External Regulation and Best Value in Local Government

Best Value has been presented by central government as a means of promoting local diversity and innovation. However, it contains a large superstructure for regulating the behaviour and performance of local authorities, through performance indicators, audit, and inspection. The characteristics of these regulatory instruments are analysed and their potential strengths and weaknesses are assessed. The instruments overlap not only with local authorities' own internal management processes, but also with each other. Therefore it is concluded that the costs of regulation may outweigh the benefits.     

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.     

Best Value and the Control of Local Government: Challenges and Contradictions

This article offers some understanding of the early experience of implementing Best Value in the local authority sector. Implementation is dependent on how local government understands the concept; what local government is able to deliver; and what central government is prepared to accept. For the case study authority described in this article, Best Value is understood to depend on three deliverable 'cornerstones', embedded in a context that emphasises accountability, seeks to develop 'learning' and pursues change in organizational culture, emphasising the tenets of 'business excellence'. The authors conclude that Best Value represents an unusual cocktail of top-down concept and bottom-up realization, providing a new twist in the control of the local government sector.     

Making Management Auditable: The Implementation of Best Value in Local Government

This article examines the implementation of Best Value—an audit tool of the U.K. government's modernization policy—in local government, specifically in Scotland. This is a study of the impact of this key concept, primarily on the management of these public services. The aim of Best Value Audit is to enhance transparency and accountability of management actions in local government. The article draws on Power's (1997 ) Audit Society thesis to inform this research. The Best Value approach has been heavily influenced by audit processes and oversight bodies both in its design and implementation. This article supports the Power thesis of the Audit Society: It reveals the manner in which audit practices are deployed by agencies of central government with the intent to shape the management of local government.     

Public Participation and Citizen-Centred Local Government: Lessons from the Best Value and Better Government for Older People Pilot Programmes

This article examines the contribution that public participation can make to the development of 'citizen-centred government'. It draws upon the evidence of two major initiatives established by central and local government to develop and test out new approaches to service delivery (the Best Value and the Better Government for Older People pilot programmes). Evaluation of these two sets of pilots suggests that the notion of 'citizen-centred government' and the forms of participation that are required to achieve it are liable to a range of different interpretations. In particular there is an important distinction between approaches which seek to promote community planning and user-focused services, and those that envisage a much more active role for local people in designing and delivering local services.     

Best Value—Total Quality Management for Local Government?

This article argues that Best Value is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM). At the core of Best Value are the TQM principles of customer focus, continuous improvement and team–working. To discover if Best Value will deliver the performance improvements expected of local government, the authors examine evidence on the relationship between TQM and performance. Performance is most likely to be improved if the whole TQM approach is implemented in the Best Value framework.     

中央与地方在物业税税权划分中的博弈行为研究

物业税又称房地产税或者不动产税,主要是针对房屋、土地等不动产,要求其承租人或保有者每年都按物业评估价值缴付一定税款。本文利用博弈分析的方法,分析了即将开征的物业税和中央与地方政府财政分权之间的关系,并得出结论,由于信息不对称,物业税的开征所带来的效率损失是在所难免的,其开征的关键还在于理清中央和地方政府之间的财税关系。     

Trust-Based Relationships in Local Government Contracting

This article examines issues of trust and competition as they relate to a number of services provided by British local government. The first section outlines the changing policy context of competition for local authority services and is followed by a discussion of the nature of trust under contracting, drawing on elements of (primarily) economic theory to identify the features of contracting which we would expect to find in a 'low trust world'. The authors ask whether these features appear to be present in contracting and point to some features of the CCT legislative framework which may help to explain this. After reviewing private sector practice, the extent to which it could be replicated under CCT is examined.     

Fiscal Reconstruction and Local Government Financing

This paper investigates the dynamic properties of intergovernmental financing during a fiscal reconstruction process by analyzing the dynamic game among local governments, which operates with soft budget constraints because of concessionary region-specific transfers from a central government. The existence of intergovernmental transfers induces the free-riding behavior of local governments, thereby bringing considerable deficits to the central government. Raising local and/or national taxes is desirable for fiscal reconstruction, but is unable to attain the Pareto-efficient fiscal reconstruction. Taxes on lobbying activities, combined with uniform transfers, induce earlier concession and can attain the Pareto-efficient outcome in the long run.     

政府采购的帕累托最优合同与监督博弈

我国政府采购制度自实施以来,在提高财政资金使用效益、增强政府宏观调控能力和促进廉政建设等方面取得了一定的成就。但其在相关法律法规、管理体制、运行环境、监督机制等方面仍存在诸多问题。运用博弈论的分析方法对政府采购中的帕累托最优合同与监督问题进行了探讨,并提出相应的解决策略,以供政府与供应商等参考。     

The Best Value Agenda for Auditing

The developments in the public sector auditing can be seen against a backcloth of adverse publicity for private sector audits. This focus on the private sector has meant public sector developments have gone largely unnoticed. The advocacy of Best Value is a logical and useful development in addressing the needs of the citizen with an active interest in the public sector.     

地方政府债务问题剖析

正2011年,"欧猪五国"和美国主权债务危机此起彼伏,日本、法国等国也都面临巨大的债务压力,负债率高企呈现全球化趋势。根据经济合作与发展组织公布的数据,截至2010年末,除了澳大利亚、丹麦、瑞典和芬兰等少数国家外,其他发达国家政府债务余额与GDP之比都超过了60%这一公认的警戒线。