Public value, institutional logics and practice variation during austerity localism at Newcastle City Council.

Abstract

This article outlines how a local authority, Newcastle City Council (NCC), employed a public value strategy to address austerity localism. Borrowing from neo-institutional theory, it traces how organizational change constituted also a variation of democratic deliberation practices. Legitimation of budget decisions against central government cuts involved such practice variations as public consultations to change NCC’s vision and mobilize support, building operational capacity beyond the organization, and new accountings for measuring public value. Insofar as such organization changes constituted instances of institutional entrepreneurship of local government as a key democratic institution, our article refines existing theorizing of public value accounting.