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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'UK local government'
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1
Scott, Matthew. "The role of community development in the modernising local government agenda, with specific reference to the local democratic deficit." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2012. http://research.gold.ac.uk/8034/.
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This thesis examines the interplay between community development and local government modernisation as practised in three neighbouring London Boroughs in the East and South East of London. By using qualitative approaches to research the field, including ethnography and semi-structured interviews with a range of statutory and community practitioners, the research seeks to examine a variety of stakeholder perspectives. ‘Community development’ in its UK context over recent decades has, as a distinct process, skill set and discipline, attempted to realise the potential of regeneration programmes and address the democratic deficit found in local government. It therefore reflected many of the main concerns of New Labour modernisation policies, appearing to be well placed to make a strong contribution to ameliorating social ills. There is recognition in this research that whilst government policy demonstrably changed some local structures, the corollary of actual community empowerment cannot be guaranteed or assumed. Through the testimony of local politicians, councillors, activists, managers and Community Development Workers the research examines the extent to which the principles and practice of community development were able to support modernisation as a programme of social reform and the wider factors that shaped the efficacy and transmission of policy. The reflexivity of the researcher as a community development practitioner with twenty years experience adds a deep and especially close engagement with the material. The researcher as a practitioner passionately wants to know ‘what works’ in relation to a shifting, often contradictory field of policy. By using ethnographic methods this research examines the concrete experiences and spaces in which community development and modernising reforms take place.
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Bennett, Cinnamon. "Mainstreaming in organisations : strategies for delivering women's equality in UK local government." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2000. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/3154/.
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In the early 1980s, feminist councillors and the women's movement pushed for the establishment of structured provision in UK local government to address the issue of women's equality. Women's initiatives were set up by a small number of Labour controlled councils. At the height of their activities in 1987 there were 45 Women's Committees, by 1995 only 9 remained (Halford 1988). A central question of this thesis was to examine why the delivery of equal opportunities for women was changing and what form the new initiatives were taking. The wider significance of studying the political activity of women's initiatives relates to the development of a new approach to women's equality delivery. Previous approaches can be classified as a legislative approach, based on the principle of equal treatment, and a positive action approach, which foregrounds women's material and social oppression. The new approach promoted, most notably, by the European Union argues for the need to 'mainstream' the work of equality practitioners so that every member of an organisation routinely and systematically adopts a 'gender perspective' in their work. A focus on gendered differences, rather than on women, aims to provide a more inclusive agenda which will appeal to a wider number of policy-makers, businesses and citizens. The second main thrust of this thesis was to explore the development of a mainstreaming approach to equality delivery in the UK. It contrasts UK practice to that advocated by the European initiative, and also begins to theorise the concept of mainstreaming in terms of feminist, organisational and sociological theory. Using a new concept of the'equality stool' to describe the historical development of equality practice, the thesis attempts to explain why practitioners in the UK local government have been averse to a mainstreaming approach. The thesis used qualitative methodology and a case study design to examine, in depth, the experience of women practitioners in three local authorities, over the last 20 years. It reports on practitioners' attitudes and opinions and makes the links between their views of the world, and the actions and events which they have described. The thesis has three main findings. First, that past practice holds important insights for the development of a mainstreaming approach in the UK and European member states. Second, that mainstreaming in the UK has been developed for different reasons and from different perspectives than those of the European initiative. Third, that women's equality practice can be seen as a strategy of embodiment, which demands that individuals transform themselves into gender aware actors. Women practitioners' underlying purpose has been to challenge the gendered conception of women's roles at work and in society. The findings are used to construct a table of prerequisites (organised according to Connell's 1987 gender order) which UK practitioners have identified as important for a mainstreaming approach to be successful. These prerequisites suggest that the development of a structured women's equality initiative may be a crucial first step before a mainstreaming strategy can be pursued.
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Norrey, P. J. "The relationship between central and local government in Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, 1660-1688." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/a4346ede-ff0e-47f1-a396-b17e6668b918.
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Parsons, Kelly. "Constructing a national food policy : integration challenges in Australia and the UK." Thesis, City, University of London, 2018. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/19680/.
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Calls for an integrated food policy to tackle the new fundamentals of the food system have been regularly made by academics, policymakers, the food industry and civil society for over a decade in many countries but, despite some changes, much of the old policy framework remains entrenched. This gap raises questions about why policy innovation has proved so difficult. This study responded to that research problem through a qualitative, interpretivist comparative study of how two countries attempted to improve their policy integration, via two specific policy integration projects: the UK’s Food Matters/Food 2030 process (2008-2010) and Australia’s (2010-2013) National Food Plan. It applied a conceptual framework fusing historical institutionalism and the public policy integration literature, focusing on the policy formulation stage. Fieldwork was conducted in both countries, including interviews with key informants; and publically-available documents about the policy projects and broader policy systems were analysed. The findings suggest the two policy projects represent a food policy shift from single-domain ‘policy taker’, towards multiple domain ‘policy maker’, but both fell short of what might be classed as ‘integration’ in the literature. The research identifies how tensions between domains are sidestepped, and makes broader propositions around how multiple values and goals co-exist in this contested policy space, and the need for improved value agreement capacity. It also highlights a general lack of focus on integration as a process. It explores how the legacy of historical fragmented approaches, plus political developments and decisions around institutional design, and a more general trend of hollowing out of national government, impact on how integrated food policy can be formulated in a particular country setting. It therefore proposes an emerging ‘institutionalist theory of food policy integration’, conceptualising the dimensions of integration, and multiple institutional influences on integration attempts.
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Phelps, Alan James. "An examination of the Relationship between rationale, Practice and Outcomes in Municipal Property Asset Management – A Comparative Study of the UK and Russia." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2009. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/390/.
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Local government globally is evolving in response to rising public expectations, changing socio-demographic factors and a growing focus on efficiency. The asset base used by municipalities in its service provision is changing to reflect this evolution. A new discipline of asset management has emerged prompted by a range of resource and policy influences. Its emergence reflects emphasis on a more strategic, entrepreneurial use of public assets rather than the more technical, stewardship role of property management from which it originated. In the past management of public property has received little critical attention but this has changed and a growing body of material is contributing to the advance of this new discipline. This thesis examines the relationship between rationale, practice and outcomes in asset management in order to understand the change factors that are a feature of this evolution of property management to asset management. An analytical framework was developed to measure why organisations do asset management; how they do it and what they achieve. This framework was applied through case studies to identify the change factors and to derive a simple typology of asset management to position organisations in the transformation process in terms of their approach and results. The case studies identified four change factors. These can be described as: strategic focus, organisational will, portfolio intelligence and an entrepreneurial culture. These characteristics were more evident in cases where organisations had advanced furthest from a traditional, paternalistic stewardship role of assets towards one of public entrepreneurialism.
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Johnson, Mathew. "Continuity, change and crowding out : the reshaping of collective bargaining in UK local government." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/continuity-change-and-crowding-out-the-reshaping-of-collective-bargaining-in-uk-local-government(553b0d62-5790-4a6a-8a5a-9980e6dae647).html.
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This thesis examines elements of continuity and change in systems of pay determination in UK local government, with a specific focus on the period of austerity since 2010. Spending cuts present significant challenges for collective bargaining through the National Joint Council (NJC), which also serves as a ‘critical case’ to test our understanding of contemporary collective bargaining and industrial relations. The research draws on 56 interviews with a total of 62 key actors from the employers’ representative organisations and trade unions at both national and local level, and eight local authority case studies. The interview data are complemented by a range of secondary qualitative and quantitative data sources. It seeks to understand the changing power relationships between employers and unions as they attempt to navigate increasingly turbulent waters, and the pragmatic trade-offs both sides are willing make over pay, terms and conditions, and working practices in pursuit of longer-term strategic goals. These issues are addressed through three levels of analysis. Firstly, building on a rich tradition of industrial relations research, the thesis shows how the national employers have repositioned the sector level collective agreement as a means to deliver cost control rather than ‘fair wages’, which the unions have so far tolerated in preference to a complete dissolution of national bargaining. Second, drawing on contingency models of pay and HRM, case study data are used to explore the mixture of managerialism and political opportunism which characterises the development and implementation of pay and reward strategies at the level of the organisation. The findings identify the continued importance of transparent job evaluation processes in determining wage structures, but also show how pay practices act as a means to signal desired behaviours from employees, and are used to reinforce local level political narratives. Finally, through a critical re-appraisal of New Public Management (NPM) reforms in local government since the 1980s, further case study data reveal the way in which employers have reorganised staffing structures to match reduced budgets, but it appears that increased levels of work intensity for a significantly depleted workforce are beginning to impact on service standards. The findings also suggest that the on-going process of restructuring serves as a means to increase managerial control of ‘the labour process’ through the efforts to standardise working practices and break down embedded departmental and professional identities. Taken together, the evidence suggests that although the formal institutions of employment relations have proved to be remarkably resilient, collective bargaining as a dynamic mode of joint regulation built on the notion of partnership has steadily been crowded out from both above and below. The meaningful content of negotiations has been squeezed by the tight financial constraints applied by central government, and in the vacuum created by stalled sector level negotiations local level pay and HRM strategies are becoming increasingly important to explain the level and distribution of wages. Perhaps as important as negotiations over pay are negotiations over working practices which fall outside the formal regulatory scope of the collective agreement, and change expectations about working time, task discretion, and job boundaries. A degree of drift across these three dimensions has resulted in an increasingly fluid adjustment of the wage-effort bargain over which the unions have a declining sphere of influence.
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Coyle, Hilary. "A strategic framework for performance measurement in local government : an empirical study of three district councils in the UK." Thesis, University of Derby, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10545/623040.
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Purpose – To investigate performance measurement in Local Government Authorities and to find out if a tool such as Kaplan & Norton’s (1996) Balanced Scorecard can be effectively used. There is a pressing need for the public sector to be efficient and effective in these times of austerity and thus to find out what they do with regards to performance measurement. To find any themes within the public sector and to see if there is a pattern and a framework that can be created. Design/Methodology/Approach – The current literature is first analysed both in the private sector and in the public sector. A deficiency of literature was found for the public sector and especially that of LGAs. The author is currently an elected member of a district council and an action research approach was taken within this case study. The data collected was then reviewed and followed up by semi structured interviews in all three councils. The data was analysed with a thematic approach. The councils chosen were all in the Midlands and are of a similar size and demographics. Findings – The findings indicate that the balanced scorecard is a tool that the LGAs can use and they do use a version of it but that there are complications to using it. Several themes appear such as: Stakeholders, Communication, Strategy, Leadership, Transparency, Business-Like, Resilience, Austerity and the Use of Balanced Measures. The main finding was that although the councils had good intentions they are not clear about what their citizens and stakeholders want. Therefore the future discussion needs to take a step back and start at the stakeholders rather than starting with the scorecard and the measures. Practical Implications – All LGAs are going through a period of austerity which is imposed by central government. They need to deliver the same quality of services for a reduced fee which means they need to work in an effective manner. By developing a framework that can show how the staff on the ground can influence and achieve the stakeholders’ expectations will enable the organisations to focus on what really matters. Once the council is focussed it can then let go of all the non-value adding activities in order to use their resources to satisfy their stakeholder needs. Originality/Value – There is a gap in the literature for this type of study as all previous studies have been for a singular LGA and from a non-action research viewpoint. A multiple LGA study would give more scope to expand the good practice. Also there is a gap in the literature for action research studies where more depth of insights can be revealed. For the LGAs a framework that can help them decipher the stakeholder needs and translate them into objectives for their staff in all levels of the organisation would vastly help them achieve their targets within the constraints of their ever decreasing stream of funding.
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Ford, Jackie. "Managers as leaders : towards a post-structuralist feminist analysis of leadership dynamics in UK local government." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.497281.
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This thesis presents a critical exploration of the reported lives and experiences of managers charged with responsibilities as leaders in a UK local government organization. It seeks to propose new ways of theorising leadership by drawing on discursive and psychoanalytic perspectives that develop a more critical, inter-related psychosocial analysis of managers' biographical narratives,in particular, it examines the importance of exploring leadership dynamics through a poststructuralist feminist analysis of discourse(s), identity/ies and gender.
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Connolly, Stephen. "An analysis of the UK National Lottery : estimating the degree of additionality for local government expenditures." Thesis, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.404657.
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Anderson, Colin Roy. "London government in transition : L.C.C. to G.L.C. 1962-1967." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/561262.
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This thesis concentrates upon a largely neglected subject wi thin contemporary political history, that is the transition in London government from the London County Council (L.C.C.) to the Greater London Council (G.L.C.). It is a study of the actions and reactions of poli tical parties at central government, county council, and district council level, and incorporates the role of non-political party pressure groups. The bulk of the thesis is concerned with the L.C.C. area. Consideration is, however, given to the non-L.C.C. area incorporated into the larger C.L.C. This work demonstrates that there was no consensus regarding the need for reform. It is argued that the lack of consensus led to compromises that failed to satisfy many interested groups and thus the C.L.C. was often perceived to be flawed. This thesis derives from an exhaustive literature search and extensive reading. The records of political parties were very useful. Newspapers and journals aided research, as did a series of interviews with key surviving individuals. A further source of information were the minutes of various local authorities and connected bodies. Previously unavailable records have been used, for example, Conservative Party and Government records. With the aid of these new sources this work uniquely concentrates on exposing the political constraints and biases that caused a flawed local government system to be introduced.
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Iqbal, Mohammad T. H. S. "Performance measurement in public sector organisation : application of balanced scorecard (BSC) in a UK local government authority." Thesis, City University London, 2007. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/8551/.
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This thesis explores the suitability of using 'Balanced Scorecard (BSC) -a performance measurement model developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton of Harvard Business School, USA' as a performance measurement framework for public sector organisations like UK Local Government Authorities. The research study was carried out using 'Case Study' method and the performance measurement model used for this study was a modified BSC model for'Non profit and public sector organisations' The test of the modified model of BSC was done on the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Corporate, Social and Housing Service Directorates. The testing of the model involved developing prototype 'Strategy Maps' and 'Scorecards' for all three service directorates and validating these through interviewing relevant officials. As each of the directorates were different in terms of service delivery objectives, stakeholders and performance measures or indicators, three sets of proto type strategy maps and scorecards were developed. The Strategy map included the vision, mission and strategic objectives of the organisation and directorates while scorecard showed the strategic objectives and their performance measures grouped under four perspectives of BSCService Users, Community and Stakeholders, Resource Management, Internal Process and Learning & growth. For validation of the proto type strategy maps and scorecards, senior officials of Tower Hamlets Council were interviewed. The analysis of the interview responses confirmed that the modified BSC model is suitable as a performance measurement framework for a local government authority like London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Some of the officials interviewed believed that if implemented properly, the BSC model can help achieve organisational alignment and inform next cycle of decision making. This may be an interesting area for further research.
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Okwaro, Isaack Onyango. "An examination of factors impacting the implementation of Information Technology Shared Services (ITSS) in UK local government bodies." Thesis, De Montfort University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/16355.
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The Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition government was formed in the year 2010 and embarked on austerity measures aimed at reducing the UK’s budget deficit. Among the measures that were proposed was the need for local governments to find ways of reducing their cost of operations. One way of reducing costs was through sharing resources. This measure was proposed in the Gershon report, commissioned by the central government. Information technology is a vital resource for running the operations of local governments. Sharing of information technology became crucial in facilitating sharing of other resources by Local Government bodies. There is, however, the need to take into consideration a number of factors in order to ensure that sharing of Information technology (Information Technology Shared Services – ITSS) resources is successful. Factor consideration involves implementation processes that take into account the constraints or facilitators that can be categorised into Technological, Organisational and Environmental categories. Through the review of academic literature, government records, news articles and from the interviews that were held with respondents from Local Government bodies, using advanced qualitative research method and Nvivo as an analytical tool, it was found that beside the reduction of costs and efficiency motives, sharing of Information Technology also impacted work culture and changes to internal processes. The main contribution of this thesis is that Information Technology Shared Services led to long term (or permanence of) association among Local Councils. This degree of permanence of association is beneficial for meeting the main objectives of each council, but also has the potential to lead to loss of autonomy by individual local authorities. Local government managers (management bodies) had to consider the ‘How? When? What?’ questions in order to implement the sharing of information technology resources. This research proposes further examination of the Technological, Organisational and Environmental (TOE) framework through the prism of a Technology Sharing Implementation Framework (TSIF). The proposed framework examines the impacts of TOE factors on implementing sharing of information technology processes / resources and why these factors have to be examined jointly, not disparately, when seeking to implement information technology resources. Mention has been made about examining these factors by assigning weights on them and using quantitative measures to show the importance of the factors. Implementation process of ITSS has been proposed for local government managers.
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McConnell, Daniel J. "An analysis into the factors affecting the uptake of applications of e-procurement, within the UK public sector." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2009. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/5921.
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Electronic procurement (e-procurement) has been widely adopted across the private sector, and as such various aspects of its adoption has been researched. The adoption of e-procurement in the public sector is not as widespread, especially in relation the UK Central and Local Government sectors, and accordingly there has been limited research into the factors affecting the adoption of e-procurement technologies, within this context. Consequently, this study, which has been undertaken with five case study organisations spread across the UK Central and Local Government sectors, aims to add to current published literature, and in particular provide an understanding of the relationship between the factors identified which have affected adoption, and the extent of adoption of e-procurement solutions. This research provides a number of significant contributions to current published literature including a comprehensive definition and conceptualisation of e-procurement and a holistic research framework which facilitates understanding the relationships between the level of adoption by the case study organisations and the factors affecting their decisions. Additionally, this study demonstrates that there is a high degree of commonality between the case study organisations in terms of their levels of adoption, and the factors that have affected such adoption. Of these factors, there are four that are particularly important, as they haven't previously attracted much attention in the literature. More specifically, this research highlights the importance of understanding an organisation's procurement landscape, the impact (both negative and positive) of public policy on adoption, the impact of enhanced organisational standing and the need for vision and leadership from senior stakeholders.
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Bowman, Benjamin. ""They don't know what's going on" : exploring young people's political subjectivities during transitions to adulthood in the UK." Thesis, University of Bath, 2016. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.698984.
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The transitions of young people to adulthood in the UK are a political threshold that has received much public attention. The trend for young people to abstain from elections relative to older generations is one example of the many reasons young people’s politics have come under the microscope of researchers who claim that the manner of young people’s transitions to citizenship represents an incipient crisis for the UK as a democratic system (Farthing, 2010; O’Toole, 2015, p. 175). This thesis responds to calls for more research into young people’s lives as sites for political subjectivity as well as, in the UK, for explorations of the main question in the field of young people’s politics: the extent and nature of young people’s relative disengagement from politics, and their marginalization from institutional politics in general The theoretical basis for this research project is a constructionist framework based on Bourdieu’s methods for uncovering social worlds (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 1) that also attempts to approach young people as equals in a political sense (Rancière, 1991, p. 229). Focus groups with young people at one vocational college, one secondary school and one youth group in the UK, utilizing participant photography as a data generation technique, provide the data for this study in an everyday politics approach. Young people’s perceptions of their everyday worlds are developed into broader discussions of political subjectivity, perceptions and actions.
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Pearce, Jenny V. "Participation and democracy in the twenty-first century city." Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/5837.
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Dinham, Adam Leslie. "Another New Deal for what community? : local people's experiences of participation in the UK government's New Deal for Communities." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.423296.
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Jones, S., Zahir Irani, Uthayasankar Sivarajah, and P. E. D. Love. "Risks and rewards of cloud computing in the UK public sector: A reflection on three Organisational case studies." 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/11902.
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yesGovernment organisations have been shifting to cloud-based services in order to reduce their total investments in IT infrastructures and resources (e.g. data centers), as well as capitalise on cloud computing’s numerous rewards. However, just like any other technology investments there are also concerns over the potential risks of implementing cloud-based technologies. Such concerns and the paucity of scholarly literature focusing on cloud computing from a governmental context confirm the need for exploratory research and to draw lessons for government authorities and others in order to ensure a reduction in costly mistakes. This paper therefore investigates the implementation of cloud computing in both a practical setting and from an organisational user perspective via three UK local government authorities. Through the qualitative case study enquiries, the authors are able to extrapolate perceived rewards and risks factors which are mapped against the literature so that emergent factors can be identified. All three cloud deployments resulted in varying outcomes which included key rewards such as improved information management, flexibility of work practices and also posed risks such as loss of control and lack of data ownership to the organisations. These findings derived from the aggregated organisational user perspectives will be of benefit to both academics and practitioners engaged in cloud computing research and its strategic implementation in the public sector.