Does FOI Work? The Impact of Freedom of Information on Local And Central Government in England

AbstractFollowing the Grenfell tower incident, fire safety is being re-examined around the world. One key area is planning and building approval. It has been suggested that expert fire authority advice is being ignored in building and planning control. In this paper, freedom of information requests were submitted to fifty local government authorities (covering approx. one quarter of the England and Wales population), and three fire authorities, to examine their consultation process. No prior study has examined this relationship in detail. This work attempts to identify who is assessing fire safety, what expertise exists in the system, and what guidance is available from central government. The impact of austerity on the ability to effectively manage fire safety is also discussed. Results show local government authorities have a large degree of discretion with no guidance from central government on fire safety expertise needed to assess non-prescriptive building standards, and only limited guidance on how fire authority advice should be used by local government. The result is a dramatically different level of engagement of fire authorities, and implementation of fire safety advice. There does not appear to be any guarantee that fire expertise is being employed for the purpose of fire safety in building/planning processes. This means the building regulatory regime may be one of the many issues contributing to fire safety issues. Stronger legislation is required to prevent a post-code lottery of fire safety implementation.

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Income and Life Quality of Farmer Households Suffering Social Exclusion

Journal of Economics and Development ◽

10.33301/2012.14.03.04 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 63-87

Author(s):

Anh Mai Ngoc ◽

Ha Do Thi Hai ◽

Huyen Nguyen Thi Ngoc

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Statistical Method ◽

Social Exclusion ◽

Central Government ◽

Life Quality ◽

Economic Aspect ◽

Local Authorities ◽

The Impact

This study uses descriptive statistical method to analyze the income and life qual- ity of 397 farmer households who are suffering social exclusion in an economic aspect out of a total of 725 households surveyed in five Northern provinces of Vietnam in 2010. The farmers’ opinions of the impact of the policies currently prac- ticed by the central government and local authorities to give them access to the labor market are also analyzed in this study to help management officers see how the poli- cies affect the beneficiaries so that they can later make appropriate adjustments.

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Asymmetrical Attribution of Performance in China

Asian Survey ◽

10.1525/as.2020.60.5.978 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 60 (5) ◽

pp. 978-1003

Author(s):

Jacqueline Chen Chen ◽

Jun Xiang

Keyword(s):

Economic Development ◽

Local Governments ◽

Central Government ◽

Cultural Theory ◽

Political Trust ◽

Mediation Model ◽

Multilevel Mediation ◽

Dual Pathway ◽

Underlying Mechanisms ◽

The Impact

Existing studies of the impact of economic development on political trust in China have two major gaps: they fail to explain how economic development contributes to the hierarchical trust pattern, and they do not pay enough attention to the underlying mechanisms. In light of cultural theory and political control theory, we propose adapting performance theory into a theory of “asymmetrical attribution of performance” to better illuminate the case of China. This adapted theory leads to dual pathway theses: expectation fulfillment and local blaming. Using a multilevel mediation model, we show that expectation fulfillment mainly upholds trust in the central government, whereas local blaming undermines trust in local governments. We also uncover a rural–urban distinction in the dual pathway, revealing that both theses are more salient among rural Chinese.

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Ten Demi-Culverins for Aldeburgh: Whitehall, the Dunkirkers, and a Suffolk Fishing Community, 1625–1630

Journal of British Studies ◽

10.1017/jbr.2019.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 315-337 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Thomas Cogswell

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

East Coast ◽

Central Government ◽

Fishing Community ◽

Close Attention ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea ◽

The Impact

AbstractHistorians have not paid close attention to the activities of freebooters operating out of Dunkirk in the late 1620s. This essay corrects that omission by first studying the threat from Dunkirk to England's east coast and then addressing how the central government, counties, and coastal towns responded. A surprisingly rich vein of manuscript material from Great Yarmouth and particularly from the Suffolk fishing community of Aldeburgh informs this case study of the impact of this conflict around the North Sea.

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Early European Influences on Tswana Law

Journal of African Law ◽

10.1017/s002185530000930x ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 31 (1-2) ◽

pp. 151-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

I. Schapera

Keyword(s):

Legal System ◽

Central Government ◽

Government Control ◽

Intensive Study ◽

African Countries ◽

Inaugural Lecture ◽

Western Law ◽

Local Courts ◽

The Republic ◽

The Impact

In the closing paragraph of his inaugural lecture Law and Language, Professor Allott referred to what he termed “a daunting obstacle” to the intensive study of African legal systems.That obstacle is the rapid disappearance, before our very eyes, of the traditional systems that we have proposed to study. A generation ago there would not have been that difficulty; but today the traditional tribunals have vanished in many African countries where their place has been taken by statutory local courts. Even where the traditional courts appear to have survived, at least in name, they are usually affected by the impact of western law and institutions and of central government control.Those words were written in 1965. How true and necessary they were is shown by the fact that more than fifty years previously—even more than “a generation ago”—the impact of “western” influences upon the Tswana peoples of the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now the Republic of Botswana) had already led to many changes in the indigenous legal system, although, at that time, the “traditional courts” still survived virtually intact and not merely “in name”.The nature and extent of those changes can be readily ascertained by the fortunate chance that, there are still available the records of approximately 470 cases tried, over a period of six and a half years, in the highest traditional court of the Ngwaketse, a major Tswana chiefdom.

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Understanding the impact of mandatory accrual accounting on management practices: interpretation of Japanese local governments’ behavior

International Review of Administrative Sciences ◽

10.1177/0020852321988956 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002085232198895

Author(s):

Makoto Kuroki ◽

Keiko Ishikawa ◽

Kiyoshi Yamamoto

Keyword(s):

Internal Control ◽

Local Governments ◽

Public Management ◽

Management Practices ◽

New Public Management ◽

Central Government ◽

Institutional Pressures ◽

Accrual Accounting ◽

Logistic Analysis ◽

The Impact

Accompanying the spread of “new public management” since the 1980s, accrual accounting and results-based management has become a global standard. However, whether accrual accounting results in successful outcomes and which drivers lead to the intended impacts of the reform have been contested. Given the mixed arguments in the literature, we set out two research questions: (1) “Have public sector organizations realized any positive impacts on management practices by adopting mandatory accrual accounting?”; and (2) “What are the primary drivers of such impacts?” To answer these questions, we examine the impact on management practices by analyzing a survey to ascertain how financial department officers in Japanese local governments perceive the benefits of adopting mandatory accrual accounting on management practices. The results indicate that they have so far not recognized the intended benefits, though they had expected higher benefits in internal control. Then, we use technical-rational, socio-political, and institutional isomorphic perspectives in a comprehensive approach to understand the impacts on management practices. The logistic analysis shows that financial managers in local governments that do not have a majority party in the assembly, but consist of several parties in power, as well as in those with greater financial dependence on the central government, perceive higher benefits. Further, we find that financial managers that imitate other local governments as a form of mimetic pressure perceive fewer benefits. The results show that some technical-rational tools, socio-political conditions, and institutional pressures change the perceived benefits for public managers of adopting mandatory accrual accounting. Points for practitioners We find that some technical-rational, socio-political, and institutional factors explain the intended internal benefits of the mandatory adoption of accrual accounting. In practice, financial managers in local government feel the merits of accrual accounting in less autonomy in not only politics, but also finance, and few mimetic conditions. It might be understood that difficult situations would drive practitioners to use mandatory information.

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New Labour and New Surveillance: Theoretical and Political Ramifications of CCTV Implementation in the UK

Surveillance & Society ◽

10.24908/ss.v2i2/3.3377 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 2 (2/3) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pete Fussey

Keyword(s):

Fear Of Crime ◽

Central Government ◽

Local Level ◽

Local Policy ◽

Disciplinary Power ◽

Structure And Agency ◽

Surveillance Society ◽

The Uk ◽

Criminological Theories ◽

The Impact

This paper examines the implications of New Labour's approaches to crime and disorder on CCTV implementation. It concentrates on the usage of CCTV as one of the government's many initiatives, which are intended to address crime and disorder, including the fear of crime. In particular, the impact of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) - the cornerstone of this government's approach to crime reduction - on the generation of such strategies is examined. The paper revisits neo-Marxist and Foucauldian analyses of the so-called surveillance society through an appraisal of the complex relationship between structure and agency in the formulation and implementation of anti-crime and disorder strategies. Drawing on fieldwork data the paper considers the activities of practitioners at a local level by focusing on the influence of central government, local communities and 'common sense' thinking based on certain criminological theories. It is argued that a myriad of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues), structures and agency - as well as the indirect influence of central government - shape CCTV policy. Ultimately, the creation of new local policy contexts under the CDA emphasise the need to consider incremental and malleable processes concerning the formulation of CCTV policy. In turn, this allows a re-examination of theoretical accounts of surveillance, and their attendant assumptions of sovereign or disciplinary power.

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