The 'death of improvement': an exploration of the legacy of performance and service improvement reform in English local authorities, 1997-2017

When Tony Blair's New Labour administration took control in 1997, it sought to establish a programme of organizational, performance, and democratic reform. Initially badged as the modernizing government programme, it was later developed in the Best Value regime for local government, which imposed a centrally-controlled performance regime on all local authorities. This was characterized by a managerialist regime of external inspections, league tables, and reliance on extensive performance management, overseen by the Audit Commission. One of the first acts of the 2010 Coalition government was to dismantle this regime, along with announcing the abolition of the Audit Commission. This research sought to examine the legacy of the 1997-2010 performance regime on six English local authority case studies, identified via a deviant case analysis. An examination of the literature developed a conceptual model of seven dimensions of reform, and the research used an exploratory approach to examine the legacy of the performance regimes through a range of qualitative interviews and focus groups. The inductive analysis of interview data found that financial austerity dominated the local government environment, and the impacts of these cuts were felt across the entire group of case studies. These savings requirements had effectively broken the expectation of continuous improvement explicit in the Best Value duty what we refer to here as the death of improvement . Authorities were reducing staffing, which resulted in the loss of expertise and skills. They were also scaling back many universal services through managed decline , and deregulation of performance regimes was stimulating divergent responses to performance management arrangements, as well as influencing the relationship between politicians and performance management, and central performance staff and departmental staff. There were challenges raised around the residual inspections, largely restricted to social care and education, and how these interacted with central performance team models. The discussion develops a three-part model of performance as a system of governance , which integrates three key areas of theoretical and empirical development: performance management frameworks, accountability, and value for money. This allows four main contributions to knowledge: The concept of public value for money , Further development of our understanding of multiple forms of accountability A new model of performance management zones that articulates different roles for performance management at points within the organization A categorisation of the main changes in reform paradigms It concludes that understanding the values underpinning public sector reforms through a range of interpretive lenses is essential to fully comprehending the impact of reforms at three levels: conceptualization, operationalization, and implementation. The legacy of Comprehensive Performance Assessment and Comprehensive Area Assessment can be seen in the increased capacity and capability of local authorities to engage with performance management, and data and evidence-driven policy making. Yet, these capabilities may not have prepared authorities sufficiently for the demands of significant budget cuts driven by the post-2010 political environment

Social brokers: looking for new players to support both e-services and e-participation

The role of ontology in social research. Technology and information technology through the lenses of a cognitive approach and a phenomenological approach. Social brokers: players for mediating participation in political and institutional systems. The role of social brokers in three Italian public bodies. Participation: what is it?. E-participation: the Partecipa.net case

COALITIONS IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT: PARTY POLITICAL STRATEGIES IN HUNG COUNCILS

This work takes a multi-method approach to the study of hung English councils. Insights and suppositions from a variety of approaches are utilised, including formal coalition theory and case studies of local authorities. A major aim of the thesis is to analyse questionnaire and case study data which will further improve our understanding of coalitional activity. Although the primary purpose is to inform the student of hung councils, formal coalition theories are also tested. This study provides the first clear evidence that elected political elites lose power to the body of councillors in most hung councils. However, the power of the bureaucratic elite, unlike their political counterparts, appears to remain relatively constant. Contrary to previous proposals, decision making is not characterised by uncertainty and confusion; a learning process takes place in hung councils, and the views of participants become more favourable over time. The influence of the centre party is a recurring theme of the study. Whether payoffs are office or policy, the Liberal Democrats are the primary beneficiary in hung English councils. Their commitment to a more open form of decision making and willingness to bargain with other parties may be contributing reasons for their success, but it is their ideological position in the middle of the two main parties which is offered as the primary reason for the influence they wield. None of the formal theories of coalition formation and duration perform well in predictive terms. Overall, the most accurate prediction of administrative formation would posit a minority administration formed by the largest party group, although majority coalitions are becoming more prevalent. Contrary to expectations, minority administrations are also more durable than coalitions. The large number of minority administrations demonstrates that not all politicians are 'office-driven', and that policy pay-offs are crucial. Policy closeness appears to be a greater influence on duration than either ideological connectedness or coalition size.UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GALWA

The Uptake of e-Government in Switzerland: An Improbable Mismatch?

The objective of this PhD project consists in the analysis of drivers of and barriers to e-Government development in Switzerland and in the assessment of the utility of this specific type of public innovation for the Swiss public administration. Using a mixed-method approach that combines semistructured interviews and an expert survey, this research provides explanations related to the comparatively low ranking of the country in the matter of e-Government. The Swiss case study is here classified as a deviant one; the outcome in the matter of e-Government does not correspond to the background conditions that characterise the Swiss context. The findings show that the key factors that impact on the uptake of e-Government projects are related to organisational culture in the Swiss public administrations and to the lack of cooperation structures between different departments and levels of government. The instalment of a more innovation-friendly culture would lead to more openness toward e-Government and to the empowerment of the Swiss public sector in regard to public innovation. Due to the division of competencies defined by the Swiss federalist structures, the creation of a community that would allow for sharing innovative ideas seems to constitute the key to more cooperation and learning in the framework of e-Government projects

ERP and functional fit: how integrated systems fail to provide improved control.

Companies have been investing in integrated enterprise applications (such as ERP) for over a decade, without firm evidence of a return from these investments. Much research has centred on the factors which will lead to a successful implementation project (eg: Holland and Light, 1999; Shanks and Seddon, 2000), but to date there appears to be little research on the longer term impact of ERP systems on the organisation (Heili and Vinck, 2008). Although the greater level of system integration brought on by ERP has meant that there is more operational information available to managers than ever before, the information stored in ERP applications requires much off-line manipulation in order to be meaningful to managers. The data held in ERP databases originate in physical processes that evolve over time, and thus inevitably a gap opens between the ERP system, and the reality it is designed to capture (Lee and Lee, 2000). Taking the evaluation of management performance against organisationa

Elites, crises, and regimes in comparative analysis (1998)

"Most political regimes, whether authoritarian or democratic, are born in abrupt, brutal, and momentous crises. In this volume [Mattei Dogan, and John Higley: Elites, Crises and the Origins of Regimes], a group of prominent scholars explores how these seminal events affect elites and shape regimes. Combining theoretical and case study chapters, the authors draw from a wide range of historical and contemporary examples to challenge mainstream developmental explanations of political change, which emphasize incremental changes and evaluations stretching over generations. Instead, the authors argue here, political leaders and elites possess significant autonomy and latitude for maneuver, especially in times of crisis. And their choices are frequently decisive in the making of regimes and the forging of national political histories. Providing a sustained comparative analysis of elites, their circulation, and behavior across times and countries, this lucid volume will be invaluable for scholars and students alike." (author's abstract

Historical Institutions, Ideological Contestation, and International Pressures for Reform : Exploring Higher Education Governance in Turkey

Higher education systems and institutions worldwide are currently subjected to structural and policy reforms, which have sparked social scientific interest in analyzing reform processes in this specific policy sector. Country case studies have been a mainstay of higher education policy research, contributing to the emergence of a significant body of knowledge providing insight into national specificities playing out in reform processes. Located within the country case study tradition in higher education studies, this dissertation analyzes policy changes specific to higher education governance arrangements at both systemic and institutional levels from the foundation of the Republic of Turkey (1923) to the present. It places particular focus on the causes and outcomes of higher education reforms along with the mechanisms linking the two. The study utilizes historical institutionalism as an overarching theoretical perspective guiding the analysis. It also benefits from the certain insights of ideational and sociological institutionalism in explaining policy change. Process-tracing as a specific within-case method is deployed to explain how and through which mechanisms policy outcomes occurred. It draws upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources to provide a vivid description and craft a plausible explanation of policy change in the policy sector. Overall, the study contributes to the empirical understanding of higher education policy in Turkey. It explains the causes and outcomes of change, identifies actor constellations in decisionmaking, and sheds light on the historical trajectory of higher education governance in the country. Theoretically, the study contributes to our understanding of policymaking dynamics in higher education by bringing relatively understudied phenomena into the forefront, such as the role of the military in the higher education policy reforms or the politics of university reforms under authoritarian single-party rules.Doktorgradsavhandlin

How are local public services responding to austerity?: English local governance between 2010 and 2015

This thesis explores how English councils and their public service partners responded to the UK Coalition government’s ‘austerity’-related spending cuts between 2010 and 2015. The research is distinctive in moving beyond a focus on the impacts of cuts to individual services, instead considering responses to austerity ‘in the round’, using a governance perspective. The methodology was innovative, using principles of ‘action research’ and ‘appreciative inquiry’ to design the research collaboratively with Nottingham City Council. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2012 and 2014, including a document review, 34 interviews and two workshops with frontline staff, as well as informal participant observation. The approach aimed to deliver academic rigour, as well as useful findings for practitioners addressing challenges in the field. Taking the locality of Nottingham as an exploratory and revelatory embedded single case study, the analysis combines insights from new institutionalist and interpretive theory. It demonstrates that although the council showed institutional resilience, and was able to maintain a wide range of services, spending cuts were creating pressure to change both the ‘practices’ and ‘narratives’ underpinning service delivery. Tensions in some service delivery partnerships suggested shifts in local ‘traditions’ of governance, viewed by some actors as symptomatic of a wider change in the values underpinning governance institutions. Meanwhile the council was increasingly focussed on strategic forms of community leadership, whilst links with local communities were diminishing. Working with partners, the council had (at least temporarily) mitigated a dramatic reduction in income. Yet although change in service delivery was incremental, the potential for transformation in local governance was clear. These findings are shown to have consistencies with wider comparative studies. Policy implications are discussed for the 2015 Conservative government, as it implements a further round of austerity-related cuts