Austerity, political control and supplier selection in English local government: implications for autonomy in multi-level systems

Eckersley, P.; Flynn, A.; Ferry, L.; Lakoma, K.

doi:10.1080/14719037.2021.1930122

Austerity, political control and supplier selection in English local government: implications for autonomy in multi-level systems

Eckersley, P.; Flynn, A.; Ferry, L.; Lakoma, K.

Authors

P. Eckersley

A. Flynn

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

K. Lakoma

Abstract

Analysis of 60,000 contracts awarded by English councils between 2015-19 reveals that austerity constraints are a key predictor of councils outsourcing services to for-profit suppliers, regardless of their political control. Conservative Party-controlled councils are also more likely to contract with for-profit suppliers, although we found no link between Labour-controlled councils and not-for-profit suppliers, nor evidence that political or budgetary factors influence whether councils contract with providers based in their own region. We argue that centrally imposed funding cuts, and a belief that for-profit suppliers represent a cheaper option, could be overriding Labour Party councils’ ideological preference for not-for-profit providers.

Citation

Eckersley, P., Flynn, A., Ferry, L., & Lakoma, K. (2023). Austerity, political control and supplier selection in English local government: implications for autonomy in multi-level systems. Public Management Review, 25(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.1930122

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	May 4, 2021
Online Publication Date	Jun 1, 2021
Publication Date	2023
Deposit Date	May 4, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Mar 1, 2023
Journal	Public Management Review
Print ISSN	1471-9037
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	25
Issue	1
Pages	1-21
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.1930122
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1248810

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© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.