A key institutional driver of current reforms within English local government is 'alternative service delivery'. Our review of councils' annual accounts between 2010/11 and 2016/17 suggests ...'corporatization'-the creation of local authority companies-is a growing phenomenon across the whole of English local government. This represents such a significant and far-reaching development in the governance, performance and efficiency of local public services that it constitutes a major field-level change at the interstices of the institutions of state, market, corporation and community. In this article, the authors briefly sketch ways corporatization could be regarded as a field-level change, before presenting findings and reflecting on their implications.
En République populaire de Chine, l'économie des temples est souvent considérée sous le prisme d'une marchandisation imposée par les autorités locales. Cet article vise à complexifier cette ...vision en partant de l'ethnographie d'un temple villageois dédié au Roi des remèdes (Yaowang) dans les alentours du site taoïste du Mont Qingcheng au Sichuan. Nous verrons que, loin d'une opposition de fonctionnement entre une économie rituelle et une économie capitaliste, une relation entre les projets d'enrichissement du gouvernement municipal et le culte à Yaowang se tisse sur des bases territoriales. La divinité y a sa propre efficacité, qui amène à voir la planification économique d'État pour ce qu'elle négocie avec les conceptions locales de l'espace et de la dévotion.
There is increasing pressure on local authorities to restructure themselves to meet current expectations from the public. Multilevel governance has emerged as one method for such restructuring. Using ...the results of a survey conducted among 1733 residents of local authorities in Israel, we explore the effects of three specific multilevel governance reforms - the merging, disaggregation and clustering of local government authorities - on residents' assessments about local governance and democracy. Our findings underscore the importance of public support for the structural reform. Those who become involved in soft reforms involving bottom-up groups and voluntary coalitions that cluster together are more likely to trust their local authority, feel it responds to their needs satisfactorily and listens to them. However, the more support they express, the more their perceptions are attenuated. In contrast, residents of local authorities that amalgamated with other communities that then went through hard reforms, such as merging and disaggregation involving up-scaling and top-down reforms, had fewer positive opinions about these issues. Only residents who strongly favoured the merger had positive perceptions about local governability and participation in decision-making and were satisfied with local services and trusted the local government. We discuss these findings and draw conclusions about their implications for local structural reforms in an era of local and regional governance.
•Rewilding can contribute to ecosystem services and combat climate change.•Organisational understanding and leadership are crucial for successful rewilding implementation.•Land availability and ...conflicting opinions on land management pose challenges to scaling rewilding efforts.•Time constraints and concerns about habitat quality without herbivores were identified as barriers.
Rewilding is increasingly viewed as a process-driven approach to land management that offers an alternative to traditional nature conservation, supports nature recovery, and responds to climate change. However, implementing rewilding in British local authorities can be challenging. This qualitative study explores the challenges and opportunities of implementing rewilding in a British local authority setting, focusing on a local authority in Hampshire. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional officers and councillors who influence land management in the council, to understand their understanding of rewilding and the opportunities and barriers to implementing it.
The study found that the local authority favoured rewilding as an option for land management. However, there was a need to develop greater consistency in definition and research-based understanding. The study presents a framework outlining how rewilding could contribute to the delivery of ecosystem services, including combating climate change, positive carbon sequestration, connecting spaces, and increasing the functional and biological quality of land through the adoption of twelve key principles. The research outcomes provide insights into how rewilding could be embraced by other local authorities and offer recommendations for further research at a policy and practice level, with a focus on site-based interpretation.
ZusammenfassungDie finanzielle Armut der Familie kann das gelingende Aufwachsen von Kindern und Jugendlichen in allen Lebensbereichen beeinträchtigen. Um den möglichen Folgen des oft „unsichtbaren ...Armutsrucksacks“ für Bildung, Gesundheit und soziale Teilhabe möglichst frühzeitig zu begegnen, bauen Kommunen in Nordrhein-Westfalen seit 2002 Präventionsketten auf und aus. Kommunale Präventionsketten sind eine Gestaltungsvision für eine langfristige, integrierte Handlungsstrategie. Der Leitgedanke ist es, die Angebote und Leistungen unterschiedlicher Handlungs- und Politikfelder entlang der Biografie des Aufwachsens miteinander zu verknüpfen, um so Kinder, Jugendliche und ihre Familien bestmöglich zu unterstützen und möglichen Benachteiligungslagen frühzeitig entgegenzuwirken.
More and more local public authorities are aware of the role of communication, information, administrative transparency and public involvement in the decision-making process. The need and desire to ...make publicly known local issues is increasingly part of the strategy of promoting the activity of local public administration.
Democracy in the true sense of the word is impossible today without the implementation of effective communication and information techniques, which are the cornerstones of both public relations theory and practice. The role of communication itself in the administration has long been recognized and emphasized in the literature, to the point where it has been said that “it is obvious that without communication no organization can exist” (Laxmiksnth, 2002, p. 167). All the more so now that new communication and information techniques are being put into operation, an integral part of the reforming nature of changes in public administration everywhere.
Through this paper we have tried to analyze the impact and importance of public relations procedures in shaping the perception and attitude of citizens towards public activities.
This paper extends scholarship on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) through a case study in Saltillo, Mexico. The work is based on interviews (N:12) and survey work (N: 611) with women who have experienced ...GBV in spaces of public transport (busses) in this city. We extend existing work through an analysis of the role of the local state in GBV by exploring women's experiences of the systems in place to report and redress episodes of GBV in spaces of public transport. Building on existing conceptual work in feminist geography, we argue that systems for reporting gender-based violence in public transport can function as a mechanism of re-victimisation on the part of local authorities. Based on this analysis, we argue that the Mexican state is not only failing in its commitment to enable women to live lives free from violence but also acting as an agent of further violence
The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses ...the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.
This article aims to position postsocialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe in the broader debate on urban environmental justice. The article crosscuts through all three dimensions of justice ...(distributive/distributional, procedural/participatory, and interactional/recognition) in the context of urban green and blue space provision. Environmental justice is still an emerging topic in postsocialist cities, constrained by market-orientation and neoliberal trends within society, privatization, and the primacy of private interests. The respective situation in postsocialist cities provides insights into the international debate on environmental justice, by highlighting some extremes related to neoliberal and populist governments and very rapid processes that lack long-term democratic consensus within societies. The findings of this study are discussed in the context of a postsocialist legacy, which includes broad tolerance for inequalities, a lack of solidarity in society, a lack of responsibility for the public interest, and extreme individualization and disregard for social interests. This has gradually led to the corporatization of local authorities and various business–government coalitions. This setting is more likely to favor business models related to the use and management of urban green and blue spaces than the environmental justice discourse.
•Broad tolerance for inequalities, lack of solidarity in society, lack of responsibility for the public interest•Extreme individualisation and disregard for the social interest•Corporatisation of local authorities and various business–government coalitions•Urban green and blue spaces poorly considered in planning•Justice consideration far from being accepted as guiding principles for urban greening
Abstract
Introduction
Lack of home ownership is associated higher rates of mental and physical ill-health and death1. According to longitudinal data in Ireland, 92% of persons aged 75 and over own ...their homes outright with approximately 8% living in rented accommodation2. We sought to compare characteristics of a cohort of patients open to our Integrated Care for Older Persons (ICOP) team with this national Irish dataset.
Method
A convenience sample of 50 patients reviewed by the ICOP team in a University Teaching Hospital was analysed. Data was anonymised and stored via encrypted key. Analysis was performed using SPSS v.27.
Results
The average age was 82.5 (±8.1) with 70% women in the sample. There was a lower prevalence of home ownership in this group of patients than the national norm (66% vs 92%) ie 34% were living in rental accommodation, majority Local Authorities. Those living in Local Authority accommodation had lower overall time spent in full time education than those who owned their own home (9.3 ± 3.1 vs 11.5 ± 3.3 p = 0.013), they were more likely to require external assistance with finances (54.5% v 88.2% p = 0.026) and less likely to have a Will (63.6% vs 35.2% p = NS) or EPOA (33.3% vs 23.5% p = 0.053) established. There was no significant difference in age, CFS, MMSE, Waterlow or polypharmacy rates between these groups.
Discussion
This report highlights a divergence between community dwelling older adults referred to ICOP teams and national standard data. Targeted social work interventions should be operationalised to assist financially vulnerable older adults. 1: Marmot M, Geddes I, Bloomer E, Allen J, Goldblatt P. The health impacts of cold homes and fuel poverty. London: Friends of the Earth. 2011. 2: Orr, J, Scarlett S, Donoghue, O, McGarrigle, C. Housing conditions of Ireland’s older population. Implications for physical and mental health, 2016. Available from https://tilda.tcd.ie/publications/reports/pdf/Report_HousingConditions.pdf
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