Contingency based research has been used extensively within the area of accounting control (Chapman, 1997; Chenhall, 2003; Gerdin and Greeve, 2004), though there is a lacuna of contingency research within not-for-profit organisations (Chenhall, 2003), particularly in the UK. The study‟s overall research question is how strategic typology, resource-based capabilities, contemporary performance measurement techniques (CPMTs) and contemporary management accounting practices (CMAPs) affect the performance outcome of English local authorities. Resource-based capabilities were taken to comprise market orientation, entrepreneurship, innovation and organisational learning, consistent with prior research (Henri, 2006b). To investigate the research question, a contingency model was developed, setting out expected relationships between the study's variables. An electronic questionnaire was designed to collect data for each of the research variables, with reliance placed on existing research instruments where possible. Supplementary performance data was obtained from published Audit Commission assessments. A cross-sectional electronic survey of English local authorities was conducted with a response of 528 completed questionnaires obtained. The data was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) and AMOS 7.0 software. A model generating approach was adopted, where the initial contingency model was rejected and modified. Through this modification process a revised model, based on theoretical frameworks, was identified that fitted the empirical data well. Significant direct and indirect relationships between variables within the research contingency model were identified. The results provide empirical support that the performance outcome of English local authorities is contingent upon the emphasis placed on pursuing a differentiation strategy, use of CPMTs and CMAPs, strategic capabilities of market orientation, entrepreneurship and innovation, and performance-based training. The study combines and tailors prior research on specific variables, building these into an original contingency model which is applied to English local authorities. Overall, this study contributes both to contingency research and to the knowledge and understanding of strategy, resource-based strategic capabilities, management accounting and PMTs in English local authorities. Some areas for future research are proposed, though the results from the study provide important information for management accounting researchers, local government practitioners and policy makers.

This thesis is an exploration of the relationship between trade unionism and politics viewed primarily through events within the London Borough of Haringey. These events are examined through two case studies of local government union branches between 1965 and 1987. In these studies I use original research data with the aim of unifying what are usually deemed separate theoretical approaches, for example concern with either the labour process or with the bargaining relation. I show that by unifying these different strands of analysis a far greater depth of understanding is achieved. The research also examines the development of Labour Party politics in the 1980s, and particularly the rise of 'radical municipalism' as a response to traditional labourism. Finally this critical appraisal is extended to provide a critique of dominant themes running through radical and Marxist literature concerned with labour movement politics and in particular the trade unions.

Throughout the United Kingdom it is likely that 'out of hours', the smallest number of social workers is covering the largest geographical areas, the highest proportion of referrals, the most hours per week with the least support and in some of the most dangerous situations. For nearly thirty years, the majority of the working week has been staffed by out of hours social workers, and yet no systematic research has ever been undertaken into any aspects of this social work service. The focus of this research then is local authority emergency duty team (EDT) social work. From a variety of perspectives and using a range of methods the researcher examines the past, present and potential future nature of out of hours social work. As an EDT worker and researcher simultaneously, the author highlights the types and variability of his own assessments and those made by colleagues locally and nationally. Having established that EDT social work deals with significant occurrences after hours, this research questions whether conventional expectations of social work assessment are applicable 10 circumstances that are radically different from day-time work. Employing statistical surveys, questionnaires, interviews and autobiographical commentary, this research collates and analyses EDT social work practice issues seeking to establish an assessment framework that can be applied to the generic, urgent and statutory demands that EDT and daytime social workers frequently face. The framework combines the qualitative and the quantitative, academic with practitioner, the personal and the political and reflects the nature of EDT social work. Addressing a research void, this study clarifies and attempts to improve out of hours social work practice, including that of the researcher. This research presents a systematic analysis of the risk assessments, the decision-making processes and the crisis work undertaken by the most experienced group of social workers in Britain. The findings of this research should be of interest to those involved in out of hours social work, but may also have relevance to (social) workers undertaking (risk) assessments of service users.

Background: Community participation has become an integral part of many areas of public policy over the last two decades. For a variety of reasons, ranging from concerns about social cohesion and unrest to perceived failings in public services, governments in the UK and elsewhere have turned to communities as both a site of intervention and a potential solution. In contemporary policy, the shift to community is exemplified by the UK Government’s Big Society/Localism agenda and the Scottish Government’s emphasis on Community Empowerment. Through such policies, communities have been increasingly encouraged to help themselves in various ways, to work with public agencies in reshaping services, and to become more engaged in the democratic process. These developments have led some theorists to argue that responsibilities are being shifted from the state onto communities, representing a new form of 'government through community' (Rose, 1996; Imrie and Raco, 2003). Despite this policy development, there is surprisingly little evidence which demonstrates the outcomes of the different forms of community participation. This study attempts to address this gap in two ways. Firstly, it explores the ways in which community participation policy in Scotland and England are playing out in practice. And secondly, it assesses the outcomes of different forms of community participation taking place within these broad policy contexts. Methodology: The study employs an innovative combination of the two main theory-based evaluation methodologies, Theories of Change (ToC) and Realist Evaluation (RE), building on ideas generated by earlier applications of each approach (Blamey and Mackenzie, 2007). ToC methodology is used to analyse the national policy frameworks and the general approach of community organisations in six case studies, three in Scotland and three in England. The local evidence from the community organisations’ theories of change is then used to analyse and critique the assumptions which underlie the Localism and Community Empowerment policies. Alongside this, across the six case studies, a RE approach is utilised to examine the specific mechanisms which operate to deliver outcomes from community participation processes, and to explore the contextual factors which influence their operation. Given the innovative methodological approach, the study also engages in some focused reflection on the practicality and usefulness of combining ToC and RE approaches. Findings: The case studies provide significant evidence of the outcomes that community organisations can deliver through directly providing services or facilities, and through influencing public services. Important contextual factors in both countries include particular strengths within communities and positive relationships with at least part of the local state, although this often exists in parallel with elements of conflict. Notably this evidence suggests that the idea of responsibilisation needs to be examined in a more nuanced fashion, incorporating issues of risk and power, as well the active agency of communities and the local state. Thus communities may sometimes willingly take on responsibility in return for power, although this may also engender significant risk, with the balance between these three elements being significantly mediated by local government. The evidence also highlights the impacts of austerity on community participation, with cuts to local government budgets in particular increasing the degree of risk and responsibility for communities and reducing opportunities for power. Furthermore, the case studies demonstrate the importance of inequalities within and between communities, operating through a socio-economic gradient in community capacity. This has the potential to make community participation policy regressive as more affluent communities are more able to take advantage of additional powers and local authorities have less resource to support the capacity of more disadvantaged communities. For Localism in particular, the findings suggest that some of the ‘new community rights’ may provide opportunities for communities to gain power and generate positive social outcomes. However, the English case studies also highlight the substantial risks involved and the extent to which such opportunities are being undermined by austerity. The case studies suggest that cuts to local government budgets have the potential to undermine some aspects of Localism almost entirely, and that the very limited interest in inequalities means that Localism may be both ‘empowering the powerful’ (Hastings and Matthews, 2014) and further disempowering the powerless. For Community Empowerment, the study demonstrates the ways in which community organisations can gain power and deliver positive social outcomes within the broad policy framework. However, whilst Community Empowerment is ostensibly less regressive, there are still significant challenges to be addressed. In particular, the case studies highlight significant constraints on the notion that communities can ‘choose their own level of empowerment’, and the assumption of partnership working between communities and the local state needs to take into account the evidence of very mixed relationships in practice. Most importantly, whilst austerity has had more limited impacts on local government in Scotland so far, the projected cuts in this area may leave Community Empowerment vulnerable to the dangers of regressive impact highlighted for Localism. Methodologically, the study shows that ToC and RE can be practically applied together and that there may be significant benefits of the combination. ToC offers a productive framework for policy analysis and combining this with data derived from local ToCs provides a powerful lens through which to examine and critique the aims and assumptions of national policy. ToC models also provide a useful framework within which to identify specific causal mechanisms, using RE methodology and, again, the data from local ToC work can enable significant learning about ‘what works for whom in what circumstances’ (Pawson and Tilley, 1997).

Local authorities were at the forefront of the provision of health services and health service planning before the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland and in Britain more generally in 1948. By 1929 the Local Government Act had consolidated the position of local authorities, who provided a range of hospital services and clinics and carried out public health duties. Furthermore, in Scotland local authorities were influential in the planning of health services. They gave evidence, through their associations and individually, to a range of committees including the Committee on Scottish Health Services in the 1930s and the Committee on Post-War Hospital Problems in Scotland in the 1940s. Yet, despite their centrality in the provision of health services and their influence on future planning, historians such as Morrice McCrae and Jacqueline Jenkinson have paid little attention to local authorities in their histories of the NHS which stress consensus and the domination of the medical profession and organisations. The Department of Health for Scotland (DHS) was also increasing their role within the provision of health services through the administration of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service (HIMS) and the war-time Emergency Medical Service. As a result the DHS believed that effective administration of health services, particularly the hospitals, could only be achieved through centralisation under their authority. This created competition between the DHS and local authorities over the administration of hospitals, the most prestigious part of the health services. This thesis provides evidence to support the view of Charles Webster and Rudolf Klein that conflict within consensus characterised the establishment of the NHS in Britain. The thesis argues that conflict was evident within the Scottish NHS as it was in the NHS in England and Wales. The period between 1939 and 1974 witnessed the slow removal of local authorities from the Scottish NHS, initially through negotiations over policy formation. Policy network theory is utilised in this thesis as a tool to analyse the relationship between the DHS and local authorities. Policy network theory suggests that organisations with bargaining resources can influence policy formation in an area in which they have interests, and the policy formation process does not end with the passing of an Act but continues during the implementation process. On this basis local authorities would be expected to have been in a strong position to influence the NHS (Scotland) Act, 1947 and its implementation. This thesis argues that the DHS created a hierarchical relationship with local authorities which prevented them from influencing the development of the NHS in any significant way. The relationship between the DHS and local authorities was both a partnership and hierarchical, making it difficult for local authorities to oppose the proposals put forward by the DHS, particularly the removal of their hospital services. The local authorities’ acceptance of assurances from the DHS, that the removal of services from their remit was temporary, resulted in an auxiliary role for them in the NHS (Scotland) Act, 1947. The implementation process continued the slow removal of local authorities from the administration and planning of health services. Despite local authorities’ attempts to increase their influence within the NHS, the DHS (later the Scottish Home and Health Department) regarded local authorities as service providers of peripheral health services. Only in the development of their own areas of responsibility were local authorities able to assert any influence, with the caveat that it did not have an impact on any other part of the NHS. Throughout its implementation, the NHS continually encountered problems of co-operation, co-ordination and clarity in division of responsibility throughout its implementation. The DHS tended to resolve these issues in favour of the hospitals and general practitioners, rather than the local authorities. Despite the DHS’ attempt to promote the importance of the local authorities’ role in the NHS through publicity, both the attitude of the DHS and the relatively small proportion of NHS expenditure accounted for by local authorities, led local authorities to see themselves on the periphery of the NHS. The removal of local authorities from the NHS continued in the 1950s and 1960s, encouraged not only by the DHS but also by legislation such as the Social Work (Scotland) Act, 1968, which removed many of their health services including mental health services. In 1960s the Scottish Home and Health Department (SHHD) came to the view that the inherent administrative problems within the NHS could only be removed through reorganisation. Local authorities had little bargaining power left by this stage and although they attempted to reassert their position within the NHS were effectively removed from the negotiating table. The reorganisation of the health services in 1974 achieved both the Department of Health for Scotland’s goal of centralisation and the removal of local authorities from the Scottish health services.

This submission develops a set of arguments around the path dependency of places – how previous policy eras shape the trajectory and outcomes of places - and the tensions between social inclusion policies and practices on the one hand and competitiveness on the other. Path dependency results from previous legacies of the built form and access and eligibility rights. The "narrative" of places, the categories and descriptions used in delineating neighbourhoods and shaping policy is also influential. A coherent line of research is demonstrated which has revolved around the definition, measurement and scale of deprivation and housing's role in social exclusion and competitiveness debates. Originally focused at household and individual level, the enquiry shifted to the role of neighbourhoods and places in terms of their "compositional" and "environmental" meaning. The thesis revolves around the concept of participation standards and the underpinning principles of citizenship arising from denial of access to relative "norms and standards". This highlights tensions in the competing goals of competitiveness and inclusion in housing and urban policy at different scales resulting in differential speeds and experiences of place. Logically this would suggest that the evolution of citizenship and participation can legitimately embrace the concept of citizenship of place.

Successful delivery of public service depends on how the relationships are forged by the actors (organizations) involved in service provision in a given socioeconomic and political context. By applying Agency Theory to the accountability features of service transaction and Activity Theory as a tool to define relationships, I have demonstrated that the public sector (District Governments) exhibits a more liberal attitude towards relationships with community based organizations (Water Users' Committees) in the provision of rural drinking water, while being more formal in relationships with the technical service providers (NGOs). The resolution of the dilemma regarding whether to choose trust-based or more formal contractual relationships with community and service providers in service provision, depends on how effectively the public sector builds their capacity to monitor, supervise and enforce the terms of the service provision relationship. The study of the application of accountability features in the service delivery transaction helps us to understand how a government organization structures its relationships with community organizations and with others, by using either a social or a market approach. The research also reveals that it is difficult to assign accountability in the collaborative network type of service provision, particularly for the provision of public goods and services, which demands a greater level of formal accountability to legitimize the functioning of the government.

UK regeneration exists amid a ‘burgeoning’ literature which states the ongoing desire to improve the outcomes of urban policy. However, concern about the symbolic nature of regeneration policy and its re-production in the form of ‘linguistic debates’, can latterly be witnessed in the context of more ‘discursive’ concerns rooted in shifting patterns of governance. Drawing empirically from research with fifty UK regeneration professionals and Laclau & Mouffe’s (2001) theory of socialist hegemony to explore reasons for the persistence of such ambiguity, three rival discourses emerge in the form of ‘Building City Regions’; ‘Narrowing the Gap’; and ‘Building Community Capacity’. What a critical analysis suggests is that by ‘deconstructing’ rather than ‘deciphering’ the goals of regeneration policy, a temporary ‘discursive’ form of regeneration emerges in which the contradictions and tensions within the discourse are represented in the form of ‘nodal points and floating signifiers’ and articulated through the notion of lack. This can be linked to the bureaucratic struggles which emerge as a result of a ‘new right’ hegemony, which commodifies all aspects of work and social life to bring market-informed ways of seeing and doing to every aspect of regeneration practice. Actors seek to manage such complexity through emotional investment.

This thesis presents a development of the concept of post-liberalism to analyse processes of statebuilding in Central Asia by the example of Kyrgyzstan from a decolonial angle. Recent debates in peace, conflict and intervention studies have conceived of ‘post-liberal’ and ‘hybrid forms of peace’ as modalities of resistance against and re-negotiation of a globally dominant ‘liberal peace’ template promoted by Western governments and the international intervention architecture. This research proposes to critically reconsider these debates by introducing ‘imaginaries of statebuilding’ – understood as mental constructs structuring people’s thoughts and actions – through which the study captures the complex and contradictory processes of reception, adoption and resistance against globally dominant notions of capitalist economic development, democracy, and peacebuilding and security practices. Practices of peacebuilding and community security – and their embeddedness in the post-liberal trajectory of statebuilding – are analysed by the example of local crime prevention centres, territorial youth councils, and a national level NGO network working on police reform and participatory provision of public security. The research demonstrates how exclusion, structural violence and precarity are reproduced and feed into patterns of post-conflict governmentality which exist in sync with seemingly emancipatory and contextually meaningful ways of coexistence and steps towards institutional reform.

The aim of EU Regional Policy is to intervene effectively in regions that “lag behind” in economic terms and to finance development programmes through the allocation of Structural Funds which operate in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity, additionality and partnership. This policy should allow regions to converge with EU averages in terms of income and employment. Italy and Spain provide very good examples within the EU as a whole, of significant economic disparities between regions that still appear to be present. We argue and provide substantial evidence of the fact that the persistence of such disparities is mainly due to inefficient administrative and institutional capacity at the regional level. Although some regions have brought themselves towards the average, in Italy and Spain, there is evidence that certain administrative, institutional and implementation problems have tended to appear, hampering the opportunities of regions to converge in the required way. Because of this, regional economic convergence and thereby socio-economic cohesion are still beyond reach. Two decades after the 1988 Reform of the Structural Funds, EU Regional Policy has only partially succeeded in reducing regional economic divergence within Italy and Spain, where regional economic inequalities still exist. Although we demonstrate that some regions have been able to move forward in the requisite way, it is questionable whether all of the support for these regions can actually be eliminated completely in the near future with the challenges that the EU faces, particularly in relation to the latest round of Enlargement.