Leadership in local government reform : strategic direction versus administrative compliance

by

“This paper reports on a study into the managerial and organizational responses to the reform of Victorian local government, highlighting the fact that each local authority is unique and that broad policy instruments designed to reform and improve local government across the State will have mixed success reflecting the attitudes and competencies of those responsible for implementation.”

Local government reform is occurring in different ways and at different rates throughout Australia. Driven by their own State and the Federal Government is reform agendas local governments are responding in a myriad of ways. These reforms are designed to improve the efficient delivery of local government services and include measures such as boundary restructuring to achieve economies of scale and the contracting out of council works and services. The pace and responsibility for these reforms is also being driven in different ways throughout Australian States. The Victorian State Government is agenda for local government reform is seen as the most proactive having completed boundary reform within a specific timeframe, achieved significant rate cuts and set minimum standards for compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) expenditure (Johnstone & Kiss 1996).

While other Australian States have been less directive with the reform of their local governments they appear equally interested in improving this area of public sector management. The managerial and organizational response to these universal, State wide reform strategies reveals much about the assumptions held by those responsible for implementation. The challenge of responding to broad policy instruments varies between local governments reflecting the unique history, present context, values and competence of those responsible for implementing this, change.

Published in Australian Journal of Public Administration | John Martin | 1999, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Leadership-in-local-government-reform-%3A-strategic-Martin/c6386c9c2dcb21e118c762700f31cbc3dc735f3c, https://consensus.app/details/this-paper-reports-study-responses-reform-government-martin/c5057f5f6835519f991bb15331fff748/


Related posts:

  1. Structural Reform in Australian Local Government “Amalgamation has always been the favoured Australian policy instrument for improving the efficiency of Local government. However, this policy consensus has flown against mounting evidence that amalgamation not only often fails to reduce costs, but also generates significant unintended negative...
  2. Improving Efficiency in Australian Local Government: Structural Reform as a Catalyst for Effective Reform “It is argued that ‘top-down’ state government structural reform policy initiatives carrying the threat of amalgamation constitute an efficient mechanism for evoking optimal ‘bottom-up’ structural change models.” Municipal amalgamation has been the main policy instrument of local government structural reform...
  3. From Convergence to Divergence: Reforming Australian Local Government “The article maps local government reform in the six Australian states over the last decade. It identifies an earlier phase of reform that focused primarily on redefining the roles and relationships within local government, especially between state and local governments,...
  4. The Implications of the Lyons Report into Local Government in England for Structural Reform in Australian Local Government “It is argued that the Lyons Inquiry adds weight to other work that questions the traditional reliance on amalgamation as the chief instrument of Australian local government reform.” The Lyons Inquiry into English local government presented its Final Report in...
  5. One Size Does Not Fit All: The Special Case of Remote Small Local Councils in Outback Queensland “Despite the recent limited forced consolidation experienced by some RAPAD councils, we find that the ‘tyranny of distance’ afflicting RAPAD members means that it is not amenable to ‘top-down’ reform measures, like council amalgamation, and policy makers should instead focus...
  6. Local Government in Tasmania: Reform and Restructuring “…success of amalgamation and reform in local government has been strongly influenced by the degree of local government involvement and support in the reform process, lessons that have wider application.” Tasmania has a long history of failed attempts at restructuring...
  7. The politics of local government autonomy in Nigeria reloaded “The study concludes that local government is a unique political structure and the degree of autonomy it enjoys from federal or regional or state government is congruent with the politics of the state. Consequently, there is no grand theory of...
  8. Optimal approaches to structural reform in regional and rural local governance: The Australian experience “This paper argues that such reliance on the blunt instrument of municipal consolidation has been misplaced, not only because it is based on the mistaken premise that ‘bigger is better’ in local governance, but also because it ignores many other...
  9. The rhetoric and reality of local government reform “Local government restructuring must be seen as part of a broader state strategy to defuse political unrest and restructure the economy. This article will show how contradictory objectives of this strategy at local government level are primarily responsible for the...
  10. Local Government Autonomy and State Reliance on Special District Governments: A Reassessment “This study challenges the findings of previous studies showing that limitations on local autonomy strongly encourage a splintering of local government authority due to the creation of numerous special districts.” The notion that local government autonomy has important implications for...