Paul Higgins

Best Value: Is It Delivering?

The enhancement of public service performance has been a central concern of successive Labour governments since 1997. Best Value is intended to address this by replacing the former policy of compulsory competitive tendering with a policy that has been likened to a local government version of total quality management. In this article the authors draw on a survey of local government officers to explore the extent to which BV is providing the basis for improvements in the quality of local services and finds mixed results.

Workplace partnership and public service provision: The case of the 'best value' performance regime in British local government

This article considers the extent to which partnership espoused in Best Value is likely to be compatible with the model of social partnership espoused for employment relations. More specifically, the article seeks to cast light, empirically, on the degree to which Best Value can support the series of mutually supportive arrangements between these external stakeholders while maintaining positive-sum relationships with their unions and staff. The article proceeds as follows. Initially, the study’s methodology is detailed. Following this, the findings obtained from a survey are detailed and discussed. Lastly, a concluding section draws out their key analytical implications.

No room for manoeuvre: Does ‘best value’ provide a better deal for workers in UK local government?

Abstract Internationally, public services are under increasing political and ideological pressure to remove barriers to private sector involvement in the delivery of public services. Political pressure comes in the form of the encroachment into this area of domestic activity by proponents of trade liberalisation. In particular such pressure stems from the General Agreement on Trade Services (GATS) being pursued through the World Trade Organisation (WTO). While the WTO has been keen to distance itself from allegations that GATS represents a challenge to domestic policies regarding the provisions of public services (WTO 2001), the scope of GATS, in itself, opens up these areas of activity to greater scrutiny. In addition to these structural pressures, ideological pressure for ‘reform’ has come from the ‘conversion’ of the parties of the progressive left — particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world — to the benefits of the market. Nowhere better can this be seen as in the UK.

HRM as an emerging new managerial profession

Copyright and moral rights to this thesis/research project are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Any use of the thesis/research project for private study or research must be properly acknowledged with reference to the work’s full bibliographic details.

Compulsory or Not Compulsory? The Use of Competition in British Local Government

This article examines the content and outcomes of the “competition” element of the British Government’s best value (BV) regime. It focuses on the claim that BV policy grants British local authorities the freedom, previously absent from the former policy of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT), to provide local services without recourse to compulsory competition. Utilising results of a survey of BV lead officers, the article reveals that, white the use of “competition” is far from ubiquitous, in terms of outcomes the services subject to B V seem to be at least as likely to be provided externally as would have been the case under CCT. Further analysis of the response of the BV inspection service to these outcomes and on different types of service is provided.