Reforming local government: Must it always be democracy versus efficiency?

Abstract

The financial crisis from 2008 has had a profound impact on Irish local government. Councils were faced with a disastrous combination of factorsdeclining funding from central government, difficulties in collecting commercial rates as businesses struggled, and a drastic fall in revenue from development levies. Staffing levels in the local government sector were reduced by over 20 per cent, significantly more than the losses suffered by central government ministries and departments. Yet the financial crisis also offered an opportunity for reform and a fundamental reappraisal of subnational government in Ireland. A reform strategy produced in 2012 paved the way for the Local Government Reform Act, 2014. As a result of this legislation, the number of local authorities was reduced from 114 to 31 with the complete abolition of all town councils. The number of council seats also fell from 1,627 to 949. Using Scharpf's dimensions of democratic legitimacy, this article assesses whether the focus of the 2014 reforms was on output legitimacy (efficiency and effectiveness) as opposed to input legitimacy (citizen integration and participation).

Irish urban policy: from benign neglect to national strategic planning

“…The reforms of local government, while allocating certain new roles to local authorities in the area of community and economic development and providing some new direct funding streams to local authorities, have made little or no impact on strengthening the role for city or metropolitan governance. The reforms have been criticised as largely bringing about structural rather than democratic changes, as they have failed to accord significant power to the local level and have not resulted in any substantial increase in democratic participation (Quinlivan 2017;Lennon 2019). Indeed, at the same time as new community participation structures are being put in place more generally, opportunities for participation in the planning and development system are being curtailed (Lennon 2019).…”

Reforming local government: Past, present and future

“…Another enduring theme in local government reform has been around creating new mechanisms, alongside the traditional electoral process, for involving local groups and citizens in local decision-making. Some of these, such as public participation networks, strategic policy committees and youth councils, are semi-institutionalised, whereas others are more experimental and are being used by individual local councils, such as online deliberative fora, consultation hubs, citizen surveys or participatory budgeting (Quinlivan, 2017;.…”

Reform and policymaking: Theory and practice in the Irish housing context

“…This represented new actors entering the policy arena, broadening the debate and increasing the urgency for change. In this context, the positive feedback was for reform to focus on efficiency, value for money and cost savings (Quinlivan, 2017).…”

“…This might also be relevant to other reforms more generally. Such reform, particularly during the time of austerity, has been focused on output legitimacy, including efficiency and cost-effectiveness, rather than seeking input improvements to democracy, such as citizen integration and participation (Quinlivan, 2017). As Lewis (2019, p. 285) suggests, 'the reform agenda for the past decade has been dominated by the need to cut costs, improve efficiencies and, only in recent years, to begin the process of securing improved outcomes'.…”