Community justice in Scotland – the system of agencies that deliver community punishments and related services – is being restructured for the second time in a decade. The current system of administration by regional Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) will be replaced by a two-tier model, with local planning passing to Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) and a new national body providing leadership for the sector. This thesis, the only empirical study of the restructuring, draws on interviews with politicians and practitioners to analyse the policy, its historical background and the ways in which – without directly affecting practice – it connects to major questions about Scottish politics and penal policy. Using the theoretical concept of the ‘penal field’, the thesis discusses the effects on community justice of struggle and compromise between Scottish local and national government. The birth of CJAs from this compromise caused them to be structurally flawed, but they were nonetheless not without certain achievements. Community justice is also considered in relation to historical narratives of a distinctive Scottish penal identity, and efforts to reaffirm it by reorienting the justice system towards community penalties rather than prison. Recent scholarship which highlights the role of local democratic structures in penal policy informs an analysis of CPPs (whose limited success has produced concern about their ability to fulfil justice responsibilities) and the relationship between their development (including the recent Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act) and the community justice redesign; the thesis argues that the community justice and community empowerment agendas are being allowed to converge but not meet. The new system, it is argued, is another structurally flawed compromise. The proliferation of agencies will likely hinder partnership working, while the new national body will have little power to fulfil some difficult and complex responsibilities around legitimacy and accountability. The policy will disrupt lines of communication despite efforts to smooth the transition, and the length of its development has already caused disruption. The restructuring, it is further argued, is insufficient to fulfil a deeply felt need for major reorientation of Scotland’s penal field.

Government budgetary techniques and related management systems have been recently of great concern in many countries all over the world. At the present time a few, major developments have been made in this field and these are the main focus of discussions in this thesis with a view to assessing their respective influence on the management of government activities in general, and local government in particular. This study aims to achieve one major objective, that of the empirical investigation of the state and developments of such techniques and procedures in English local authorities. This was done on the basis of the combination of a theoretical analysis, supported by the necessary descriptive material, with an empirical survey to test the main hypotheses of the study. The thesis is presented in three parts, where the first and the second present the theoretical review of the literature, critically discussing the state of the above-mentioned procedures in government activities through both central and local government. The final part summarises and evaluates the findings resulting from the analysis of the survey. The various findings have, where appropriate, been used to test the conclusions of the theoretical aspects of the thesis. The research findings suggest that traditional budgetary procedures in English local authorities are no longer sufficient for an effective and efficient allocation of resources. The annual budget within a corporate planning framework is an integrated part of overall policy and strategy in most authorities. Indeed it is a significant part of the corporate planning system. The present research also confirms that English local authorities have tended to doubt the practical value of PPBS and to prefer a corporate planning approach. A number of authorities have recognised the value of adopting ZBB, and some of them have adopted a modified budgeting approach based on ZBB principles. It seems that these authorities believe in ZBB as an approach suitable to a climate of restraint and cutback. Finally, the majority of the authorities disagree that the introduction of any changes in their accounting and auditing systems were a direct result of the introduction of the newer budgetary techniques.

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Devolution of power, responsibilities, and resources from central to local governments has been the foundation of decentralization reforms in developing countries like Ethiopia. The most recent decentralization reforms in Ethiopia began in the early 2000s at the woreda (district) level, focusing on strengthening local governments as institutions of democratic governance and efficient service delivery. Until now, decentralization in Ethiopia has attracted very little research; this study aims to fill that knowledge gap. The extent of decentralization is examined from a holistic framework, including the three dimensions of decentralization (political, fiscal and administrative), while its impacts are explored by focusing on access, equity, efficiency and quality indicators of education service delivery. Using a qualitative case study approach, this research consists of semi-structured interviews of key informants in government and educational administration, field observations, and review of relevant documents. Four local governments and twelve schools within two regional states of Ethiopia were selected as the sample frame. This dissertation argues that the implementation of woreda decentralization reforms in Ethiopia has proven problematic, as the official establishment of devolution operates within centralized structures and practices. Regional governments have established political, administrative and fiscal decentralization, as evidenced by the existence of legal authority and mechanisms of accountability, expanded functions, and significant allocation of unconditional grants transferred to woredas. Despite much progress, the further deepening of decentralization reforms has been hampered by centralizing practices, including the dominant roles of the ruling party, weak administrative capacity at the local government and school levels, and limited resource base of local governments. The link between decentralization reforms and improved local service delivery has been inconclusive. This study suggests that the impact of decentralization on primary education has been mixed. While decentralization reforms may have facilitated the impressive expansion of access to primary education, quality indicators such as dropout rates and student learning assessments have shown little to no improvements. This study lays the groundwork for continued research into the vital link between decentralization and basic service delivery in Ethiopia and beyond.

This thesis investigates the political management of state schooling under New Labour from 1997-2010. The thesis considers and rejects two mainstream approaches to the analysis of New Labour‟s education strategy which characterise the New Labour education project as either a process of marketisation or as a symptom of a shift to a new governance through networks of diffused power. Instead, the thesis argues that the best general characterisation of New Labour‟s education strategy is as a centralising project which has increased the power and discretion of the core of the core executive over the education sector at the expense of alternative centres of power. The thesis proposes that the trajectory of education policy under New Labour is congruent with a broader strategy for the modification of the British state which sought to enhance administrative efficiency and governing competence. Changes to education strategies can then be explained as the result of changing social and economic contexts filtered through the governing projects of strategic political actors. The thesis argues that New Labour‟s education strategy was largely successful in terms of securing governing competence and altering power relations and behaviour in the sector despite continuing controversy over the programmatic and political performance of its education policies.

How performance management influences the motivation of public-sector institutions in a decentralised system has received little attention by scholars. This study helps fill this gap by investigating how Minimum Service Standards (MSS) in Indonesia influences the motivation of local government in a decentralised country like Indonesia. This study considers the nature of MSS, how it works, what effect it has on the performance of local governments and why. The evidence is collected from extensive interviews with eighty-three respondents from central government, local governments (eight districts and cities) and non-governmental sector. The findings show the varying effects on the motivation of local government to improve service delivery. MSS does not motivate local governments that are already performing well, but more importantly, it also does not motivate those that are performing badly. However, a small positive effect is found on the motivation of those whose performance lies just below the minimum standard. As it has limited influence, the MSS system does not achieve its formal objectives. However, it survives because it brings central government other benefits. MSS provides a framework for central-local dialogue about public services and strengthens the role central government plays in delivering services at the local level.

The adoption of performance-related pay schemes is part of the wider market-type reforms occurring in public services today. However, this ‘managerial revolution’ has prompted an academic debate for and against these practices. The main questions raised revolve around the novelty, objectivity and compatibility of such practices to which this study responds. The thesis argues that the value of an incentive scheme policy is a function of the organisational environment, objectivity of performance measurement processes and perceived equity of the installed scheme. The research uses data from in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and desk research based on a case study of performance-related pay schemes in UK local authorities. The evidence indicates a strong support at policy level for the use of market-type managerial reforms, but less support on the ground for the performance-pay thesis. There are difficulties encountered in the setting, measuring and rewarding qualitative performance of intangible targets such as intellectual capital. The evidence perceives PRP schemes to be vulnerable to failure as they are installed as ‘off-the-shelf’ ‘stand-alone’ rather than organization-specific motivational devices. The study looks at the ‘new’ role of management accounting systems in meeting ‘performance information needs’ of public sector managers as a potential area for further research.

The research investigated how various people, such as Local Education Authority officers, teachers and parents, represented change (defined as becoming different from a previous state) concerning an inclusion strategy. The investigation used a case study approach and methodology based upon grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and heuristic research (Moustakas, 1990). Several different case studies within the LEA were used, a formal consultation concerning the change of specialist provision, staff views in a “MLD” school and LEA officer views. Data used was discourse, written and spoken, semi-structured interviews, public meetings and media publications. NVivo, a computer programme, was used to analyse the discourse, relating this to different theoretical orientations, cognitive psychology, social psychology, management theory and school improvement. Foucault (1977), especially the concept of episteme/paradigms, provided the most useful theoretical framework for analysing data. It is argued that inclusion within the case study LEA was not a paradigm shift, but change around the edge of a paradigm with a stable core, which related to groups of pupils being seen as different. Comparison has been made with Kuhn (1996) on how scientific paradigms are modelled, linking together the research methodology and findings.

This study examines policies and practices in procurement and commissioning which aim to maximise the value of public organisations’ spend by asking for contractors to deliver social value (community benefits) as added value, over and beyond the core requirement. It draws from case studies of revealing practices to i) contribute to the definition and interpretation of the term ‘value’ in procurement and commissioning, ii) identify a theoretical model of how community (societal) benefits can be delivered as ‘added value’, aimed at improving public procurement and commissioning practices and iii) explore the implications of this model for the current debate on ‘Public Value’, examining how it might contribute to policy and practice in creating and delivering value in public services delivery.

This thesis explores co-production between citizens and third sector professionals (in community regeneration, parents’ organisations, and older people’s services) in Sheffield, England and Lyon, France. I employ an analytical framework of institutional logics to explore how the rules, practices and narratives of the organisations are specific to their contexts and how these shape co-production practices. The study finds that while the Sheffield organisations are characterised by an assimilation of the state, community and market logics, the Lyon organisations demonstrate a blend of a ‘Napoleonic state’ logic, and a ‘local solidarity’ logic. These combinations of logics illuminate two approaches to co-production. In France, co-production is informed by notions of citizenship, solidarity and participative democracy, leading to a greater focus on citizen involvement in organisational governance and influence of rules as an enabler and constraint to co-production. In Sheffield, co-production is seen as a way to improve communities, services and outcomes, and we therefore see more pragmatic attention to co-design and co-delivery activities. This thesis provides an important contribution to co-production theory and practice, by employing institutional theory to demonstrate some of the cultural and contextual subjectivity of co-production, and producing evidence of meso and macro level factors that influence co-production behaviour.