Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter‐local agreements in England using social network analysis
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Author | Ruth Dixon,Thomas Elston |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12649 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public
management: Mapping inter-local agreements
in England using social network analysis
Ruth Dixon|Thomas Elston
Blavatnik School of Government, University
of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Correspondence
Ruth Dixon, Blavatnik School of Government,
University of Oxford, Radcliffe Observatory
Quarter, 120 Walton Street, Oxford OX2
6GG, UK.
Email: ruth.dixon@queens.ox.ac.uk
Funding information
British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small
Research Grant, Grant/Award Number:
SG160949; John Fell Fund, University of
Oxford, Grant/Award Number: 171/311
Abstract
English councils have long aspired to be ‘self-sufficient’,
providing services within single jurisdictions with limited inter-
local collaboration. However, by 2017 almost all local councils
(97 per cent) participated in one or more frontline or back-
office ‘shared service’involving 338 distinct partnerships.
We analyse this new-found enthusiasm for inter-council col-
laboration by performing exploratory social network analysis
on organizational and financial data for all 353 English coun-
cils. We examine factors predicting collaboration and the
characteristics of the service networks that result, focusing on
resource, organizational and political considerations. Propen-
sity to collaborate was found to be unpredictable, but partner
choice was rational, driven by geographical proximity and sim-
ilarity in organizational and resource characteristics. We argue
that, according to the institutional theory of organizations,
both efficiency and legitimacy influenced these reform
choices, and the risks of fashionable collaboration were
mitigated by careful partner selection. We highlight impli-
cations for future quantitative research into symbolic
(non-instrumental) forms of collaboration.
Why …is there such unyielding local resistance to voluntary joint schemes? …In the first place, [councils]
are afraid that entrance to a joint scheme will be a confession of the need for a larger area, and will risk
annexation of their own…. [Secondly,] if they enter into a joint arrangement, they will be admitting the
need for the service [and] new expenditure. Thirdly, there is sheer infatuation with the idea of their own
independence, and jealousy of their neighbours. Such jealously may seem …improbable…. It, nevertheless,
exists.(Herman Finer, 1933, English Local Government)
Received: 26 April 2019Revised: 19 September 2019Accepted: 5 December 2019
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12649
746 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons LtdPublic Admin. 2020;98:746–767.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
1|INTRODUCTION
Shared services, or ‘inter-local agreements’, are a common mechanism for delivering local public services in many
countries (Bel and Warner 2016; Teles and Swianiewicz 2018). The stated justification is that coordination problems
and scale diseconomies can be overcome by councils working in partnership to provide services across their separate
jurisdictions(Ostrom et al. 1961; Feiock 2007; Elstonet al. 2018). But not in England. Here,joint provision of services
by local authoritiesworking collaboratively has not been widely practised (Kelly 2007; Hulst and van Montfort 2012).
As long ago as the 1930s—the ‘golden age’of English local government, when council responsibilities were plentiful
and their freedom from Whitehall considerable—Herman Finer attributedthis lack of inter-council collaboration to the
‘sheer infatuation with the idea of their own independence’(see epigraph). Many decades later, Stewart (2000, p. 67)
similarly observeda continuing aspiration for ‘self-sufficiency’and persistent ‘scepticism about joint working’.Some-
what ironically, therefore, it has been through the impositionof far more disempowering reforms—tocouncil size and
responsibilities—that central government has sought to tackle local fragmentation (John 2010). Such ‘restructuring’of
local government became ‘an addictive habit to which British government ministers and civil servants are peculiarly
prone’(Elcocket al. 2010, p. 331), whereas jointworking was simply ‘not taken seriously’(Stewart 2000,p. 267).
But it appears no longer. The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government elected in 2010 ruled out
further restructuring of councils, but enthused about shared services. ‘I am not at all interested in the structure of
local government’, said Eric Pickles while Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government, ‘but we will expect coun-
cils to …cooperate and work together’(Conservative Home 2008). His wish was granted. By 2017 more than 97 per
cent of councils participated in at least one inter-council collaboration, providing services such as social care, waste
collection, libraries and back-office administration. Our purpose in this article is to understand how this significant
and ‘un-English’collaboration has been implemented, and consider the motivation behind such long-resisted reforms,
focusing on differences between organizational efficiency and organizational legitimacy.
Using social network analysis (Borgatti et al. 2018), we investigate drivers of inter-council collaboration and the
characteristics of the resulting networks, focusing on resource, organizational and political considerations. We also
test for differences relating to political salience and partnership size. Our results indicate few consistent predictors
of collaboration. However, partner selection is important, and is driven mainly by geographical proximity and similari-
ties in organizational characteristics and resource requirements. We interpret this inconsistency in our ability to
explain council choices about reform adoption and partner selection as evidence of collaboration being employed as
much for legitimacy-enhancing as for efficiency purposes, supporting recent work by Dickinson and Sullivan (2014),
Jacobsen (2015) and others on the ‘cultural’rather than ‘instrumental’reasons to collaborate. Combined with insights
from the institutional theory of organizations (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Scott 2014), which highlighted the trade-offs
that organizations often face between efficiency and legitimacy, our findings suggest several empirical markers by
which future quantitative research can detect when acceptance among stakeholders is supplementing or supplanting
organizational efficiency as a motivation for collaboration.
The structure of the article is as follows. First, we identify the main factors that could influence implementation
of collaborative reforms from an instrumental, or ‘goal attainment’, point of view, as well as the alternative explana-
tion relating to organizational legitimacy. We then describe our empirical case, methods and results. Finally, we pre-
sent our interpretation based on institutional theory, and its implications for future research.
2|CONSIDERATIONS IN SHARED SERVICE DESIGN
Organization theory and existing research on the drivers of inter-local collaboration internationally suggest three
main factors that may have influenced shared service adoption in England, concerning resources, organizational char-
acteristics, and politics. To these we add a fourth, still nascent, perspective that rationalizes collaboration by its
potential to enhance legitimacy.
DIXON AND ELSTON747
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