The politics of managerial reform in UK local government: a study of control, conflict and resistance 1880s to present

Gill-McLure, Whyeda

doi:10.1080/0023656x.2014.913417

Cited by 13 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT), for instance, led to 300,000 manual job losses in the 1980s (UNISON 1994). In short, there is little or no evidence of successful union renewal (see Gall 1998 for a general assessment, Colling 1995 and Gill-McLure 2014 on local government unionism, Carter 2004 on teacher unionism and Carter et al 2012 on civil service unionism).…”

Section: The Hollowing Out Of Public Sector Unionismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The crisis of public sector trade unionism: Evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

Carter

Kline

2016

Capital & Class

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Section: The Hollowing Out Of Public Sector Unionismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The crisis of public sector trade unionism: Evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

Carter

Kline

2016

Capital & Class

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“…Under labels including new public management, new managerialism or simply restructuring (Harris, 1998;Heffernan, 2006), private sector management principles and practices have been advocated as means to reduce public sector costs, increase public sector accountability and empower service users. These umbrella terms refer to a wide range of practices, from outsourcing (Cunningham and James, 2009;Gill-McLure, 2014), managed competition (Aronson and Neysmith, 2006) and public-private partnerships (Hebson et al, 2003;Rubery et al, 2013) to the use of performance management, quantitative performance metrics, customer orientation and private sector human resource management practices (Bach and Bordogna, 2011). Within this broad international movement, state restructuring increasingly happens by adopting one of two ostensibly coherent and comprehensive operations management systems: business process reengineering and lean.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Customer-driven management models for choiceless clientele? Business process reengineering in a California welfare agency

Esbenshade

Vidal

Fascilla

et al. 2015

Work, Employment and Society

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Business process reengineering and lean are increasingly used to restructure public sector work. This article presents a case study of reengineering in a California welfare agency. It finds extensive work intensification and reduced autonomy for the workforce, and deteriorating service for the clientele. Rather than attribute these outcomes as inherent to the business process reengineering model, this article emphasizes how cost cutting and quantitative efficiency were prioritized over worker empowerment and service quality because the organization is a government agency facing severe budgetary pressures under neoliberalism, and the clientele consists of indigent families and individuals who have no choice of an alternative provider.

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“…The Conservatives implemented a manifesto based on theories of rational choice. They considered the public sector to be too big and inefficient whereas the private sector could provide significant financial savings and better value for money (Gill-McLure, 2014;Kuhlman, 2010), and so made CCT mandatory for local governments (Patterson and Pinch, 1995;Boyne, 1998).…”

Section: Public Service Delivery In England: a Changing Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, local government has been increasingly "hollowed out" since the Conservatives' terms of office starting in 1979 (Kuhlman, 2010), where democratically-elected, locally-responsible forces were replaced by central and national scale actors, NGOs and private sector organisations. This aimed to reduce public expenditure (Painter, 1991;Gill-McLure, 2014). Since 2010 when the Conservative-led Coalition government came to power, local authority budgets have been cut by around 40% with varying levels of cuts across individual authorities (NAO, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contracting out parks and roads maintenance in England

Dempsey

Burton

Selin

2016

International Journal of Public Sector Management

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Purpose Different models have been adopted in England over time to organize public service delivery. This paper explores contracting-out, a prevalent model of public service delivery in England, in relation to parks and roads maintenance delivery by examining private contractors' performance according to local authority stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach Since the Conservative government was in power during the 1980s, local authorities have been an arena for experimentation of contracting-out to private and other sectors. This paper provides a review of the academic and grey literature, and findings are presented from a large-scale online questionnaire survey (N=103) which was distributed to the relevant public realm managers in English local authorities. Findings The paper shows that contracting-out of parks and roads maintenance happens across the country in different ways. By and large, local authorities are satisfied with the performance of contractors, particularly as a response to economic constraints. Responsibilities, particularly for parks, are increasingly shared with non-governmental organisations, including community groups, although this is not reflected in budget distribution. Research limitations Despite our efforts, the response rate was relatively low (32%), potentially due to the email communication and online nature of the questionnaire. Originality/value The research provides empirical evidence about how contracting-out is currently delivering public services and how it has changed in recent years. The findings suggest that responsibilities (and to a lesser extent, budgets) are increasingly shared in England between different combinations of public, private, third and community sector stakeholders. This marks a shift away from in-house public sector delivery of parks and roads services.

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The politics of managerial reform in UK local government: a study of control, conflict and resistance 1880s to present

Cited by 13 publications

References 29 publications

The crisis of public sector trade unionism: Evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

The crisis of public sector trade unionism: Evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

Customer-driven management models for choiceless clientele? Business process reengineering in a California welfare agency

Contracting out parks and roads maintenance in England

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