Cabinet Governance and Political Stability in English Urban Councils

Stephen Greasley

doi:10.5130/cjlg.v0i8/9.2404

PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.v0i8/9.2404

Stephen Greasley

The University of East Anglia

Abstract

Policy-makers have long been concerned with the quality of local political leadership and have often resorted to institutional reform to try to improve political leadership. This paper looks at a specific and neglected facet of the political management reforms that have been implemented in English local government over the last decade: the tenure and turnover of cabinet members. The tenure of top politicians may be an important influence on the performance of local government particularly when political management is designed to favour individualised leadership. On the one hand, excessively short tenures for top politicians may damage the ability of governments to develop strategic plans and ensure they are implemented while on the other hand the risk of loss of office is central to political accountability and excessively long tenures may be indicative of an insulated and unresponsive elite. While some research attention has been paid to the tenures of leaders of councils in England there is little systematic information about the tenure of cabinet members. This paper discusses the relevance of cabinet stability and provides an overview of recent experience in England.

How to Cite

Greasley, S. (1). Cabinet Governance and Political Stability in English Urban Councils. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, (8-9). https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.v0i8/9.2404

Issue

Issue 8/9 2011

Section

Research and Evaluation (peer-reviewed)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who submit articles to this journal from 31st March 2014 for publication, agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

For Issue 13/14, and all issues before, the following copyright applied:

Authors submitting a paper to UTS ePRESS publications agree to assign a limited license to UTS ePRESS if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license allows UTS ePRESS to publish a manuscript in a given issue. Articles published by UTS ePRESS are protected by copyright which is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTS ePRESS. UTS ePRESS publications are copyright and all rights are reserved worldwide. Downloads of specific portions of them are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Permissions to reprint or use any materials should be directed to UTS ePRESS via the journal's main editor, Alison Brown, journal@clgf.org.uk

Author Biography

Stephen Greasley, The University of East Anglia

Lecturer Comparative Public Policy and Political Social and International Studies. Teaching and research interests include: Bureaucracy and public administration, Public policy, Quantitative research methods for political research Models of bureaucracy, Political - bureaucratic relationsCentral-local relations, executive government, public administration, political economy and local government. He is currently co-supervising a thesis on the role of voluntary organisations in public services. Completed Research Projects and Grants include: Political Control and the Management of Bureaucratic Discretion in English Local Government ESRC (First Grant Scheme), (at IPEG - Manchester), the evaluation of political management reforms, a contribution to the Lyons Inquiry into Local Government and a number of projects around urban economic development, and other policy related research projects mainly focused on the operation of English local government.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Stephen Greasley, The University of East Anglia