8. Governing Through Bureaucracy

This chapter explores the central government departments, executive agencies, and other public bureaucracies in operation in the UK today, such as those in local and territorial governments. These bodies help make and implement public policies and run public services. The chapter reviews more general work on bureaucracy and public administration, and sets out the theory of politician–bureaucrat relationships (going back to the principal–agent model), before addressing the classic question of civil service influence over public policy. It then takes account of the diversity of bureaucratic organizations operating in Britain today. The chapter also looks at the evidence of how politicians manage to satisfy their political objectives through delegating authority to these bodies.

GENDER IMBALANCE IN THE FIELD OF PROVIDING FORENSIC SERVICES FOR JUSTICE: CURRENT SITUATION IN UKRAINE AND INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

The article is dedicated to the issue of gender inequality in general, and in particular in the field of forensic expert support of justice, including the problem of vertical segregation of labor in leadership positions in state specialized institutions of Ukraine. The article outlines possible reasons for the existence of gender imbalance in the form of vertical segregation of labor in leadership positions in the field of employment and in the field of forensic expert support of justice, as well as examples of gender inequality manifestations. An analysis of previous researches of distinguished women scientists and representatives of civil society institutions as to the problem of gender imbalance in the field of education, professional self-determination and career growth has been carried out. A specific focus is drawn to particular manifestations of gender imbalance in science. At the same time, the analysis of legal regulations of national and international significance on counteraction to gender inequality in different areas of public life has been considered. The activity of central executive agencies regarding advancement of women in society and influence of initiated programs on counteraction to gender imbalance in the field of forensic expert support of justice is studied. Statistics on manifestations of possible vertical segregation of labor in leadership positions in state specialized institutions of Ukraine is provided. Examples of international organizations which activity has a wide range of influence and the ones which activity is aimed at improving the state of women forensic experts in the field of forensic expert support are outlined. The experience of such organizations for preventing and overcoming gender imbalance, as well as specific proposals for solving this problem are taken into consideration.

2. Constitutional Organisations, Institutions, and Roles

Titles in the Complete series combine extracts from a wide range of primary materials with clear explanatory text to provide readers with a complete introductory resource. This chapter describes the UK’s main constitutional bodies or offices and their roles. The state’s institutions and offices are linked to the three main powers at work within it: executive power, legislative power, and judicial power. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and heads the three branches of the state, although she is a constitutional monarch and her power is subject to constitutional limits. The executive is an umbrella term that describes two different entities: the political executive and the wider machinery of the government. The political executive contains the Prime Minister and government ministers. The wider machinery of government involves the collection of people who keep the country running, which includes the civil service, the police, the armed forces, members of executive agencies such as the Prison Service, and the welfare benefits system. Parliament is the body tasked with law-making, the scrutiny of Bills, and holding the executive accountable. The courts oversee the operation of the rule of law by reviewing actions, omissions, and decisions taken by the executive to ensure that they are legal, rational, and procedurally proper and that they comply with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998. The chapter concludes with a discussion of elections to the Westminster Parliament—the mechanism through which MPs are elected and other ways in which those elections could be run.

Implementing presidential particularism: bureaucracy and the distribution of federal grants

Do agencies implement the president's particularistic goals uniformly? This paper clarifies the presidential particularism literature by explicitly considering the mechanism through which the president pursues their policy goals: executive agencies. The constellation of bureaucratic agencies responsible for allocating grants plays a key role in facilitating or frustrating presidential policy priorities. Using a dataset of 21 agencies over 14 years, I find that only agencies ideologically proximate to the president engage in particularism benefiting the president. I find no evidence that politicization influences agency implementation of particularism. Critically, the moderating effect of the bureaucracy on particularism only occurs for distributive programs over which agencies have discretion. When disbursing formula grants written by Congress but administered by the bureaucracy with little or no discretion, ideological distance between agencies and presidents has no effect on particularism.

LEGAL REGULATION OF GOAL-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING AS AN ELEMENT OF STATE LONG-TERM PLANNING

The research is focused on specific features of legal regulation of goal-oriented programming as an element of the state long-term planning. It has been indicated that the state long-term planning consists in choosing the priorities of economic development and public administration, determining resources to achieve the goals, elaborating and implementing tasks and measures of socio-economic development. One of the elements of state long-term planning is the development of state goal-oriented programs. Legislative and doctrinal definitions of state goal-oriented programs have been analyzed. The state goal-oriented program should be defined as a set of interrelated scientifically sound tasks and measures of social, economic, scientific, technical, organizational nature aimed at obtaining positive results of the state and society’s development. The state programs determine resources for financing their implementation; they establish the tasks for the executors of specific activities. The legal principles for the development of state and local goal-oriented programs have been determined. It has been clarified that the central and local executive agencies, the National Bank of Ukraine and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine have the authorities to develop state goal-oriented programs. Such programs are approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine or the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Local goal-oriented programs are created by the village or city mayor and approved at the village or city council’s sessions. The authors have defined certain stages of the development and approval processes of socio-economic development programs, which include preparation of the concept of the goal-oriented program, coordination with various ministries, conducting scientific and technical, as well as other examinations, public discussions of the program. The authors have formulated propositions for amending the current legislation in regard to public participation in the development of state and local goal-oriented programs, namely: 1) members of the public should have the authorities to initiate the development of state and local programs; 2) public organizations should have the right to offer their own programs for the development of territorial communities or programs to address social and economic problems; 3) propositions of citizens expressed by them during the program’s public discussions must be taken into account in the draft of the relevant program.

Blame avoidance, scapegoats and spin: Why Dutch politicians won’t evaluate ZBO-outcomes

Despite high expectations about the results of agencification and a legal obligation to evaluate executive agencies, ministers and MPs seem not very interested in evaluating agencies’ results. Hood’s theory on blame avoidance is used to explain the lack of evaluation in the case of the Dutch ZBOs. Only one in seven ZBOs is evaluated as frequently as mandated. Findings show that ZBO evaluations are more an administrative than a political process. Reports do not offer hard evidence and are seldom used in parliamentary debates. There are no clear patterns as to which ZBOs are evaluated more, or less, often.

Some Directions of Increasing the Efficiency of Public Administration in the Context of Digitalization

Building upon the practices of the Treasury of Russia as well as other federal executive agencies, this article presents a new approach aimed at improving the efficiency of public administration through the centralization of general management functions within a given body. The set of general functions across public authorities is largely generic, suggesting that the stage involving the optimization of said functions can be regarded as a preliminary one preceding a full-fledged digital transformation of public administration. Functions associated with budget accounting and budget report formation, material and technical support, and personnel, legal and administrative activities dominate in the structure of both federal and local authorities’ general management functions. At the same time, individual government bodies at both the federal and regional levels are all, to some extent, engaged in the optimization of general functions implementation costs through assigning appropriate powers to subordinate agencies. Exemplified by the Treasury of Russia and other public administration bodies, the article systemizes and analyzes the existing approaches within the subject matter. As a result of the analysis, it is deemed advisable to synchronize the activities of public authorities, in particular through coordinating the process at the level of the Government of the Russian Federation.

To Delegate or Redelegate: Is That The Question?

Conflicts between those supporting and opposing congressional redelegation to executive agencies go back to the earliest days of the Republic, but given the enormous development of the administrative state, now raise issues of great practical importance. The arguments back and forth implicate abstract notions of democracy, efficiency, and judicial power, though typically partisan and other self interested considerations actually drive the debate. The future is likely to see some retrenchment, but not wholesale rejection of redelegation, as the massive and unpredictable consequences would deter courts from acting.

Administrative and Legal Principles of Prosecutor’s Office Interaction with Public Administration Entities on the Issues of Performing Assigned Functions

The problem of legal regulation of interaction between the prosecutor’s office and public administration entities on the issues of performing the assigned functions has been studied. The research is based on studying such legislative acts as the Constitution of Ukraine, Laws of Ukraine “On Central Executive Agencies”, “On the Prosecutor’s Office”, “On the Status of MPs of Ukraine”, “On Temporary Investigative and Special Commissions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine” and other legislative acts and bylaws regulating the interaction of the prosecutor’s office with state authorities. The interaction of the prosecutor’s office with public administration entities has been defined as the procedure of appeal of the prosecutor’s office to the executive authorities, which is regulated by law norms, as well as the procedure of consideration of the appeals of MPs and representatives of the executive authorities in the prosecutor’s office. The authors have established the following main directions of the interaction between the prosecutor’s office and the state authorities: consideration of Mps inquiries by the prosecutor’s office, participation of prosecutors in the work of investigative commissions and temporary special commissions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, interaction of the prosecutor’s office with the Accounting Chamber of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, prosecutors’ representation of state interests in the court by presenting lawsuits within administrative, commercial or civil proceedings, interaction of the prosecutor’s office with the judicial branch of power in the process of judicial system, coordination of law enforcement activity, informing the representative authorities about the results of the activity of the prosecutor’s office and the rule of law in the state and individual territorial community. Improvement of legal principles of cooperation between prosecutor’s office and public administration entities can take place in such areas as bringing the provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On the Prosecutor’s Office” in line with the Constitution of Ukraine, development of a common form of request to all prosecutor’s office in regard to represent the interests in court, establishment of uniform terms for all authorities to consider their requests by the prosecutor’s office, establishment of a separate norm in the Law of Ukraine “On the Prosecutor’s Office” that would regulate the procedure and conditions of coordination of law enforcement activities of other authorities by the prosecutor’s office.

Legislation-Generated Fuzziness

Under classic accounts, a single, overarching and all-inclusive legislative mandate or organic statute grants executive agencies the authority to act in a specified field of action, and delineates the contours of their action by setting limits and conditions. However, as any practitioner can attest, the legislative mandate, when it exists, is never the sole source of executive authority, and is always supported by other legal rules. There will usually be other legal rules that have no direct link to the legislative mandate, when it exists: other statutes, executive orders, and other unilateral measures, and, in a Federal system, state law, when and as far as it pertains to any aspect of a Federal arrangement. The chapter analyses two patterns of patchwork legislation, piling-up and dispersion. Using examples from the UK and the US in the fields of emergency and air pollution law, the chapter claims that the existence of multiple rules fuzzies-up the law. Varying in intensity and form, patchwork law commonly features in these four examples of domestic authorizations to act under, and beyond, formal law.