Implementing ‘Best Value’: Local Public Services in Transition
| Author | Steve Martin |
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00200 |
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
IMPLEMENTING ‘BEST VALUE’:
LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES IN TRANSITION
STEVE MARTIN
This paper examines the impacts of the ‘Best Value’ regime on the manage-
ment of local public services in the UK. It argues that the regime marks an
important shift in the framework of national regulation of local authorities
and the services they provide but that the initiatives developed by the coun-
cils which have been piloting the new framework reflect a variety of
approaches to local implementation. This suggests not the arrival of a new,
hegemonic ‘outcomes-focused paradigm’ but a more gradual transition
characterized by the co-existence and interaction of hierarchical, market
based and collaborative frameworks for co-ordinating service delivery. The
search for ‘citizen-centred’ services is likely to lead to a shift in the ‘mix of
governing structures’ with an increasing number of services structured
around ‘cross-cutting issues’, specific client groups or local communities.
However, these more integrated approaches to local service delivery fre-
quently require internal re-structuring as well as more effective collabor-
ation with other local service providers and with local people. They may
not therefore lead to immediate improvements in public services and will
require local and central government to embrace new approaches to
learning.
Steve Martin is Reader in Public Policy and Management at Warwick Business School, University
of Warwick.
Public Administration Vol. 78, No. 1, 2000 (209–227)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
210 STEVE MARTIN
FROM CCT TO BEST VALUE
The British Labour Party’s 1997 General Election manifesto contained a
clear commitment to abolish the legal requirement for local authorities to
submit ‘defined activities’ to Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT).
However, subsequent policy statements made it clear that local authorities
were very much ‘on trial’. The abolition of CCT was to be accompanied by a
major attempt to ‘modernize’ local government. ‘New Labour’ was ‘seeking
nothing less than a radical re-focusing of councils’ traditional roles’ (Cmnd
4014, p. 5). ‘The old culture of paternalism and inwardness (had) to be
swept away’ and authorities would need to respond to ‘a demanding
agenda for change’ (Cmnd 4014, op. cit.).
This message was spelled out by the Prime Minister in a speech to the
Labour Local Government Conference in February 1998 and an
accompanying pamphlet on the future role of local government (IPPR 1998).
A series of consultation papers, published in the first half of 1998 and the
Local Government White Papers for England and Wales (Cmnd 4014 and
Welsh Office 1998) confirmed that councils which were able to re-invigorate
local democracy, deliver higher quality local services at a price that was
acceptable to local people and ensure that officers and politicians main-
tained high standards of conduct, would be rewarded with greater auto-
nomy and increased funding. However, those which failed to do so would
have resources and responsibility for delivering local services taken away
from them. In the words of a senior government adviser, the price of failure
would therefore ‘not be more CCT but less local government’.
This approach was in keeping with ‘New Labour’s’ declared ambition to
be ‘a government that focuses on the outcomes it wants to achieve, devolves
responsibility to those who can achieve those outcomes and then intervenes
in inverse proportion to success’ (Blair 1998), which in turn draws heavily
on Osborne and Gabler’s (1992) prescription for ‘re-inventing government’
and has some strong parallels with the ‘National Program for the Re-inven-
tion of Government’ launched by the Clinton/Gore administration in 1993
(see Bingman and Pitsvada 1998). Like their US counterparts, the moderniz-
ers in and around ‘New Labour’ believe ‘citizen-centred services’ to be the
hallmark of modern government (Cmnd 4310). Their objective is therefore
to reshape the relationship between government and the public by driving
up the service standards in line with increasing user expectations. Accord-
ingly services have to be organized around the needs of clients and cus-
tomers rather than according to organizational convenience. Public service
is ‘valued’, but traditional service based, departmental ‘silos’ are seen as
outmoded mechanisms that privilege producer and professional interests
and have therefore to be dismantled. New information technology is seen
as an important means of delivering more accessible and cost-effective ser-
vices, and local partnerships between public, private and voluntary sector
agencies are encouraged as a means of tackling ‘cross-cutting issues’ which
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
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