This thesis examines Lefebvre's theory of the 'production of space' and Habermas's theory of 'communicative action' in relation to the interactions of two regional governmental organisations in the North East of England, the regional development agency One North East and the North East Assembly. In a conceptually-driven approach, these theories are developed and integrated into a framework which is used to analyse the spatial narratives and discourses that are promoted by the organisations in attempting to legitimate their respective claims to regional space. Informed by a three year work placement at the North East Assembly, the thesis provides insights into the production and communication of regional space via an heuristic application of the theoretical framework to three case studies which investigate the 'storylines' behind the 2005 draft regional economic and spatial strategies and two North East Assembly scrutiny investigations into Regional Leadership and Evidence and Regional Policy. There were significant communicative distortions and power imbalances in the interactions of One North East and the North East Assembly, which resulted partly from the nature of their working relationship but also from the effects of wider governance processes and cultures. This is seen to have created particular conditions of 'communicative meta-governmentality' that contributed to the production of a dominant economic and administrative spatial discourse, hindering the Assembly in establishing its claims to regional space. In light of this, it is argued that the Assembly created 'illusionary spaces of participation and representation' that failed to give it genuine integrity or credibility in and beyond the region. The thesis finishes with a look towards future regional arrangements following significant recent policy developments and suggests that there might be potential for positive change through the development of 'arenas of hope' based upon 'lived' and 'popular' spaces.

The aim of this research is to examine whether local government can act as an empowering agent. Wiltshire is used as a case study to explore how community empowerment works in a rural, sparsely populated area under a unitary Council. The research draws on the work of Perkins and Zimmerman (1995) and Perkins (2010) to examine empowerment as both a process and an outcome at three different levels, namely: individual, community and organisational. The research also draws on theories of • power and inter-governmental relations to explore the opportunities and barriers to empowerment at a local level in England. Findings indicate that local government does have an important role in empowering communities, but not equally across the three levels of analysis. The role of local government to empower communities appears to be relatively effective. However, empowerment at an individual and organisational level is hampered by the inability of local government to respond to the person-specific needs of individuals and a highly centralist form of governance in the UK that prevents local autonomy amongst organisations. The study makes a contribution to our understanding of empowerment by identifying the specific levels where local government is most and least able to enact empowerment.

Organisations enter into collaborative working arrangements with others to deliver mutual benefits. In Multi-Organisational Collaborative Groups (MOCGs), organisations share knowledge, coordinate their activities, and engage in joint decision-making processes. Local government domains commonly adopt this approach. Strategic partnerships are deployed to develop new solutions to complex social problems because it is believed that these problems can only be solved by pooling the resources of a diverse range of stakeholders. Yet this approach can be problematic. The multitude of perceptions towards a problem increases the difficulty in achieving consensus. The lack of a managerial structure complicates activity coordination. The lack of a shared interface makes transparent information exchange burdensome. Research challenges lie in designing techniques to support such partnerships. Existing techniques for achieving consensus omit key contextual information about local. government strategic partnerships. Furthermore, existing technologies for supporting group work provide insufficient functionality for supporting roles, relationships, responsibilities, and information exchange requirements of these partnerships. To define and structure social problems the partnership domain must be characterised and represented. The identification of relationships, roles, and responsibilities found amongst partners is necessary to devise mechanisms to support activity coordination. The identification of partnership information resources is required to facilitate transparent information exchange. This problem-centred, information systems research PhD project addresses these challenges. A post- modernist position is taken towards research phenomena within the neohumanist paradigm. It draws on the principles of Organisational Semiotics, Soft Systems Methodology, Role-Based Access Control, and Unified Modelling Language. It contributes five IT artefacts designed to enable the development of software solutions: the specification of domain characteristics and solution requirements, a conceptual architecture, a description of partnership stakeholders, a representation of domain entities and relationships, an architecture of partnership information resources. Furthermore, a non-electronic technique for specifying the context of a partnership is provided, as well as specifications for an e-collaboration technology. The latter is a configuration of new and existing functionality designed to meet the requirements of partnerships, which demonstrates how software design could be derived from the IT artefacts.

County/City Development-Boards (CDBs) were established in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) in 2000 as new institutions of local governance, responsible for strategic local development and integrating public service delivery. Since then, little attention has been paid to evaluating their work. This study is concerned with the question of 'How can evaluation of the effectiveness of CDBs be improved?'. Its aim is to formulate and explore the potential for a model for policy development, implementation and evaluation for CDBs as institutions oflocal governance. The dissertation critically reviews the literature on governance and public policy evaluation as concepts of particular relevance, and social inclusion as an important domain of Irish local governance. Theory-based evaluation (TBE) is selected for evaluating governance. Within TBE a form of logic model, intervention logic (lVL) is identified for exploration as an appropriate model to apply to CDBs. Case study research design is used to examine a policy process in a CDB, using social inclusion in Offaly as an exemplifying case. The study combines analysis of primary documentary sources with outcomes of semi-structured individual and focus group interviews with eight key informants. These were active players in the Offaly Local Anti-Poverty Strategy (LAPS) policy process. Qualitative analysis of documentary evidence and interview transcripts identifies significant themes using a narrative approach to the policy cycle. A series of findings points to the importance, among other elements, of having an appropriate model to guide a policy initiative through the formulation, implementation and accountability phases of the policy cycle. The study concludes that IVL is feasible and appropriate for a 'managing for outcomes' policy such as the LAPS, subject to certain conditions. It also suggests that IVL is likely to have a broader relevance to policy making and implementation by Offaly CDB.

The central focus of this thesis is the role of scrutiny within the modernised system of local government and governance. The study was carried out from an insider-research perspective within the scrutiny team of a unitary authority. The scrutiny process provided a 'window' through which to analyse the development, and application, of New Labour's local government modernisation agenda. The thesis contains a critical examination of literature about the modernisation of local government and, in particular, the roles of the scrutiny function. This discussion is located within broader literatures about governance and the changing role of local government. It is argued that, while there is scope for manoeuvre at both national and local levels, global trends have provided powerful drivers for policy development and the subsequent fragmentation of the nation state. Empirical data were obtained through case studies of four scrutiny inquiries, selected to permit an exploration of limitations and possibilities of local government scrutiny within this context of globalisation and the shift from government to governance. An analysis of the case studies highlighted the importance of four factors in explaining variations in governance outcomes; risk to legitimacy, public/pressure group engagement, regulation/hierarchy and certainty/agreement. In light of these findings it is concluded scrutiny is an imperfect tool within an imperfect (governance) system. However, the local government modernisation agenda had created a number of new opportunities for local government, and scrutiny, to function more effectively in the current governance context.

This thesis examines the complex relationships between agency (Le. populations, organised groups,individual actors and collectivities), structure (Le. systems, institutions, roles, positions), and culture(ideas, theories, beliefs and values) in the specific context of cycles of information systems (IS)development and organisational change in English local government. Data for this analysis is drawn from a 15 month longitudinal case study of an English local authority. The morphogenetic approach - anon conflationary approach to the analysis of the agency/structure dynamic devised by Margaret Archer (1988, 1995, 1998b, 1998c, 2002) - was adopted for the research in order to avoid treating either agents or structures as largely epiphenomenal to each other. A detailed analysis of the IS environment of the case study organisation is presented. It shows how.cycles of IS development and organisational change in general were conditioned and/or shaped and transformed and/or reproduced over time by the agency/structure dynamic. The case study material also represents an example of an 'analytical history of emergence' that Archer (1995:294) proposes should result from the use of the morphogenetic approach. Detailed evidence of the causal processes, mechanisms, powers and tendencies that may operate in any IS/organisational development context is also analysed and this then forms the basis for a range of 'tendential predictions' to be made concerning the outcomes. Another outcome (of particular significance since Archer's approach to empirical research remains limited) is a valuable assessment of the utility of the morphogenetic approach when applied to the type of largely micro level case study research reported here. This assessment confirms Archer's claims for the approach's value as an instrument for the production of non conflationary practical social theory, but, in addition, a range of issues are identified which demonstrate that, 'without modification, the complexity and resulting resource intensity of the approach may well work against its more widespread adoption for this kind of social science research.

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The thesis focuses on Local Government duties and powers for enabling energy and sustainability projects in England and Wales. It establishes a theoretical understanding for well-being in international law, European law and a pragmatic approach on how legal and policy instruments should be interpreted when assessing obligations for energy and sustainability. It then illustrates how various objectives are currently delivered across Europe. This leads to a theoretical and legal context for council members and officers working in local government with both mandatory duties and permitted powers available to advance the carbon emissions and fuel poverty agenda in their communities. The thesis evaluates the implications of ultra vires and judicial review on local authority behaviour in hand with the Local Government Act 1999 (Best Value) and suggests the combination has restricted positive action by the majority of local authorities in areas crucial to the well-being of many vulnerable residents. Compounding this, the subsequent Local Government Act 2000 (Powers of Well-Being) is currently underused due to a lack of legal certainty about their interpretation or realisation of their potential to address substantive community issues. To help counter the issue the thesis provides a theoretical context and working definition for energy and sustainability in local government which aligns Aristotelian thought and the principles of sustainable development. Then a practical example illustrates how energy and sustainability projects could be used to achieve wider community well-being. The thesis concludes by offering local government is under an implied duty to promote well-being and it should not defer actions on the grounds of the absence of a mandatory duty in the area. It must look to its history in public health reform in order to recognise the substantive issues of the day involving energy and poverty. It must become more outward looking, exploratory and adventurous in scope and find the political will to address the issues and the moral courage to direct resources to long term solutions.

No description available.

No description available.