Howard Davis

Housing Stock Transfer in Birmingham and Glasgow: The Contrasting Experiences of Two UK Cities

ABSTRACT Housing stock transfer is arguably one of the more controversial aspects of New Labours housing policy. It was a policy originally pursued under the Conservative governments from the 1980s into the early 1990s and has gained pace under New Labour since 1997. Across Britain, the Westminster government, along with the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff, have all demonstrated a commitment of late to the use of stock transfer to reshape and reconfigure social housing provision. This paper considers some of the key aspects of stock transfer, not least the underlying national policy drivers of demunicipalization and use of private finance, and then explores the contrasting fortunes of stock transfer in the two largest local authority social housing authorities in Britain, that is Birmingham and Glasgow. In 2002 Birmingham tenants rejected stock transfer while in Glasgow, following a tenant vote for transfer, the citys entire council housing stock was transferred to a not-for-profit housing agency. The different experiences of the pursuance of stock transfer in these two cities together highlight some of the key questions and issues that are now being asked of this central component of New Labours approach to social housing.

Perspectives on contractual relationships and the move to best value in local authorities

This article is concerned with the nature of the contracting relationship in local authorities. After considering some of the implications of a basic model of contracting (principal‐agent theory) and questioning some of its implications, we briefly examine whether the Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) regime is likely to have forced many clients and contractors into the more adversarial style of contract management that the theory predicts. We then assess the degree to which parties to local authority contracts act, or wish to act, in a more relational manner and consider some of the implications of the Best Value regime. We conclude by suggesting that there are some important requirements which need to be placed upon public sector contracting behaviour to limit the implementation of ‘full’ relational styles in practice.

The Modernization and Improvement of Government and Public Services: Deepening Democracy or Élite Governance? New Political Management Arrangements in Local Government

This article discusses the introduction of new political management arrangements in local government. It places the Governments current proposals for change in the context of recent research and debate about the strengths and weaknesses of local democracy, and then draws on recent research evidence, which suggests that current reforms may have a contradictory impact. The Government’s proposals are likely to bring tighter and more strategic political leadership, more effective partnership with other local organizations and, if certain steps are taken, better ‘scrutiny’ of policy and performance. However, there are serious concerns about democratic accountability and transparency, community involvement and the implications for many councillors, party groups and a healthy local party politics. It is concluded that more thorough evaluation of the impact of the changes is desirable.

From Community Government to Communitarian Partnership? Approaches to Devolution in Birmingham

The article provides an analysis of recent attempts by a major local authority (Birmingham City Council) to devolve decision making and localise service provision. In recent years the council has developed a series of initiatives to promote devolution of decision making and localisation of service provision to sub-city levels. Utilising a model presented by Sullivan, we argue that the council has been moving from an approach initially informed by community government (after Stewart) to one based on communitarian-informed citizen governance (after Atkinson).