Re-thinking corruption in post- 1950 urban Britain: the Poulson affair, 1972–1976

Urban History ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 510-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER JONES
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Government Funding ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Activity Cycles ◽  
Local Councillors

ABSTRACT:The Poulson affair is central for the agenda of post-1950 British urban history. Particularly, it suggests that corruption is a key facet within the politics of planning and the rebuilding of Britain's urban environment. Poulson provides a useful route into an examination of the place of corruption because of the scale of his activity both in terms of volumes and types of constructions he planned. His networks and the geographical concentrations of his work also provide a regional dimension. Perceptions of Poulson have been fashioned by investigative and satirical journalism and television. A re-evaluation in light of official government sources and Poulson's autobiography raise important issues concerning the ethics of public officials and private businessmen; and the consequences of the interaction of public and private markets. Poulson's business was driven by the twin engines of government funding and the activity cycles of the construction industry. The fluctuation in his planned commissions provides a useful barometer of the planning environment. Poulson's demise exposed the complex relations between business, civil servants, ministers and local councillors contributing to growing public distrust of the workings of government. Finally, it is suggested that the affair was a critical factor in re-shaping central–local government relationships.

Local Government or Local Governance? - Gerry Stoker: The Politics of Local Government, London, Macmillan, 2nd edition, 1991, xvi + 303, paperback £10.99, hardback £35.00. - John Kingdom: Local Government and Politics in Britain, Hemel Hempstead, Philip Allan, 1991, xii + 282 pp., paperback £9.95. - John Gyford: Citizens, Consumers and Councils: Local Government and the Public, London, Macmillan, 1991, x + 215 pp., hardback £35.00, paperback £9.99. - Jacqueline Barron: Gerald Crawley and Tony Wood: Councillors in Crisis: The Public and Private Worlds of Local Councillors, London, Macmillan, 1991, x + 227 pp., hardback £35.00, paperback £9.99. - Steve Leach and John Stewart: The Politics of Hung Authorities, London, Macmillan, 1992, vii + 243 pp., £45.00. - Richard Batley and Gerry Stoker (eds): Local Government in Europe: Trends and Developments, London, Macmillan, 1991, xvi + 239 pp., paperback £10.99, hardback £35.00. - Edward C. Page: Localism and Centralism in Europe: The Political and Legal Bases of Local Self-Government, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, ix + 186 pp., £27.50. - Samuel HumesIV : Local Governance and National Power: A Worldwide Comparison of Tradition and Change in Local Government, Hemel Hempstead, Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1991, xii + 307 pp., £40.00. - Michael Keating: Comparative Urban Politics: Power and the City in the United States, Canada, Britain and France, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1991, vii + 224 pp., £35.00.

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-538
Author(s):  
G. W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
National Power ◽  
Harvester Wheatsheaf ◽  
Local Councillors

Whistleblowing: Perception of Public Officials in Local Government

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-136
Author(s):  
장용진 ◽  
조태준 ◽  
Sujae Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Public Officials

Fiduciary Principles and Public Offices

2019 ◽  
pp. 302-322
Author(s):  
Ethan J. Leib ◽  
Stephen R. Galoob
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Normative Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Law

This chapter examines how fiduciary principles apply to public offices, focusing on what it means for officeholders to comport themselves to their respective public roles appropriately. Public law institutions can operate in accordance with fiduciary norms even when they are enforced differently from the remedial mechanisms available in private fiduciary law. In the public sector, fiduciary norms are difficult to enforce directly and the fiduciary norms of public office do not overlap completely with the positive law governing public officials. Nevertheless, core fiduciary principles are at the heart of public officeholding, and public officers need to fulfill their fiduciary role obligations. This chapter first considers three areas of U.S. public law whose fiduciary character reinforces the tenet that public office is a public trust: the U.S. Constitution’s “Emoluments Clauses,” administrative law, and the law of judging. It then explores the fiduciary character of public law by looking at the deeper normative structure of public officeholding, placing emphasis on how public officeholders are constrained by the principles of loyalty, care, deliberation, conscientiousness, and robustness. It also compares the policy implications of the fiduciary view of officeholding with those of Dennis Thompson’s view before concluding with an explanation of how the application of fiduciary principles might differ between public and private law settings and how public institutions might be designed or reformed in light of fiduciary norms.

The Rôle and Management of the Federal Statistical System

1940 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart A. Rice
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Statistical System ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Business Units ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
The Press ◽  
National Economic

The profusion of American statistics is a frequent source of astonishment to statisticians of other nations. Statistics are assembled and published by official agencies at all levels of government; by trade and industrial associations; by individual business concerns; by the church, universities, and the press; by professional research organizations; by a multitude of societies and associations with innumerable aims and programs; and sometimes by the plain citizen himself. Collectively, the statistical activities of the nation comprise a system in the same sense that the activities of four and one-half million business units comprise a national economic system.There is, in fact, a functional relationship between the national statistical system and the socio-economic order of which it is a part. The primary functions of social and economic statistics are to illuminate practical problems, to assist in the determination of policies, and to aid in arriving at administrative decisions. No sharp line can be drawn in these respects between public and private affairs. Statistics find their raison d'etre as tools, to be used by public officials and by all manner of private interests, and in each case to make some part of the socio-economic system work more effectively.

scholarly journals Local government funding and life expectancy in England: a longitudinal ecological study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandros Alexiou ◽  
Katie Fahy ◽  
Kate Mason ◽  
Davara Bennett ◽  
Heather Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Ecological Study ◽  
Government Funding

In the Mayor We Trust? Trust as the Micro-Foundation of Complementary Politico-Administrative Relations in Local Governments

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Howard Grøn ◽  
Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Communication Climate ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Unstable Environment

This article investigates trust between politicians and public officials in local government. Beginning with Svara’s claim that such relations are characterized by complementarity, we point to the importance of trust as the micro foundation for these relationships. Applying a mixed-methods strategy, we investigate a number of factors we expect to be related to the level of trust between politicians and public officials, as perceived by the latter. We find that the communication climate and a clear distribution of tasks correlate positively with trust, whereas an unstable environment correlates negatively with trust.

scholarly journals Medical reform: initial institutional, organizational, economic principles and regional peculiarities of implementation (on the example of Luhansk region)

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
N. Chebotarova ◽  
V. Chebotarov
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Family Doctor ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Institutional Economic ◽  
Medical Reform

Medical reform is a complex systemic, not only purely professional, but also socio-economic, legal and in general institutional phenomenon. In many respects, under modern conditions, medical reform is becoming a kind of barometer of socio-economic and political stability of Ukraine and a criterion of its development level. At the same time, the medical sphere directly affects the life of every family, every person and every administrative-territorial unit of the country. However, at present, domestic science and state regulation practice leave out of consideration the relationship between health care and local government reform. Such a systemic professional, socio-economic and institutional phenomenon requires the appropriate systemic interdisciplinary analysis. The last years of medical reform in Ukraine have already provided the epistemological and empirical basis for such analysis. The authors, on the basis of the interdisciplinary approach in the generalized form, reveal the institutional content of medical reform with the separation of its – the cause-effect sequence of implementation. This logic is reflected in the proposed cognitive pentagram: «formation of the family doctor institution» – «introduction of health insurance» – «connection with local government reform» – «formation of the network of hospital districts» – «equality of public and private medicine», based on the peculiar triangle «inbuilt» in the pentagram (the first, second and fourth elements of the pentagram). Emphasis is placed on the need for institutional, economic and professional projection of the selected pentagram and triangle on the “health care institution” as a defining organizational and sectoral basis for providing high quality medical services to citizens, which should be the generalizing criterion for medical reform. The example of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts also are considered as the regional features of medical reform in the context of hospital districts formation (objective possibility / impossibility of compliance with the norms of the Ukraine Ministry of Health on determining the parameters of hospital districts) and some relevant problems which arose taking into account the war in the east.

The Crown land accounting dilemma in New South Wales local government

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Ivannikov ◽  
Brian Dollery ◽  
Leopold Bayerlein
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Financial Accounting ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThe paper addresses the question of whether Crown land managed by local authorities in the New South Wales (NSW) local government system should be recognised as assets on municipal balance sheets.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a synoptic review of the literature on accounting for public goods assets followed by a critical analysis of the official requirements of the NSW government on the recognition of Crown land.FindingsThe NSW government holds that Crown land managed by local councils should be recognised as an asset on council books. However, following an assessment of the problem through the analytical prism of financial accounting, it is argued that councils do not possess control over Crown land and that such land should thus not be recognised by councils.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper covers the legal and accounting framework applicable to NSW local government. However, it has broader implications for other local government systems with similar institutional and legislative foundations, such as other Australian states, New Zealand and South Africa, and these implications are highlighted in the paper.Practical implicationsIt is argued that NSW government policymakers should re-consider the requirement for Crown land to be recognised on councils' books. Local authorities would then be able to save money and time on external auditing, management of land asset registers and the mandatory valuation of land.Originality/valueAlthough Crown land shares some of the characteristics of other public good assets, unique accounting challenges arise due to the existence of a market in which such land could be traded not by councils, but by its legal owner (the Crown). In financial accounting, legal ownership is not considered as the main criterion over assets. However, the authors argue that for Crown land vested with councils, it becomes a critical factor in decision making.

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