.     

A Tangled Web: Complexity and Inequality in the English Local Government Finance Settlement

The £29 billion formula grant stands at the heart of the English local government finance system. This transfer of resource from central to local government has, since 2006–07, been distributed using the so-called ‘four block model’. This extraordinarily complex formula-based funding mechanism aims to ensure that all local authorities are able to provide individuals with a broadly comparable level of public service – offering greatest support to local authorities with high service needs and/or low capacity to raise revenue. This paper outlines the structure and workings of the four block model and, drawing attention to key methodological shortcomings, explains why the resulting distribution of the formula grant is both arbitrary and inequitable. In particular it argues that key model parameters – specifically the need and resource equalisation proportions – are set in order to fulfil a particular funding outcome. This flies in the face of the basic tenets of resource allocation methodology in that, being outcome-led, the approach is clearly neither need-based nor impartial. The paper argues that the four block model fails to meet its own goal of fiscal equalisation, is likely to lead to increasing service disparities, and must be replaced as a matter of urgency.     

‘LEADERISM’: AN EVOLUTION OF MANAGERIALISM IN UK PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

This paper argues that ‘leaderism’– as an emerging set of beliefs that frames and justifies certain innovatory changes in contemporary organizational and managerial practice – is a development of managerialism that has been utilized and applied within the policy discourse of public service reform in the UK. The paper suggests that ‘leaderism’ is an evolution of entrepreneurial and cultural management ideologies and practices. An analysis of the articulation of leaderism with public service reform in the UK is presented. The paper problematizes the construals of leadership contained within these texts and reflects on their promotion of leadership as a social and organizational technology. ‘Leaderism’ is argued to be a complementary set of discourses, metaphors and practices to those of managerialism, which is being utilized in support of the evolution of NPM and new public governance approaches in the re‐orientation of the public services towards the consumer‐citizen.     

The CLAS Challenge: Promoting Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care

Abstract

Vista Community Clinic's Cultural Awareness Program (CAP), funded by the US Office of Minority Health, aims to institutionalize culturally and linguistically appropriate services as outlined in the federal Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards for the diverse San Diego County population through the promotion of organizational change at all levels of health care. The CAP program hopes to contribute to this end through offering educational sessions, aiding health care organizations in making changes to their structure in the areas of culture and language, as well as through the development of a website and a resource manual. Facilitating systems change in culturally and linguistically appropriate service delivery has proven to be the most challenging component of the CAP program. Based on seven years of experience in this area, CAP program staff proposes that the success of culturally and linguistically appropriate services depends on the degree to which organizational “buy-in” is achieved, the enforcement of the standards and the ability of health care organizations to work in collaboration with the community in which they serve.     

Community engagement in Australian local governments: a closer look and strategic implications

Public input into decision-making through participatory and deliberative democratic practices has become a widely accepted and legislated responsibility of Australian local governments. At any one time, councils are leading submission processes, workshops and online surveys on a multitude of projects, ranging from long-term community strategic plans to public art projects. The increase in these practices has been exponential, leaving little time for critical reflection. The lack of empirical data to illustrate how community engagement is understood and practised in different councils has hindered sector-wide reflection. This paper presents the findings of the ‘Local Government Community Engagement Census’, a survey of 175 councils – approximately half – from 4 of Australia’s eastern states. This sectoral snapshot provides a picture of how councils understand, prioritise and practise community engagement, allowing critical reflection, an interpretation of implications and suggesting areas for future research.     

Arab Local Government in Israel: Partial Modernisation as an Explanatory Variable for Shortages in Management

About one-third of all local and regional councils in Israel are Arab. Ever since their establishment, and especially during the last decade, the Arab authorities have suffered from financial crises and from administrative and organisational deficiencies that jeopardize their functioning. Arab local politics is characterised by the increased strength of traditional clan-affiliated forces, at the expense of modern representative groups. The present article has tried to explain the problems that beset the management of Arab local government in Israel. We believe that the explanation is rooted in the fact that ‘partial modernisation’ is the dominant explanatory variable for Arab local government shortages.     

INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION IN HUMAN SERVICES: IMPACT OF FORMALIZATION AND INTENSITY ON EFFECTIVENESS

Interagency collaboration in human services production, it has been claimed, contributes to improved quality and/or reduced costs, but previous research on effectiveness from collaboration has failed to recognize that collaboration could be arranged in a multitude of ways. This paper investigates the effectiveness consequences of alternative collaboration arrangements. From a literature review, the degree of formalization and intensity, respectively, stand out as major aspects of collaboration. The impact on effectiveness from intensity and formalization was investigated through an explorative case study of collaboration projects in Sweden. Results suggest that the particular combination of formalization and intensity determines the impact on effectiveness. Combining low intensity with medium high formalization into ‘an assignments reallocation strategy’ of collaboration appears to have modest impact, whereas medium high intensity in combination with low formality, that is, ‘a commitment‐based networking strategy’, has a high potential to increase effectiveness. High intensity in combination with high formalization produces ‘a formalized team‐building strategy’, which is simultaneously promising and risky.     

External Constraints on Local Service Standards: The Case of Comprehensive Performance Assessment in English Local Government

Central government in the UK has introduced performance management regimes that apply rewards and sanctions to local service providers. These regimes assume that organizational performance is attributable to decisions made by local policy-makers rather than circumstances beyond their control. We test this assumption by developing a statistical model of external constraints on service standards and applying this model to the outcomes of comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) in English local government. The results show that CPA scores were significantly influenced by the characteristics – such as social diversity and economic prosperity – of local populations. Thus 'poor' performance is partly attributable to difficult circumstances rather than bad choices.     

Exploring Collaboration,Its Antecedents,and Perceived Outcomes in Service Partnerships of Community-Based Organizations in South Florida

This article examines the temporal sequence of inter-organizational collaboration by investigating what factors contribute to collaboration and which collaboration practices influence collaborative outcomes in service partnerships formed by community-based organizations (CBOs) in South Florida. The article uses structural equation modeling to test the service partnership model. Findings indicate that development of service partnerships are mostly affected by environmental factors related to solving social problems (p < 0.001) which accounts for 37% of variance in inter-organizational collaboration. In addition, cognitive and resource reciprocity, indicators used to measure inter-organizational collaboration, had statistically significant influence (p < 0.001) on perceived collaboration outcomes. These findings shed light on how CBOs transfer theirs social mission in collaborative actions to alleviate social problems. Implications of this study can help service partnerships in identifying best practices and areas for improvement which are needed to build capacity at the inter-organizational level.     

Two-dimensional legislative conflict: unique implications for the effectiveness of local councils

ABSTRACT

Organisational scholars argue there are two distinct types of conflict found in the private-sector workplace. One is referred to as task conflict and the other relational conflict. We use their insights to devise our own measures of conflict on local elected councils. As opposed to ‘task conflict’ we use the term ‘policy conflict’ and keep the same nomenclature ‘relational conflict.’ We will contend it is important to not conflate the two. In this work, we test our unique operationalisations of conflict on an established measure of Governing Board Effectiveness. Because of concerns over using the same survey instrument to measure both explanatory variables and the dependent variable we also test our thesis regarding two-dimensional legislative conflict on entirely exogenous measures of ‘healthy cities.’ We find that higher levels of policy conflict comport with good governance outcomes, while relational conflict provides no measurable benefit.     

ETHICAL CLIMATE AND RULE BENDING: HOW ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS CONTRIBUTE TO UNINTENDED RULE CONSEQUENCES

Rules help ensure consistent employee behaviour, yet rule bending occurs in public organizations every day. Previous research indicates that rule bending is influenced by organizational structure and personal characteristics (DeHart‐Davis 2007). This present study considers the influence of organizational norms on rule bending by exploring the impact of ethical climate, which signals to employees the best course of action when faced with situations that are ethical in nature (Victor and Cullen 1987, 1988). To investigate this relationship, survey data from employees of a large American local government are analysed. Results from a structural equation model show that three ethical climates – ‘organization interest’, ‘team interest’, and ‘rules/SOP’ – significantly influence rule bending. Findings suggest that organizational norms play a critical role for employee behaviour and public managers can consider rule bending and ethical climate as impetuses for organizational change.