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Government budgetary techniques and related management systems, with particular reference to English local authorities

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.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:345623
Date January 1983
CreatorsSalem, Tahseen Bahgat El-Shazly
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/111472/

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