Local Government Studies

The objective of this study is to analyse the technical or productive efficiency of the refuse collection services in 75 municipalities located in the Spanish region of Catalonia. The analysis has been carried out using various techniques. Firstly we have calculated a deterministic parametric frontier, then a stochastic parametric frontier, and finally, various non-parametric approaches (DEA and FDH). Concerning the results, these naturally differ according to the technique used to approach the frontier. Nevertheless, they have an appearance of solidity, at least with regard to the ordinal concordance among the indices of efficiency obtained by the different approaches, as is demonstrated by the statistical tests used. Finally, we have attempted to search for any relation existing between efficiency and the method (public or private) of managing the services. No significant relation was found between the type of management and efficiency indices.

In this paper we analyse whether collusion exists in the Dutch waste collection market, which shows a high degree of concentration. Although scale effects might be in accordance with this market outcome, the question is whether this concentration is in fact a result of fair competition. Using data for (nearly) all Dutch municipalities we estimate whether collusion exists and what the impact is on tariffs for waste collection. The results indicate that high concentration increases prices and therefore (partly) offsets the advantage of contracting out. The presence of competing public firms might be essential to ensure more and fair competition.

In 2003, the Dutch government introduced a VAT-compensation fund in order to create a level-playing field for local governments with respect to Value Added Tax (VAT). By introducing this fund the tax difference between governments that supply services themselves and governments that contract out to the private sector was eliminated. This paper shows, however, that according to most of the municipalities differences in VAT treatment did not hinder the contracting out of public services. Therefore, the fund lacks a great deal of its legitimacy. More important, the fund is not effective, as the number of contracted public services has hardly increased since the introduction. In general, municipalities have a negative opinion about this fund. They state that more than the budgetary effects, other arguments are relevant in the decision-making on the outsourcing of activities such as the quality of services and the employment in the own municipality. As the budgetary position for a number of municipalities will decline in the near future, the fund still may stimulate the outsourcing of public services in future.

Territorial fragmentation has been viewed as a problem in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Georgia is one of very few cases which has introduced an amalgamation reform dealing with this issue. The paper analyses the process of preparation and implementation as well as the consequences of the reform. It shows alternative reform proposals and discussions around them, which led to the selection of the most radical option of territorial consolidation. The paper briefly discusses the role of international aid programmes and especially of the Council of Europe (and the European Charter of Local Government) in structuring the discourse of the reform. On the basis of a public opinion survey and interviews, it shows that in spite of radical character of the reform it did not attract much of public attention, which is related to the fact that local government is not seen as an important element of the Georgian political system. In spite of initial declarations of the goals of the reform, the actual change was limited to the redrawing of administrative boundaries by the omnipotent (Leviathan) state and was not accompanied by parallel functional or fiscal decentralisation. According to some interpretations, the reform led to an even more centralised power structure. The price of the negative consequences of the amalgamation (such as local government being more distant from the citizens) has been paid, but the potential positive results of more capable and powerful local governments have not been achieved. Unreformed financial system has not allowed to reduce regional inequalities in capacity to finance local services either. Central government is afraid that decentralization may strengthen separatist tendencies undermining unity of the country and that is why the government is hesitant to introduce more decentralization.

The concept of local authorities providing 'community leadership' lies at the heart of the Blair government's modernisation agenda. The Local Government Act, 2000 embodied three models of political leadership to support this new community leadership role. To date, a number of authorities have held referendums for mayoral or cabinet systems of local leadership, with some having gone on to elect a mayor. This paper reviews the new executive structures and, based on surveys of public attitudes, explores public receptiveness to the options, comparing it with councillors' own responses. The consequences of adopting a cabinet or mayoral model are examined, together with their implications for officer-member relationships within the decision-making process.

Overview and scrutiny committees were intended to provide a counterbalance to executive decision-making. This paper presents an 'audit' of local government scrutiny based upon research conducted over the last five years. Three key findings emerge from the review of evidence to date: the research findings are remarkably consistent over time and between authors; all research concludes that, in general, overview and scrutiny is still struggling; although a mixed picture emerges when examining progress on individual roles for scrutiny. Indeed, research indicates that scrutiny is - in some authorities - making a valuable contribution in terms of policy review but is still failing to hold the executive to account effectively. The relationship between scrutiny and performance management remains underdeveloped, whilst external scrutiny constitutes a marginal activity for most authorities. The paper concludes that such findings reflect the importance of local political and organisational factors which dictate the boundaries and shape of overview and scrutiny: representing a triumph of local context over government-prescribed structural and constitutional change.

A case study of Liberal Democrat councillors is used to investigate models of local political recruitment. Quantitative survey data shows that Liberal Democrat councillors match the narrow socio-economic profile of representatives found in all modern democracies. Analysis of qualitative interview data on the recruitment of Liberal Democrat councillors suggests that while some councillors can be characterised as rational actors, judging the costs and benefits of council service, the importance of the informal negotiation between potential recruits and established political actors has been underestimated in accounting for the opportunity essential to local political recruitment.

Governance in the Nordic countries has a highly local character. Most public services are provided by locally elected bodies that enjoy a high degree of autonomy in relation to political institutions at the national level. In recent years, questions about the appropriate size of local government have re-surfaced, prompted, at least in part, by the current trend towards regionalisation within the EU. In this paper we investigate empirically the question of whether regionalisation in the Nordic setting can be said to reduce the democratic quality of governance in the area of health care. We do so by comparing conditions for democracy in a provincial governing unit (a so-called county council) in Sweden, with an average size of about 260,000 inhabitants, with those in a newly created region, populated by 1.5 million. We ask, thus, if it is true that governance in the smaller unit, i.e. the county council, is more democratic than in the region, and, if so, in what way? Our results point to that there is in fact little difference in democratic conditions between the region and the county council; a result that can be attributed to the fact that local institutions for decision-making and citizen participation were carefully re-constructed when Swedish county councils were amalgamated into regions. Hence, we conclude that institutions that facilitate direct democratic participation, such as the right of citizens to attend assembly meetings or submit proposals to the assembly are probably more important for the democratic quality of governance than size. 'Small' is not always more beautiful, at least not in democratic terms.

The article deals with the territorial reforms at municipal and county government levels which, following German unification in 1990, were carried out in the re-established (five) regional States (Lander) each of which, according to the German tradition and federal system, has the power to pass legislation on local government institutions as well as territorial structure. Conceptually influenced ('institution transfer', 'institutional isomorphism') by the territorial reform policies that were carried out in the West German Lander during the 1960s and 1970s, the East German Lander, after 1990, embarked on a 'carrot and stick' strategy. In a first ('participatory') phase, reform commissions were set up and public hearings held, followed by a ('voluntary') phase during which local governments were given the opportunity to 'voluntarily' agree to the territorial scheme proposed by the Land government. Finally, however, again in line with previous practice in West German Lander, if such local consent was not achieved, the Lander decided by binding ('coercive') legislation. In the period immediately after 1990, most East German Lander refrained from redrawing the boundaries of the multitude of small municipalities. Instead their strategy was largely to retain the latter while, again in a 'carrot and stick' approach, promoting the creation of a layer of intermunicipal bodies meant to operationally support the (administratively inept) small municipalities. Recently, a new round of territorial reforms has opened in most East German Lander, aimed at establishing territorially enlarged municipalities through mergers and, at the same time, reducing the number of intermunicipal bodies. A main reason for this 'reform of the reform' has been that the very small municipalities have proved politically and economically ever less viable, and that the intermunicipal bodies lack direct democratic legitimacy and have exhibited serious coordination problems and 'transaction' costs.

The 2004 Olympic Games showcased Greece on a global stage, with Athens and its hinterland benefiting from massive infrastructure projects. Stringent attempts were made to develop culture, tourism and agriculture, but many urban and rural areas experienced de-industrialisation, not unlike that found in Western Europe. The rural/urban divide within Greece is particularly acute as the Greek islands and farming communities benefited more from Euro-funds than some of their semi-urbanised counterparts. The cases examined in this paper (Kastoria's beaver industry, Lavrion's mining, and textiles and fruit in Naoussa) suffered the loss of markets, poor investment and a shrinking employment base. All three localities had (limited) national policy interventions that ultimately failed, whereas Athens, where the 2004 Olympics were hosted, had massive investment. This paper is framed within global, EU and local policy contexts, to examine specific areas in Greece, and shows that despite numerous EU-driven partnerships for culture, tourism and agriculture across the mainland and Hellenic islands, clientelism, especially within political parties, remains prevalent at all governance levels. The success or otherwise of regeneration efforts was significantly affected by the ways in which elite actors were involved. In summary, the cases illustrate uneven development across Greece by highlighting the role of national and local elites in shaping growth or decline; the significance of political parties and clientelism; different types of partnerships; and levels of intervention and non-intervention. The dynamic interplay of a constellation of factors reveals how regeneration and economic development are played out in specific localities.

In 2000 new 'Best Value' duties were placed on local government, seeking continuous improvement in local public services. This article draws upon our experience of evaluating the Best Value pilot programme, which took place ahead of implementation of the legislation. The results of the pilot programme influenced the Best Value guidance, demonstrated that the Best Value framework can deliver improvements and helped to shape ministerial expectations about the likely speed of change. However, the challenges associated with measuring the extent and level of service improvement with precision have a number of important implications for the future development of the regime.

This article addresses the significance of storytelling and narrative in a modernisation initiative. It examines how storytelling enabled a certain 'thrust' to be maintained in the project work. Shared stories of bureaucratic failings are analysed. These served a number of functions, one of which was to enable a clear sense of progress or modernisation to be established in the present. To maintain this sense of progress and modernisation individuals had to smooth over potential discontinuities, such as the re-emergence of cross-departmental conflict, in stories that stressed growth and learning. The article examines these narrative accomplishments and shows how they played an active role in sustaining the authority's self-image as a 'modernising council'. By examining the inter-relationship between the political project of modernisation and the individual project of constructing narrative accounts of organisational progress, the article also reveals subtle mechanisms of control operating between central and local government.

This article seeks to examine the extent of women’s participation in communal activities in rural Bangladesh, based on an analysis of a development programme, namely REFLECT (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques). This article evaluates the REFLECT programme with regard to its stated goal of enhancing female participation in local community affairs. Using Michael Mann’s classification of sources of power, the study emphasises the importance of participation as a contribution to political as well as ideological power in the community of Monsurabad Island in rural Bangladesh. To that end, this article aims at analysing women’s participation in community decision-making processes through voting behaviour, traditional village court (Salish) involvement and other civic activities. This study also reviews the views of village elders (matabars) on women’s participation at the communal level and the resulting empowerment. Based on the views of participant women themselves, the study concludes that the implementation of the REFLECT project in the local community under investigation has indeed resulted in empowering women, but this effect remains confined to their families and the handling of women’s issues. As the effect of the REFLECT project has not reached out to the realm of community politics, its impact on women’s participation in the community has been limited. This study argues that without any change in the existing social fabric of Monsurabad, women’s ideological power in that community could not be transformed into political power in accordance with Michael Mann’s theory.

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.

The Coalition government announced, in 2010, that between 2013 and the end of 2017 all existing claims to income-based welfare allowances, including housing benefit, would gradually move to the Universal Credit (DWP 2010). This article evaluates the performance of the Council Tax and Housing Benefits Administration Services under the current system for the delivery of these benefits since they were transferred fully to local authorities in 1993 up until December 2011. During this period the performance of local government has been influenced by four successive national delivery regimes, namely: Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT); Best Value; Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). An earlier article (Murphy, P., Greenhalgh, K. and Jones, M., 2011. Comprehensive performance assessment and public services improvement in England – a case study of the benefits administration service in local government. Local Government Studies, 37 (6), pp. 579–599) examined the CPA period in detail and found a significant improvement in performance across all types of authorities in all parts of the country during this period. The current article complements this earlier analysis and provides a longer-term perspective on the performance of the benefits service between 1993 and December 2011. The findings of this article show that under CCT the performance of the system was poor, there were wide variations in individual local authority performance, with many acknowledged inadequacies in the system and unacceptably high levels of fraud. However, towards the end of CCT and in the subsequent Best Value period the antecedents of some of the tools and techniques subsequently used to drive improvement in the CPA era were either put in place or were being developed. The Best Value period itself did not show significant improvements in performance and it was not until many of the initiatives were refined, developed and applied within the CPA framework that sustained and significant improvements became evident. This overall improvement generally continued under the CAA although the previous trend of consistent reductions in the variation between authorities’ performance had changed between 2009–2010 and 2011–2012. It is too early to judge whether these latest trends will be maintained under the Coalition government’s localism regime.

The wider use of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) is central to the current drive to promote public service improvement in the UK. This paper describes the policy context within which 'e-government' is being developed by local authorities in the UK and evaluates the strategies developed by a sample of local councils against the key components of an ideal model of the electronic local government organisation. It suggests that many authorities have made significant progress in providing information 'on-line'. However, additional funding and staff development, combined with more fundamental changes to internal business processes and inter-organisational working, are needed if councils are to harness the full potential of new ICTs to transform their transactions with service users and citizens.

Over recent years central-local relations has been a neglected topic for research in England. Local government research has mostly focused on political and institutional changes at the local level. The aim of this article is to set out a future research agenda on central-local relations which recognises how the spread of new 'governance' arrangements has changed those relations and how insights from the governance literature can shed light on those relations. The article stresses the need (1) to understand local policy processes and outcomes within the context of a wide range of non-local factors and actors, and (2) how those processes and outcomes have changed as governance arrangements have grown in significance. The contemporary politics of the welfare state involve both a greater central reliance on governance arrangements but also a rejection of the formerly highly institutionalised national local government system, dominated by service-based policy communities. Instead, the national-level policy processes now involve more diverse types of actors and, in many cases, cut across service-based boundaries. The key question is the extent to which these changes have modified the policy systems within which local government is embedded and whether they are more pluralistic or open than the old policy communities which once dominated local government policy-making at the centre.

As part of the proposed modernisation of Irish local government a directly elected mayor with executive powers will be introduced in Dublin in 2011. It is then anticipated that the system of elected mayors will be extended to the whole country. However, it is not known what impact this new form of executive leadership will have on the prevailing system whereby city and county managers are dominant. Drawing from experiences in the United Kingdom and the United States, this paper suggests that Ireland needs a clear, unambiguous mayoral model. As a political leader with executive powers it is imperative that the mayor’s relationships with both the council and the city/county manager are tightly defined. Accepted Version Peer reviewed

One of the most significant European higher education reform initiatives of the last decade is the introduction of a European Qualification Framework (EQF) emphasising Learning Outcomes (LOs) in higher education. The EQF is offered as a reform to contribute to increased transparency and mobility, and also implies a certain degree of standardization and comparability as to how these initiatives are implemented in European countries. The current article considers these changes in light of institutional perspectives that highlight how common HE reforms, in practice, often vary considerably. It investigates how factors of national policy-making contexts, reform traditions and broader reform agendas contribute to variations in contemporary interpretations and applications of LOs, here in the cases of Norwegian and English HE. It argues that 1) the characteristics of English and Norwegian higher education provided contexts where the perceptions of LOs evolved in very different ways, 2) the different political-administrative structures in the two countries were linked to different governance logics at the national level and institutional levels, and 3) despite these variations, some common mechanisms driving reform can be identified, in the role of intermediary and quality assurance bodies.

Despite strong scholarly interest in the topic of fiscal stress, little attention has been paid to understanding how the general public thinks local governments should respond to situations where declining revenues endanger service levels. This study reports findings from a survey of 660 residents undertaken between November 2006 and January 2007 in the US state of Michigan to examine their support for eight potential strategies to cope with fiscal stress in five different local government services. We find that the public has a surprisingly nuanced perspective about these strategies and on their use for different services. Our findings may provide local policymakers with some insights about how to respond to fiscal stress.

While women continue to be under-represented in local government , their level of participation in senior positions has increased markedly over the past two decades. However, little is known about these political actors. This study addresses this gap in the literature by drawing on interviews with nineteen women mayors who held office in the Australian state of Queensland during the period 2000-2004. The paper uses Sinclair, Bowman and Strahan’s (1987) typology of women local government leaders, to analyse the current position of women mayors in Australia. The paper finds that the profiles of women in these positions has markedly changed over the last 15 years. The paper concludes there is a need to focus on dismantling the stereotypes and implement well-designed and considered strategies to develop women leaders if the local government sector is to remain robust and viable in these changing social and economic times.

This paper reports on a Q methodological study of stakeholder perceptions of rural local government management of natural resources. Data analysis of the Q sorts revealed that there are five distinct stakeholder perspectives relating to rural local government and natural resource management. In terms of natural resource management at the local level rural stakeholders perceive local government as an unwilling participant, an inconsequential participant, as a problematic participant, as a potential participant, and, most positively, a participatory partner. The paper describes each of these five stakeholder perspectives in detail before examining the implications of these findings for greater natural resource management at the local level in non-metropolitan Australia.

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.

Using Barcelona as a case study, this article examines the relationship between local governance and local democracy. It begins with the terms of the debate and continues by identifying the context in which a particular model of governance arose in Barcelona. The article then looks at the extent to which governance fosters democracy, by strengthening the role of civil society organisations in government and creating new spaces of deliberation between the state and the citizenry. The final section examines the limitations of Barcelona's model of local governance in enhancing local democracy. The key finding is that the predominant role of the local council in facilitating citizen participation has as many strengths as it has weaknesses. In short, when participation becomes public policy it becomes a double-edged sword.

This article examines the evolution of local government economic development activities in England against the background of central-local relations and specifically the Sub-National Review (SNR) completed as part of the Treasury's 2007 Spending Review. The exercise represented perhaps the most comprehensive assessment of this aspect of public policy ever undertaken and was notable for the enhanced status and role which was proposed for local government. This vision is assessed in the light of earlier periods of local economic development and highlights a number of recurrent themes and challenges. The article concludes by examining how far these recurrent themes have been addressed in the SNR process and considers whether the proposals truly represent a sea change in government's attitude towards the contribution of local government to regional and local economic development.

This article explores the drivers of the development of strategic commissioning over the last two decades, its limitations, and the implications of its rapid spread. It suggests that the differences between government departments have allowed scope for local variations, which have been exploited by local government, leaving room for more innovation than would have been possible under an entirely ‘joined-up’ government agenda. The forms taken by this new approach to strategic commissioning were consistent with continual pressure from central government to find ways of promoting externalisation of public services. Although this underlying drive was often resisted, particularly at local level, but always re-emerged. The article ends by exploring the implications of this analysis for public services in the era of fiscal austerity under the new UK Coalition government.

The study of local power structures is highly relevant for a better understanding of local governance networks. Not only does it draw attention to the power dimension of local governance, it also brings to focus the individuals who play a role on and behind the scenes of governance networks. This article gives a comparative analysis of informal local power structures in three Dutch cities. Drawing on the classical reputational method of Hunter, it presents the 25 most influential persons of each city, their organisational backgrounds and influence resources. The results show that local power structures mainly consist of government executives (mayors, aldermen), entrepreneurs and directors of third sector organisations; local councillors and local civil servants are virtually absent on the lists of influential persons. Comparative analyses demonstrate that the composition of a local power structure is linked with the strategic policy objectives of the city. The article concludes with a brief summary of the findings and points to the value of local power studies for local governance research.

This article discusses developments in citizen participation and its contribution to democracy since the publication of the original article. It evaluates the continued relevance of the use of a normative framework to assess different forms of citizen participation, nuances some of the conclusions and shows how inclusion and a connection with formal decision-making remain central issues that need more scholarly attention. Moreover, the article shows how the framework has been used in advising councillors and organisers of local citizen initiatives.

Citizen participation is usually seen as a vital aspect of democracy. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. This article examines the probability of these claims for local participatory policymaking projects in two municipalities in the Netherlands. The article focuses on the relations between citizens and government from a citizens' perspective. The findings show that the role of citizens in these projects is limited, serving mainly to provide information on the basis of which the government then makes decisions. Nevertheless, the article argues that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on democracy: not only do people consequently feel more responsibility for public matters, it increases public engagement, encourages people to listen to a diversity of opinions, and contributes to a higher degree of legitimacy of decisions. One negative effect is that not all relevant groups and interests are represented. The article concludes that for a healthy democracy at the local level, aspects of democratic citizenship are more important than having a direct say in decision-making.

Urban planning in Norway can be characterised as market oriented, with responsibilities for the formulation of planning largely delegated to private developers. Even though the principle of citizen participation has a strong and longstanding tradition in Norway, the market-oriented practices challenge the ability of citizens to influence their spatial surroundings. Based on broad surveys and qualitative case studies, this article maps the attitudes of developers, councillors and planners towards citizen participation and studies the strategies of local community associations. Our analysis shows that developers value citizen participation to a much lesser degree than councillors and planners, which can explain the lack of participatory channels in early phases. Official avenues for participation occur later, primarily through hearings. Local associations find this to be too late, characterising urban planning as a path dependent process; as a consequence, local associations attempt to influence planning processes in a more informal way by contacting councillors directly.

In this paper we analyse whether collusion exists in the Dutch waste collection market, which shows a high degree of concentration. Although scale effects might be in accordance with this market outcome, the question is whether this concentration is in fact a result of fair competition. Using data for (nearly) all Dutch municipalities we estimate whether collusion exists and what the impact is on tariffs for waste collection. The results indicate that high concentration increases prices and therefore (partly) offsets the advantage of contracting out. The presence of competing public firms might be essential to ensure more and fair competition.

In this paper, a Sure Start programme is used to explain an emergent 'Service Domain' model, built around innovative and creative service integration and complementary multi-professional partnerships for pre-school children and their families in disadvantaged communities. Sure Start, the cornerstone of the government's ambitious policy to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020, and a major departure from traditional single agency service delivery, emulates the Head Start initiative in the USA where funding came directly from federal government and by-passed state legislatures. The Sure Start funding mechanism had a pre-requisite to establish multi-agency partnerships with equal parent representation, as a result of central government's frustration with the failure of mainstream agencies to unite strategically and operationally to deliver integrated services. The Sure Start initiative represented a nationally coordinated attempt by central government to address previously disjointed approaches to children's services integration.

There is growing interest in new ways in which states interact with citizens, and public services respond to their customers. This interest stems from many sources and has arisen in many different contexts. What these agendas have in common, however, is that they are all predicated on new flows of information between government and citizens that may be facilitated by the innovative application of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This article reports on current research into these innovative developments in English local government, from which it is possible to develop a more systematic, empirically-based understanding of the impact of new ICTs on local political and economic development.

The analysis of Australian local government reform almost invariably focuses on systemic changes that can be wrought by the application of various policy instruments, like the structural reform of the scale of local councils or changes to the enabling legislation governing local government. Scholars typically use this approach and differentiate the efficacy of reform measures according to classifications of council by generic type. While this approach has been exceedingly fruitful in the past, this paper argues that small, remote and isolated Australian local authorities are sui generis in the sense that they are not amenable to standard reform policies because their unique circumstances and special characteristics. The paper considers the case of local shires in the Central West outback region of Queensland that comprise the Remote Areas Planning and Development Board (RAPAD) group of councils and attempts to draw some general lessons for local government policymakers. Despite the recent limited forced consolidation experienced by some RAPAD councils, we find that the 'tyranny of distance' afflicting RAPAD members means that it is not amenable to 'top-down' reform measures, like council amalgamation, and policy makers should instead focus on 'local solutions to local problems' and encourage feasible forms of resource sharing. Yes Yes

Recent initiatives for modernising local government have ignored the potential contribution of parish and town councils. This article critically examines English parish and town councils in the context of the current debate about the need for government to be more responsive to community needs. It considers measures to enhance the capacity of these grassroots councils by recalibrating the responsibilities and resources between tiers of local government. It concludes by setting out possible reforms to facilitate the contribution of these local councils to the modernising agenda as both representatives of the community and potential providers of local services.

The story of local government over the last few decades is often summarised in the assertion that there has been a move away from institutional authority embodied in the structures of councils towards more complex networks of local governance, incorporating a range of stakeholders and other agencies, alongside a shift of power from local to central government. But local government has been at the centre of wider processes of restructuring - of attempts to modernise the welfare state, and specifically the local welfare state. Underpinning the changes that have faced local government (and created new forms of governance) has been a series of assumptions about welfare and how it is best delivered. These combine notions of community, neighbourhood, personal responsibility, workfare and partnership with a distrust of 'bureaucracy' and professional power. It is in this context that the 'modernisation' agenda - promising cultural change - has been driven forward, paradoxically combining a rhetoric of decentralisation and empowerment with an increasingly direct involvement by the institutions of central government and a range of other state agencies in the practice of 'local' governance. The emergent arrangements are increasingly characterised by forms of self-regulation as well as more differentiated management from above.

Empirical research on Political Business (and Budget) Cycles is more supportive for electoral cycles in policies than in macro-economic outcomes. But even pre-electoral policy cycles receive no unanimous confirmation. In the present paper, we give credence to recent arguments that this may be due to the disregard for the political, economic and institutional context in which politicians make policy decisions. Specifically, we argue that the level of political fragmentation of the government affects both the need for and possibility to engage in opportunistic policy cycles. An analysis of local public debt data for 296 Flemish municipalities provides empirical support for this contention.

New Labour’s third White Paper promised the revitalization of local government after ten years of control freakery. It does not, however, live up to the promise of a ‘new localism’ (Stoker and Wilson, 2004). The tenor of the paper is moralizing and prescriptive, claims to a new approach belied by the Government’s negative response to Lyons. Proposals for reform are ambiguous, offering no guarantees against back-door centralisation. Such cause as there may be for optimism largely depends on the capacity of localities to take the initiative. A fundamental debate about the role of local government, local democracy and the relationship between centre and locality is therefore still needed. Given the preponderance of path dependencies, strategic dilemmas and structural constraints upon the centre, the demand for local democracy will have to be initiated, voiced and organised by local citizens and councillors themselves.

The restructuring of the allocation of governmental competencies in France has increased the importance of subnational governments by transferring additional tasks. We analyse the efficiency of public spending on the intermediate government level for the 96 départements in metropolitan France in 2008. Spending efficiency is measured using Data Envelopment Analysis. Results indicate significant room for improvement and we detect an average spending inefficiency of 12%. To explain efficiency, a bootstrapped truncated regression is applied. The second-stage regression shows that efficiency is also determined by exogenous factors and identifies the distance to the national capital, inhabitants’ income and the share of inhabitants older than 65 as significant determinants of efficiency.

The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England’s largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors – with enhanced powers – remains firmly on the policy agenda.Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors’ analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England.

Local government in advanced economies is undergoing a period of rapid reform aimed at enhancing its efficiency and effectiveness. Accordingly, the definition, measurement and improvement of organisational performance is crucial. Despite the importance of efficiency measurement in local government it is only relatively recently that econometric and mathematical frontier techniques have been applied to local public services. This paper attempts to provide a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of efficiency measurement in local government. We examine both the measurement of inefficiency in local public services and the determinants of local public sector efficiency. The implications of efficiency measurement for practitioners in local government are examined by way of conclusion.

New Labour has subjected English local government to an unparalleled period of reform. This article reviews the Local Government Modernisation Agenda evaluation studies commissioned by central government. The review identifies valuable insights from the studies into the contemporary state of English local government, central government and central-local relations. However, the studies also illustrate the need for research on public service reform to include analyses of the political origins of reform policies and the political-bureaucratic issues involved in their implementation. It is also argued that future research needs to rediscover the value of studying local politics 'in the round', the impact of socio-economic and non-local factors on local policy outcomes and the role of new sources of policy influence in the channels of central-local relations.

Minor parties in English local government have largely been neglected by the research literature because of their lack of electoral success at the aggregate level. However, over the past decade minor party candidates have contested an increasing number of wards and this rise is disproportionate to their share of the vote. Developing the concept of ‘presence’ and a focus on wards rather than seats we use newly reworked data from the Elections Centre Database (University of Plymouth) to plot the proportion of wards contested by minor party candidates from 1973–2008. We argue that whilst changes in vote share are minimal throughout the period, the magnitude of the recent increase in minor party activity at the ward level is unprecedented and justifies further study. We also explore the variation in minor party activity between authority types, concluding that the explanation for the recent rise in contestation is not constant across similar authorities and electoral systems. We suggest that the explanation for minor party activity is much more complex and relative.

This article is about the persistence and resilience of the form of local government that emerged in England in the nineteenth century and took shape in the twentieth century. English local government has adapted to successive reorganisations and changes to its functions; it has survived centralisation, privatisation, the imposition of quangos, regional governance, elected mayors, performance management and latterly fiscal austerity by responding to opportunities and meeting the continual need for administrative tasks at the local level. The centralised structure to political management in English local government has generated a high level of organisational capacity and a pragmatic sensibility that ensures the institution remains in place even in unpropitious circumstances. Other local organisations, such as voluntary sector bodies and quangos, have less capacity to compete and work to shorter timescales. Such resilience has come to the fore in the period of fiscal austerity since 2009 when local authorities have had to manage severe declines in their budgets whilst taking on additional functions, such as council tax benefit. The organisational capacity and pragmatism of English local government create path dependence as its very efficiency at managing services may have shut off options for democratic renewal and participation.

Introduction: Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are a major recent innovation in English local Governance (Aulakh et al, 2002; Hastings, 2003). Their role is crucial to the success of a number of other government policies and initiatives, including neighbourhood renewal and Local Area Agreements, and more widely to the responsive and effective delivery of local public services. Drawing on material from the national evaluation of LSPs, this paper assesses the progress of LSPs. A ‘theory of change’ (ToC) approach was adopted to drive and give coherence to the diverse elements of this large scale and complex evaluation. The paper first outlines how the ToC approach was developed and utilised in the evaluation. The main findings from the evaluation are then presented and discussed. While the initial function of the ToC was to develop a logic chain representing a virtuous circle where governmental aspirations for LSPs are achieved, it soon became apparent that a ‘vicious circle’ model was needed too, in which partnerships do not function as intended. It is shown that elements of both the virtuous and vicious circle are necessary to explain actual policy outcomes. In conclusion the article reflects on the experience of the LSPs evaluation to draw some wider conclusions both about the strengths and weaknesses of the ToC approach and about Local Strategic Partnerships themselves.