Localism in Practice: Investigating Citizen Participation and Good Governance in Local Government Standards of Conduct

Abstract

This article examines how, against a background of localism endorsed by the 2010 coalition government in the United Kingdom, a key component of local integrity and governance was fundamentally altered. The Localism Act 2011 abolished the English local integrity framework, which relied on the participation of local citizens in the policy making and implementation of local government standards of conduct. The article utilizes Henrik Bang's concepts of “expert citizen” and “everyday maker” to explore citizen participation in local standards committees. Using a case study approach, the article demonstrates how standards committees shaped processes and practices in the local governance of integrity. The authors argue that standards committees were crucial in promoting local participation and enhancing good governance.

What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Is It Rules or Leadership?

“…On the officer side, a senior manager called the monitoring officer had responsibility for the management of the ethical framework and reported to the chief executive in each council. Standards committees were required to include independent chairs and a proportion of independent members to separate them from political influence (Lawton and Macaulay ). Therefore, we see how the implementation of the ethical framework was shaped by leaders with different forms of authority—electoral, professional/legal, and the moral authority of “independence.” Moreover, operationalizing the ethical framework had to take place within “a collection of agencies, laws and processes” that made up a wider integrity system (Six and Lawton , 640), including internal organizational efforts and external actors such as financial auditors, rules governing political parties, and the justice system.…”

Making Corruption Disappear in Local Government

“…In the United Kingdom, ethical standards for local councils under the Local Government Act 2000 were introduced following a series of corruption scandals over the preceding decades (Lawton & Macaulay, 2014: 77). A decade later, the UK reforms were rolled back following the return of a national Conservative government wanting to remove bureaucratic and centralized control over local councils (Cowell, Downe, & Morgan, 2014;Lawton & Macaulay, 2014). The interest in corruption at the local level has only received marginal attention in Australia.…”

Reputational risks and participation in flood risk management and the public debate about the 2013 flood in Germany

“…Usually, it is argued that a well set-up participatory process draws on a range of different sets of knowledge and capacities (Paton, 2007), contributes to increased risk perception, trust (Paton, 2007;Wachinger et al, 2013), enables social learning (Pahl-Wostl, 2006) and improves accountability and transparency (Lawton and Macaulay, 2014). Thus, participation can potentially lead to the improvement of the overall risk management process resulting in a more effective reduction of the flood risk (Merz and Heintz, 2013).…”