Transforming Local Governance: From Thatcherism to New Labour

264 Pages·2004·1.214 MB·English

by  Gerry Stoker (auth.)

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Published
Richard Batley and Gerry Stoker (eds) Gerry Stoker (ed.)
Local Government in Europe The New Management of British Local
Governance
Sue Goss
Making Local Governance Work Gerry Stoker (ed.)
The New Politics of British Local
Clive Gray
Governance
Government Beyond the Centre
Helen Sullivan and Chris Skelcher
John Gyford
Working Across Boundaries
Citizens,Consumers and Councils
Tony Travers
Richard Kerley
The Politics of London
Managing in Local Government
David Wilson and Chris Game
Desmond King and Gerry Stoker (eds)
Local Government in the United
Rethinking Local Democracy
Kingdom(3rd edn)
Steve Leach,John Stewart and Kieron
Perri 6,Diana Leat,Kimberly Seltzer and
Walsh
Gerry Stoker
The Changing Organisation and
Towards Holistic Governance
Management of Local Governance
Arthur Midwinter
Local Government in Scotland Forthcoming
Christopher Pollitt,Johnston Birchall and
Bas Denters and Lawerence E. Rose (eds)
Keith Putman
Comparing Local Governance
Decentralising Public Service
Management Steve Martin
The Transformation of Public Services
Lawrence Pratchett and David Wilson (eds)
Local Democracy and Local Rajiv Prabhakar
Government The Future of Public Services
John Stewart Lawrence Pratchett
The Nature of British Local Government Local Democracy in Britain
Gerry Stoker Gerry Stoker and David Wilson (eds)
Transforming Local Governance British Local Government in the 2000s
Transforming Local
Governance
From Thatcherism to New Labour
Gerry Stoker
© Gerry Stoker 2004
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-0-333-80248-9
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ISBN 978-0-333-80249-6 ISBN 978-0-230-21368-5 (eBook)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stoker,Gerry,1955–
Transforming local governance :from Thatcherism to New Labour /
Gerry Stoker.
p.cm.– (Government beyond the centre)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-333-80248-9
1.Local government – England.2.New Left – Great Britain.
3.Conservatism– Great Britain.4.Great Britain– Politics and government.
I.Title.II.Series.
JS3111.S77 2003
320.8(cid:2)0942—dc22 2003060863
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
To Deborah, Bethany, Robert and Benjamin
with lots of love
Contents
List of Tables,Figures and Boxes xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
A context of change 1
The argument of the book 3
1 The Emerging System of Local Governance 9
Beyond New Management:the emergence of
networked local governance 10
Networked community governance:the
organizational and structural ingredients 15
Beyond elected local government 15
Beyond overhead representative democracy? 16
The rise of multi-level governance 18
The search for fiscal fudges and value for money 20
Towards new governing processes 22
Conclusions 26
2 The Legacy of the Conservatives:Governance by Default 28
A changed institutional framework:making
new governance structures 29
A reorganized local government 29
A tight financial regime 31
The rise of local quangos 32
New Public Management 33
The regulation of public services 35
The impact of the Conservative reforms on services 38
The problems of the world of governance
created by the Conservatives 41
The Conservatives’neglect of local politics 43
Ending local government:the Conservatives stand accused 45
Conclusions 47
vii
viii Contents
3 New Labour:Embracing Local Governance? 48
The three projects of New Labour:beyond the
rhetoric of modernization 49
New Labour’s critique of elected local government 54
Labour’s vision of local governance 58
The reform agenda 62
Conclusions 68
4 Understanding New Labour’s Reform Strategy 69
The contribution of grid-group theory 70
Control freaks,partners or bookies? Characterizing
New Labour’s approach to central–local relations 74
The ingredients of New Labour’s lottery reform strategy 77
The making of the reform strategy 81
Conclusions 85
5 Improving Service Delivery under New Labour 86
Best Value:a review of its style 87
The response of local authorities to the Best Value regime 89
The rise and rise of inspection 94
Labour’s second-term agenda for service delivery 96
Following up Comprehensive Performance
Assessment:lessons from enforceability analysis 99
Conclusions 106
6 Democratic Renewal:Getting People to Participate 108
Electoral reforms 110
What lies behind low turnout? 112
More participation and innovative forms of consultation 114
Can democracy be engineered? What difference does
officially sponsored consultation make? 121
Conclusions 125
7 Promoting Local Political Leadership 126
The established system of political management and
the reform proposals 132
The case for reform:leadership suited to the
challenge of networked community governance 136
The case against reform 139
Contents ix
The interest and institutional bases of resistance
to the mayoral model 145
New Labour’s compromised implementation strategy 148
Conclusions 151
8 Partnership and Joining Up in a Era of
Multi-Level Governance 153
Mapping New Labour’s institutional framework
for local and regional governance 154
The devolution programme 154
No bonfire of local quangos 158
The burgeoning world of partnership 159
New Labour’s centralizing implementation
strategy for joining up:first-term mistakes 160
New Labour’s competing visions of effective
multi-level governance 164
The networked community governance model 165
The constrained discretion model 166
Multi-level governance:which way for New Labour? 169
Conclusions 173
9 Local Finance:Coming to Terms with Governance? 175
Governance and local finance 176
Moving beyond the established debate:four
criteria for a local finance system 178
Choices over local finance facing New Labour 184
Moving to new universalism 184
A new localist solution? 186
Strengths and weaknesses of the options 188
Conclusions 189
10 The Challenge of Governance 192
Making history in challenging circumstances 192
The interpenetration of multi-level governance 193
Decline in public trust 196
The presence of flawed institutional legacies 200
Learning the new processes of governance 201
Meeting the change challenge of organizational change 202
How to manage the mix:combining governance
strategies and coping with failure 204
x Contents
Confronting the structural contradictions of governance 207
The dilemmas of governance through networking 208
Managing through the state:tensions and difficulties 213
Conclusions 214
11 New Labour and Local Governance:
Unfinished Business 215
New Labour’s reform of local governance:an assessment 216
Searching for a new localism:the limits to
steering centralism 219
Why new localism matters 222
Choosing New Localism 224
References 229
Index 241