Accountability and transparency in English local government: Moving from ‘matching parts’ to ‘awkward couple’?

Ferry, L.; Eckersley, P.; Zakaria, Z.

doi:10.1111/faam.12060

Accountability and transparency in English local government: Moving from ‘matching parts’ to ‘awkward couple’?

Ferry, L.; Eckersley, P.; Zakaria, Z.

Authors

Professor Laurence Ferry laurence.ferry@durham.ac.uk
Professor

P. Eckersley

Z. Zakaria

Abstract

Although excessive transparency and accountability demands can have a counterproductive effect on organisational performance (Bovens, 2005), longstanding hierarchical accountability structures to ensure financial conformance in English local government continue to endure. Interestingly however, the previously top-down regime for performance accountability in English local government has been replaced by bottom-up mechanisms such as greater transparency and a more open market for public services. Using the framework developed by Hood (2010), this paper will show how such reforms mean that transparency and accountability are moving from being ‘matching parts’ to an ‘awkward couple’, and how this has significant implications for public services.

Citation

Ferry, L., Eckersley, P., & Zakaria, Z. (2015). Accountability and transparency in English local government: Moving from ‘matching parts’ to ‘awkward couple’?. Financial Accountability and Management, 31(3), 345-361. https://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12060

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Jul 3, 2015
Publication Date	Aug 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Oct 23, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Oct 27, 2015
Journal	Financial Accountability and Management
Print ISSN	0267-4424
Electronic ISSN	1468-0408
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	31
Issue	3
Pages	345-361
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12060
Keywords	Accountability, Transparency, English local government, Budgeting, Performance measurement.
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1419456

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© 2015 The Authors Financial Accountability & Management Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.