Scrutiny and the Political Party Group in UK Local Government: New Models of Behaviour

Abstract

The introduction, via the Local Government Act 2000, of political executives held to account by influential overview and scrutiny committees challenges fundamentally the traditional operations of the party group system. This paper uses evidence from a variety of sources (including the experience of Parliamentary select committees) to explore how councillors are managing the tensions between party group loyalty and the expectation surrounding the operation of scrutiny. Four models of party group behaviour are identified with the group acting as partner, arbitrator, filter and Leviathan respectively. These typologies are then used (together with research evidence) to interpret the circumstances in which effective scrutiny may be aided or hindered by party group dynamics. Three alternative scenarios, which illustrate the impact of different political dynamics on the effectiveness of scrutiny, are identified and explored. It is concluded that the success of the overview and scrutiny experiment is by no means assured and faced with the intransigent nature of most party group behaviour, the future of effective scrutiny hangs in the balance.

Hybridizing the institutional logics of performance improvement and budgetary stewardship in English and Welsh local government

“…Yet, although elected councillors in the UK are often highly partisan (Leach and Copus, 2004), appointed officers have no political affiliation -and local authorities have a long history of cooperation and accommodating conflicting perspectives (Thurmaier and Wood, 2002;Ahrens et al, 2018). With this in mind, we sought to investigate whether the interactions between officers who advocated these conflicting logics was more 'peaceful' than the metaphors of 'institutional warfare' and 'battlefields' might suggest.…”

Two Patterns of Opposition: Party Group Interaction in the Bavarian State Parliament

“…2 Both Jenny and Müller's findings on Austrian MPs (2008) and Isaksson and Akademi's (1994, pp.102) empirical results on Finnish MPs underline a particular active role of Green Party opposition MPs that could -amongst other reasons -have its cause in the party's history in the grass roots movement. Their findings are backed by analyses of party group behaviour in British local government that suggests that the specific partisan world-view does influence a party group's votes (Leach & Copus 2004). First results of a study explaining party cohesion in the House of Lords from a socialpsychological angle through the party group members' 'belongingness' 3 further underline the important impact party culture might have on its members' behaviour and choice of strategies.…”

Electoral and Political Changes: the Impact on Political Bureaucratic Relationships in Scottish Local Government

“…Seldom are there studies which explore the political administrative interface at other levels of governance, in particular local government. Although there is much research on legislative, constitutional and political change, and similarly research on administrative reforms and modernisation of local government (Copus 2006, Leach 2006, Morrell and Hartley 2006, Rao 2005, Leach and Copus 2004, Lowndes and Leach 2004, McAteer and Orr 2003, Stoker et al 2003, Leach and Wilson 2002, Temple 1996, there are few studies which explore the effects of political change on administrative aspects of local government (Leach and Lowndes, 2007;Liddle 2007;Fenwick et al, 2006;Leach andCharteris 2000, Rallings et al. 1995).…”