Elite perceptions of change in English local government: comparisons between Conservative and New Labour governments

Abstract

In 1997 Local Government Studies published an article (Asquith, 1997) which assessed the perceptions of managerial and political elites in eight English local authorities towards change management against the background of Conservative Governments' reform agendas. The article argued that the authorities could be placed on a continuum depending on their state of organisational evolution, with some authorities being better equipped to manage change than others. During 2005 the authorities were revisited to ascertain how they had adapted to deal with the reforming Blair Governments since 1997. What this article shows is that characteristics evidenced in the original work in the authority deemed to have evolved the most, were present in those authorities revisited.