New development: The evolution of Welsh devolution

The reliance on consumer choice to drive improvements in public services is at the centre of policy debates in the UK and elsewhere. However, the discourse of consumerism occurs in the midst of a quagmire as to whether users of public services can legitimately be considered as customers, citizens or co-producers, while the existing evidence on how far they assume the role of public service consumers is largely ignored. This article discusses research on users' attitudes to choice in health, education and social services in the UK, the European Union and the USA. Provision of public services is rarely about acquiring products for pure consumption, but more about providers and users jointly addressing essential social and human needs. The author argues for an alternative conception of public service provision going beyond the limitations of consumerism, although some users are more likely to choose certain public services over others (for example schools rather than health services). However, the evidence presented disproves the view that users of public services will act as discerning consumers in the market-place.     

Budgetary Stewardship,Innovation and Working Culture: Identifying the Missing Ingredient in English and Welsh Local Authorities’ Recipes for Austerity Management

Drawing on fieldwork with 70 local authorities in England and Wales, this paper builds on previous studies of austerity management by highlighting the importance of organisational cultures to achieving strategic objectives. It finds that, in line with their prevailing ‘belief system’ of budgetary stewardship, local authorities in both countries are holding down input costs to deal with austerity. However, the scale of funding cuts means that this strategy is unlikely to be successful over the longer term. Instead, they need greater freedom to generate revenue, in order to facilitate innovation and develop more sustainable business practices and service models.     

New development: Flood events continue to raise issues of public sector accountability

Climate change scientists argue that there is a link between climate change and the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. The catastrophic consequences of these natural disasters on human life, agriculture and infrastructure calls into question the role and responsibility of governments in managing such events. Mixed messages are being communicated by governments to the public from one extreme advocating the provision of as much assistance as required to rebuild communities following an extreme weather event, to policies being developed encouraging communities to become more resilient. Seemingly, there is no contradiction in following both approaches, however, it is currently not clear the extent of responsibility and accountability for protecting its citizens versus the onus on the community to defend itself from natural disasters. This paper explores these themes from the perspective of local government in relation to the devastating floods that hit Victoria, Australia in 2010/11.     

New development: The crisis and European local government reforms

This article highlights the main reform trajectories put in place in French, Italian, German and Portuguese local governments during the recent crisis and identifies a number of important trends: for example increasing centralization of decision-making powers away from local governments. The authors explain why local governments have an opportunity to use reforms during the crisis to strategically reposition their value proposition.     

New development: Integration of budget and governmental accounting in Mexican states

ABSTRACT

Mexico recently introduced an accounting–budgeting framework compatible with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This article discusses the implementation of this framework, including the harmonization of information for the functional, administrative and economic budget categories for all Mexican states and for Mexico City. The author analysed public accounts and budgets prepared under the framework’s information requirements, as well as assessing the harmonization of accounts between the local, state and national levels of government. The results show an increase in both the amount and the harmonization of the public expenditure information being reported. This paper contributes to the literature of harmonization between financial reporting and budgeting processes (Dabbicco, G., & Mattei, G. (2020 Dabbicco, G. , & Mattei, G. (2020). The reconciliation of budgeting with financial reporting: A comparative study of Italy and the UK. Public Money & Management , 1–11. doi: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1708059 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The reconciliation of budgeting with financial reporting: A comparative study of Italy and the UK. Public Money & Management, 1–11).     

Sustainable development in cities: collaborating to improve urban climate resilience and develop the business case for adaptation

Fragmented governance contexts make it difficult for public bodies to direct and control climate adaptation initiatives. This paper highlights how Newcastle City Council collaborated with local partners to create a shared understanding of how a major storm could affect public services across North East England. This helped the authority to develop a business case to invest in infrastructure that will help to protect future generations from severe weather events.     

New development: Determinants of financial performance in public organizations

In the slipstream of NPM, public organizations worldwide have had to increase their financial performance by adopting management practices. Nonetheless, financial performance (FP) might be mostly predicted by contingencies that are not within direct managerial control. Drawing on evidence from 308 Flemish municipalities, this article shows that organizational and environmental contingencies affect FP, but a significant amount of variation in FP is unexplained—indicating that management could well matter.     

New Labour and the Modernisation of British Local Government: A Critique

The modernisation agenda for local government is based on questionable political assumptions. It has the attributes of a theological concept. This paper examines the concept of modernisation of local government by focusing on three dimensions (1) governance, (2) management and (3) finance. This analysis suggests the modernisation agenda is limited in scope and vision.     

中国财政分权问题研究:一个文献综述

伴随着中国改革开放后经济的持续快速增长,越来越多的国内外学者围绕中国的财政分权问题展开研究。财政分权问题涉及到诸多因素,对其研究必须采用多层次的视角。既有的研究成果多囿于财政分权的某个局部层面,尚未见一个能够解释、分析中国财政分权问题的完整理论框架出现。     

House Prices and the Structure of Local Government: An Application of Spatial Statistics

When two internally homogeneous communities decide to jointly provide a public service, residents of each community lose some control over the public service provision. The loss of control over public schooling provision contributes to a $2,929 or 3.5 percent drop in constant-quality house value. Increased heterogeneity of the consolidated district is responsible for almost all the drop; the increased number of service recipients alone is responsible for almost none of the drop. The spatial hedonic, corrected for sample selection bias, also suggests economies of scale gains from school district consolidation must be worth at least $3,369—4 percent of house value.     

我国地方政府债券发行长效机制的构建研究

在经历了长期的沉寂之后,我国的地方政府债券在2009年正式启动。虽然近期在二级市场上,地方政府债券遭到投资者的冷遇,但地方政府债券的持续发行有其理论与现实基础,从中国经济长远发展的角度考虑,应当构建地方政府债券发行的长效运行机制。在短期内应尽快建立地方政府债券发行的激励与约束机制以防范地方债务风险,在中长期应不断深化财政体制改革,逐步实现真正的地方政府债券制度安排。     

Directly-elected mayors and the austerity agenda: lessons from the German experience

This paper identifies the key factors that have affected the ability of elected mayors in some German cities to introduce austerity measures in response to serious financial problems. Drawing on a detailed study of six municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia, it highlights how the mayor's managerial and/or legal experience, as well as the party-political make-up of the council, played a vital role in determining the success of savings initiatives. Such findings have important implications for countries such as England, where some have argued for the introduction of elected mayors in order to improve decision-making capacity within local government.     

Credit risk and bond pricing of local government in China

The relationship between credit risk and the pricing of local government bonds in China is explored in this paper. The pricing of local government bonds was found to reflect credit risk, but the risk premium was small. The type of bond (‘directional’ or ‘non-directional’) significantly affected pricing. Repayment source had no effect. The authors make recommendations for the central government, local governments and investors.     

Beyond Self‐Evident: Recognising the Problematic Political Context of Accrual Accounting Adoption in South Korea

This paper responds to a recent call by researchers that we need to move beyond both advocacy of and technical arguments about the value of accrual accounting to more fully recognise the institutional forces, key change agents and the local political fields. We draw on elements of institutional theory and the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu to explore the ‘problematic’ aspects of institutional forces, key organisational change agents and the local political field associated with the adoption of accrual accounting in the South Korean public sector. We found that accrual accounting was driven by many factors including a local financial scandal, the advocacy of a civil society group and the ambitions and the ideology of key actors. The contribution of this paper is that it shows how the practices of accounting cannot be separated from their political and personal context.     

Forensic accounting services in English local government and the counter-fraud agenda

ABSTRACT

Fraud is a growing challenge for English local government, yet the resources and support local authorities (LAs) have available to prevent, detect and investigate it are limited. Forensic accounting services (FAS) provided by external specialist private sector firms, particularly those undertaking mandatory external audit, might be one solution. Research reported in this paper suggests, however, that existing English LA users are not all convinced. Nevertheless, better awareness and understanding of what FAS have to offer, perhaps through case studies of successful implementation, would be a valuable contribution to helping local government enhance its counter-fraud capabilities and make informed decisions about how best to meet the increasingly complex fraud challenge.     

税费运行现状及其改革对策研究

目前我国的税费存在很多弊端,使税收的杠杆作用和国家的宏观调控能力下降。税费改革的总体思路是:以充分发挥中央和地方政府在公共部门活动中的作用为基本出发点,对现有的行政事业收费与基金实行“一清、二转、三改、四留”。     

A Relational Theory of Risk: a Case Study of the Asian Longhorned Beetle Infestation in Worcester,MA

Abstract

The rise of globalization and global increases in temperature have prompted the spread of invasive species, which poses a major threat to the ecosystem benefits provided by urban forests. Stakeholders such as urban residents, policy-makers, and forestry industry professionals deem these risks differently because they place value on threatened goods and services at different spatial and temporal scales. This article will use the frameworks of relational risk theory and relational place-making to connect ‘risk objects’ and ‘objects at risk’ to better understand how relationships of risk shape responses to threats to the environment. The data in this study comes from Worcester, MA, where discovery of the Asian Longhorned Beetle prompted the United States Department of Agriculture to remove 35,000 trees from streets and backyards in the quarantine zone. The three different stakeholder groups that were targeted for data collection were green industry representatives, government decision makers, and residents. Green industry representatives, decision makers, and residents were interviewed while additional residents responded to a survey. The results showed that greater understanding of the different objects and places at risk removed misconceptions between different stakeholders. Understanding is increased when each stakeholder recognizes the different spatial scales of the objects at risk. This improvement of transparency can lead to better communication of the variety of risks posed by invasive species and a faster and more unified response to the threats from invasive species or other natural disasters.     

Cost Efficiency in Australian Local Government: A Comparative Analysis of Mathematical Programming anf Econometrical Approaches

A sample of one hundred and seventy-seven New South Wales' local governments is used to compare the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier approaches to cost efficiency measurement. The results suggest that the choice of reference technology implies different levels of efficiency and rankings for identical samples and thereby has a dramatic influence on the policy implications drawn from frontier cost efficiency measures. Notwithstanding these comments, DEA and stochastic frontiers should be thought of as complementary tools in the analysis of local public sector efficiency. In the first instance, the frontier adheres closely to the notion of best-practice efficiency, whereas in the second it refers to an absolute measure of efficiency. Clear advantages thereby accrue to DEA in identifying benchmark local governments and peer groups for comparison, while the stochastic frontier permits the opportunity for direct comparison with other institutional milieus.     

Transformational change and the vacuum of performance measurement: How a story of success became a failure

Some local government organisations stand out in terms of their capability to adopt and use management accounting innovations and become a model for those struggling with issues such as performance measurement (PM). But what happens to the innovations if the organisation is forced into transformational change? This longitudinal case study is based on the theory that the use and impact of PM is influenced by (a) its contractibility and (b) how the performance management systems in place are configured and used. One conclusion is that transformational change can result in a vacuum of PM, even with a high degree of contractibility.     

Accounting and Competitive Tendering in UK Local Government: An Institutionalist Interpretation of the New Public Management

The paper applies institutional theory to analyse the changing role of accounting and contracting in UK local government as the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) regime was extended to white-collar activities such as housing management, finance, legal services and information technology. Employing an organizational fields model, accounting changes were seen to be influenced by a combination of legal coercion, normative and competitive forces, the resistance and manipulation of the large local authorities together with the facticity of the new accounting and contracting regimes. The theoretical framework is applied to field-work carried out in a large metropolitan authority in the north of England where CCT methodologies directly affected housing management but not other services such as finance. Although resisting CCT for finance, the authority subsequently introduced a radical scheme of voluntary competitive tendering for selected finance processes. The paper examines how accounting and contracting may be adapted to emerging trends in the New Public Management associated with Best Value policies.