Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems of Local Government. United Kingdom (UK): This consists of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, in financial terms they have a substantial similarity with the PFI scheme. They are considerably more complex than ‘conventional’ partnerships and see the integration of the private sector provider into the actual operations of the public sector organization. Strategic Service Partnership (SSP): SSPs are a variant of the Public-Private Partnership which are often based around ICT. The 1999 Local Government Act also gave an inspectorate-the Audit Commission-the power to inspect local authorities and examine their compliance with the Act under threat of central Government sanction. 1) under a concept known as Best Value (Martin, 2000) which required continuous improvement in the “… economy, efficient and effectiveness …” of public sector organisations. The agenda of the NPM was enshrined in law by the 1999 Local Government Act (S. The UK Government has advanced a number of policy agendas which have affected local government and the most important of these are the New Public Management (NPM) which sought to increase efficiency and performance in the public sector.
Instead local government exists within a plethora of laws and agendas imposed by central Government and these determine the powers and responsibilities of local authorities. In the UK, local government exists within a unique legislative structure, as its position is not guaranteed constitutionally. Should these relationships break down, a situation can develop in which a local authority becomes uncoordinated and policy execution becomes haphazard. Intra-organizational relationships must be established between the different departments in the administrative bureaucracy. An interorganizational relationship must be established between the elected members and the administrative bureaucracy via the SMT and between the different political groups. These relationships may be characterised as follows.
DIALECTIC RELATION SERIES
This bureaucracy is coordinated and managed by a Strategic Management Team (SMT) which forms an interface between the elected members and the organizational bureaucracy.Īs local authorities are composed of different organizations and factions, operating within a single institution, their operation depends upon a series of inter and intra-organizational relationships.
DIALECTIC RELATION PROFESSIONAL
The professional staff are divided between different departments which perform the specialised tasks necessary for the coordination of the authority, the fulfilment of statutory tasks and the implementation of the polices of the controlling political group. A local authority consists of an elected council comprised of politicians divided into different political groups (or parties) and an administrative bureaucracy comprised of professional staff. Local authorities in the UK are most effectively understood as institutions (Peters 2005) which are made up of factionalised organizations (Pettigrew, 1972). These two factors are understood in terms of a dialectic relationship. As such reform which seeks to enable intra-organizational collaboration is shown to be dependent upon the establishment of inter-organizational collaboration.
These ICT systems allow for intra-organizational communication and coordination to be achieved. This partnership allows for the private sector organization to become the exclusive provider of ICT systems for the public sector organization. This seen the emergence of the Strategic Service Partnership (SSP) in which an interorganizational relationship is established between a public sector organization and a private sector organization.
In the public sector ICT reform is usually delivered through complex partnership arrangements with private sector organizations. However, the established literature on achieving ICT based reform tends to focus upon the private sector and is unsuitable for analysing the public sector. AbstractInformation and Communication Technology (ICT) is often seen as a vehicle for organizational reform.
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