K Greenhalgh

LinkAge Plus: lessons for third sector organisations and commissioners

Purpose – The paper aims to explore the relationship between commissioners of service and the third sector arising from research undertaken during a LinkAge Plus project by comparison to the eight principles of commissioning. It seeks to explore the issues concerning the development of services and the implications in an era of austerity for rapid changes to the implementation of policy nationally in the UK and internationally.Design/methodology/approach – The main methods employed are interview, document analysis and observation. This research re‐evaluates research undertaken for a LinkAge Plus pilot evaluation.Findings – The framework provided by the eight principles of good commissioning appeared to rely on the premise that the contracts entered into are long‐term in nature, however, where short‐term contracts are entered into the principles appear somewhat unachievable.Research limitations/implications – The paper examines the findings arising from one LinkAge Plus pilot site only, however, the author...

Comprehensive Performance Assessment and Public Services Improvement in England? A Case Study of the Benefits Administration Service in Local Government

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to independently evaluate the impact of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment regime on one particular public service, namely the provision of council tax and housing benefits distributed by local authorities throughout the course of the regime. This service was assessed in every iteration of the CPA methodologies and it included one of the few key performance indicators (KPIs) where the definition of the performance indicator, the means of collection and the public reporting of its results, remained the same throughout the CPA period between 2002 and 2008. The findings show that there were considerable and consistent improvements in benefits administration nationally within England and across all of its regions. The paper then investigates a series of propositions. Whether there was any significant variations in the performance of larger as opposed to smaller authorities, or between predominantly rural authority areas and urban authorities or between authorities with different party political control. Finding no significant differences the research suggests implementation of the CPA regime itself appears to have had a catalytic effect upon the performance of the benefit administration services within local authorities throughout this period. The paper therefore concludes with a brief discussion as to whether the findings support the theoretical position of proponents of neo-institutionalism isomorphism or more traditional rational actor theories of public choice.

Fire and rescue service reconfiguration: a case study in Nottinghamshire

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the practical implementation of the Integrated Risk Management Planning process through its application within the Fire Cover Review project in Nottinghamshire, in order to identify good practice and recommendations for improving the process and its implementation.Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of an in‐depth case study over an 18 month period using participant observation, documents analysis, interviews with key stakeholders and the response to a public consultation exercise.Findings – Recent public expenditure restrictions manifestly influenced and contextualised the attitude and response from the public and all key stakeholders to the project. It was the first consultation undertaken by the Service which was also significantly affected by the internet and social media. The open and transparent approach adopted reduced misinformation and promoted ownership and accountability of the project, from both the Service and the Authority...

Civil society commissioning: the accounting contribution to strategy

The authors propose that an accounting discipline contribution, throughout the commissioning cycle for services, is essential to the strategic perspective and therefore the long-term sustainability of service given the growing importance to the delivery of public services by commissioned civil society organizations (CSOs). The authors examine a Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) project in one local authority in the UK to identify the contribution that could and should be made. A model, the strategic accounting commissioning cycle (SACC), which suggests the contribution to be made by the accounting discipline at each stage within the cycle, has been developed to assist the identification of this contribution.

Housing and Council Tax Benefits Administration in England: A Long-Term Perspective on the Performance of the Local Government Delivery System

The Coalition government announced, in 2010, that between 2013 and the end of 2017 all existing claims to income-based welfare allowances, including housing benefit, would gradually move to the Universal Credit (DWP 2010). This article evaluates the performance of the Council Tax and Housing Benefits Administration Services under the current system for the delivery of these benefits since they were transferred fully to local authorities in 1993 up until December 2011. During this period the performance of local government has been influenced by four successive national delivery regimes, namely: Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT); Best Value; Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). An earlier article (Murphy, P., Greenhalgh, K. and Jones, M., 2011. Comprehensive performance assessment and public services improvement in England – a case study of the benefits administration service in local government. Local Government Studies, 37 (6), pp. 579–599) examined the CPA period in detail and found a significant improvement in performance across all types of authorities in all parts of the country during this period. The current article complements this earlier analysis and provides a longer-term perspective on the performance of the benefits service between 1993 and December 2011. The findings of this article show that under CCT the performance of the system was poor, there were wide variations in individual local authority performance, with many acknowledged inadequacies in the system and unacceptably high levels of fraud. However, towards the end of CCT and in the subsequent Best Value period the antecedents of some of the tools and techniques subsequently used to drive improvement in the CPA era were either put in place or were being developed. The Best Value period itself did not show significant improvements in performance and it was not until many of the initiatives were refined, developed and applied within the CPA framework that sustained and significant improvements became evident. This overall improvement generally continued under the CAA although the previous trend of consistent reductions in the variation between authorities’ performance had changed between 2009–2010 and 2011–2012. It is too early to judge whether these latest trends will be maintained under the Coalition government’s localism regime.

Collaboration and interconnectivity: Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Services and higher education institutions in Nottingham

This article will describe the developing relationship between Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Services and the two higher education institutions in Nottingham. It will chronicle how a very traditional relationship has been transformed, initially by a simple consultancy project, into a much closer working relationship characterised by a much richer variety of collaborative projects. It demonstrates the potential mutual benefits that greater trust and reciprocity between the institutions can bring to both academia and to practice, and the impact they have already had on curriculum development, teaching and learning in Nottingham.

Fire and Rescue

The supposed ‘success’ of Theresa May’s police reform has justified the ‘model’ for recent reform of the Fire and Rescue Services. Fire and Rescue Services entered the period of the coalition government on an improving and accelerating service delivery trajectory, albeit still trailing the other services. The coalition government’s ‘austerity localism’; aligned to financial constraints turned this direction of travel on its’ head. By 2015 and 2016, both the NAO and PAC were demanding significant regime change in the service. Since 2015, there have been improvements to accountability and transparency, (it would be difficult not to act and act decisively, given the inadequacy of previous arrangements). More recently differences between promises and implementation, ambitions, and delivery are beginning to appear.

But What Is Accountability

The genesis of this book originally derives from a report for the National Audit Office. This examined the government’s ability to demonstrate the quality of service delivery in locally delivered public services in England, a responsibility, previously overseen by the former Audit Commission, between the 2010 and 2015 general elections. The Audit Commission formally closed on 31st March 2015 and part of its role transferred to the NAO. The report to the NAO provided a ‘state of play’ evaluation for the four areas of Local Government, Health and Social Care, the Police, and Fire and Rescue Services. It identified, adapted, and tested some of the dominant concepts of financial, service, and organisational accountability that had been applied and used in the contemporary UK context.

The Gathering Storm: Modernisation, Local Alignment and Collaboration. Fire and Rescue Services Under the Early New Labour Administrations from 1997 to 2005

This chapter recounts one of the most interesting but surprisingly confusing stories of the labour governments’ period from 1997 to 2005. The governments’ initial ‘modernisation’ agenda was generally welcomed by other public services. However, much needed and acknowledged, modernisation of the fire services was slower to materialise and in this early period firmly resisted. Although the fire service eventually was to become positively and proactively engaged in the service improvement agenda, this chapter focusses on the complex and fascinating earlier period of 1997–2005. This was dominated by the transfer of policy responsibility away from the Home Office and by the second national strike and resulting problems with reform of industrial relations. This ran alongside the modernisation reforms in governance, performance management and service delivery.

Consolidation and Improvement: Fire and Rescue Under the New Labour Administrations 2005–2010

In this chapter, the authors examine the experience and performance of the newly renamed ‘Fire and Rescue’ Services in the period 2005–2010. This period extended across the final ‘New Labour’ administration of Tony Blair and the period from 2007 when Gordon Brown was the prime minister. Unlike the previous turbulent years, this was a period of consolidation and relative stability. Issues of performance management, service improvement, collaboration and prevention and protection increasingly came to be the services priority as the service gradually moved on from the strike and embraced the government’s new agenda.