Accountability Of Local Authorities Research Articles

The Robustness of Common-Pool Resource Governance in the Gulf of Mottama Ramsar Wetland, Myanmar under Pre- and Post-Political Crisis Conditions

This study examines the role of communities, local institutions, conservation organizations and government agencies in the governance of large-scale common-pool resources (CPR) at the Gulf of Mottama Ramsar wetland, Myanmar before and one year after the 2021 coup d’état. The research employed a mixed method approach in two villages in the GOM on common alluvial land, waterbirds, and fisheries CPRs. The robustness of CPR governance is evaluated with Ostrom’s eight design principles. We found that pre-coup the formation of local user associations, livelihood incentive strategies, and co-management approaches were increasingly effective to conserve fisheries and waterbirds CPRs, while land conflicts over new common alluvial land persisted. One year following the coup, offshore fisheries especially faced challenges from illegal practices by outsiders, due to significantly weakened co-management practices and accountability of local authorities and large-scale commercial fishers to the fishing communities.

People-Centred Early Warning System: ‘Last Mile Connectivity’ During Cyclone Titli In Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh

The paper examines ‘last mile connectivity’ from a multi-hazard Early Warning System (EWS) perspective to situate it within a broader societal context, highlighting the role of continual communication with warned vulnerable populations as a critical requirement. Taking the case study of a very severe tropical cyclonic storm Titli that struck the coastal district of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, India, in October 2018, the paper identifies specific gaps within the conception of ‘last mile connectivity’ and calls for a shifting focus from ‘early warning delivery’ to greater integration with local needs and capabilities. It shows that the effectiveness of EWS depends on several factors, including uncertainties under which people negotiate to receive the warning, inter-departmental coordination, power and communication facilities, and accountability of local authorities.

Determinants of Online Local Budget Transparency in Croatia and Slovenia

As a part of the public governance, transparency started to come forward during the New Public Management reforms, mostly for the evaluation of public sector efficiency. This article focuses on online local budget transparency (OLBT) in two neighbouring countries – Croatia and Slovenia. The article is pioneering in a comparative study of the determinants of budget transparency in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, based on a unique database and measure of transparency. The article tests the determinants of OLBT that reflect the accountability of local authorities and a cornerstone for public participation in the budget process. The following methodology was applied: using a data set of 768 Slovenian and Croatian local governments over the 2015–2017 period and testing it against several financial and socio-economic variables, and a random effects panel logistic regression, separately for Croatia, Slovenia, and a pooled sample. The results indicate that greater size of the population, higher administrative capacity and lower unemployment rate in individual local governments significantly contribute to higher levels of OLBT. This study demonstrates the possibility of developing a standardised measure of local budget transparency and using it to investigate the reasons for different levels of transparency in the two – and potentially other – CEE countries. The results of this and similar studies can serve as a basis for establishing cohesive local budget transparency policies for different countries and creating a combination of policy instruments to enhance transparency.

When rhetoric does not translate to reality: Hardship, empowerment and the third sector in austerity localism

Austerity localism powerfully explains dynamics of (dis)empowerment at the local level, especially regarding the autonomy and accountability of local authorities and third sector organisations (TSOs) in the UK. Yet these dynamics at institutional level have also a clear impact on individuals, especially the socio-economically vulnerable. This is especially true in a time of cost-containment and welfare retrenchment. This article addresses a gap in the literature by focusing not only on TSOs but also on the experiences of vulnerable individuals under austerity localism. The discussion is centred on two types of TSOs: foodbanks and advice/advocacy organisations. Drawing upon primary qualitative data from three locations in England and Wales, the article argues that the emphatic rhetoric of empowerment within austerity localism, which others have shown to be problematic at the institutional level, does not translate into real-world empowerment for service users and other vulnerable individuals. In making the argument the article contributes to work on expanding the analytical scope of austerity localism, as well as further exploring the roles and prospects of TSOs in the current long period of austerity in the UK.

Institutional Choice and Fragmented Citizenship in Forestry and Development Interventions in Bikoro Territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Substantive citizenship is the ability of an individual to influence those who govern. In order to assess this ‘ability’, this study examined the powers of sanction possessed by individuals or groups and the accountability mechanisms at their disposal in three villages in the Bikoro Territory of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). More specifically, the article examined power relations and the accountability of local authorities involved in forestry and development interventions, in order to understand the effects of these interventions on substantive citizenship. The study found that forestry and development agencies chose to partner with identity-based customary authorities and interest-based non-governmental organizations in lieu of local state authorities and the absence of elected local government. These chosen institutions are not directly accountable to the local people, but their partnership with higher level forestry and development agencies gave them public powers over resources. This placed them in a position of authority over those who use these public resources in the absence of elected local government. While these empowered local institutions are open to some local influence, local people lack the ability to substantively influence the decisions made by these chosen local institutions – hence they cannot fully engage as citizens. This case study suggests that recognizing identity and/or interest-based local institutions by agencies currently promoting carbon forestry in the DRC exacerbates existing unequal power relations and further narrows inclusive local democracy and effective community participation in decision-making processes.

A Theory of the Published Accounts of Local Authorities

Extant theory and practice suggest that there are no external users of a local authority's published accounts. Over the past thirty years, the major theme for such financial reporting has been increasingly to associate with company financial reporting. We rehearse the similarities but also the crucial differences between company and local authority financial reporting. Previous studies of the published accounts of local authorities, for 1977/78 and 1987/88, demonstrated that there was significant non‐compliance with promulgated accounting policies. We report on how this conclusion has not changed for 1997/98 (despite changes in policy‐making and in policies) and how the non‐compliance has been accompanied by clean audit opinions. We then offer a theory, based on Ijiri's (1975) theory of accounting measurement, that the published audited accounts of local authorities are the means by which the preparers provide implicit assurance of the underlying accounting: they legitimate the internal accounting.

The murky waters of the second wave of neoliberalism: corporatization as a service delivery model in Cape Town

This article reviews how the process of corporatization transforms public sector management by adopting private sector principles. It argues that corporatization, as an institutional form emerging from a second wave of neoliberalism, threatens to undermine the democratic accountability of local authorities by virtue of restructuring the state in ways that are invisible to the public yet with highly negative outcomes for low-income communities. The article provides a case study on the water sector in Cape Town, South Africa by tracing the local authority's adoption of three cost-recovery policies and their impacts on low-income households over a five year period (1997–2001). Engineers are the key agents in the promotion of cost-recovery policies in the efforts to deliver services more `efficiently'. While these officials are highly skilled professionals in dealing with the technical side of the production process, they lack the social training necessary to deal with the politics of distribution. The prominence of the neoliberal agenda in urban management can be in part be attributed to the power of the technical over the political as engineers displace politicians in the deliberations over how to deliver services to poor areas of the city.

‘POUND FOOLISH PENNY WISE’ SYSTEM: THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTING IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE RIVER TYNE, 1800–1850

The relationship between accounting and governmentality, and the increasing statutory regulation of companies by central government during the 19th century have attracted a great deal of attention from accounting historians. Conversely, accounting change within local authorities in this period has attracted far less attention. The paper examines the consequences of the increase in public accountability of local authorities in England and Wales in the context of the Newcastle Corporation, the body responsible for collecting and distributing the town's wealth. During the first half of the 19th century Newcastle Corporation was heavily criticized for neglecting the improvement of the River Tyne. The paper illustrates how the Newcastle Corporation and those opposed to it used accounting as a lobbying tool to promote their interests. Gallhofer and Haslam [2001, p. 29] showed how, in the late 19th century, “radical political activists” used accounting data through the medium of the press as an “emancipatory” practice. In many ways, the case of the improvement of the River Tyne during the early 19th century also reveals the use of accounting as an ‘emancipatory’ force by opposition groups. The paper finds that the Corporation used accounting data to justify inaction and the opposition used accounting data to promote its objectives. These contests resulted in the control of the River Tyne being taken from the Corporation and placed in the hands of a trust in 1850.

“Squatting is Still Legal, Necessary and Free”: A Brief Intervention in the Corporate City

Squatting is a solution to homelessness, empty properties and speculation. It provides homes for those who can’t get public housing and who can’t afford extortionate rents. Squatting creates space for much‐needed community projects. Squatting means taking control instead of being pushed around by bureaucrats and property owners. Squatting is still legal, necessary and free.(Advisory Service for Squatters 1996:1)What follows is an account of a brief intervention in the contemporary urban landscape in an English city, Newcastle upon Tyne. It is an account of a group of people who squatted a building as a response to the increasing dominance of corporate organisations and the declining accountability of local authorities in cities.

The Internet and the First Amendment

public services such as education, the National Health Service or even the police.'61 He concluded, that it is 'unlikely' that Parliament intended 'cash payments to be made by way of damages' to persons who, in breach of a local authority duty have not 'received benefits in kind'.62 Whether Parliament may have intended a private law right to compensatory damages for breaches of sections 21-26 NAA 1948, for individuals who suffer a loss of money, rather than a loss of benefits in kind, has not been put to the test in the cases of Sefton's elderly. Moreover, despite the intuitive reaction that there should be a readily available remedy for the recovery of money wrongfully charged by a public authority, the absence of a developed common law right to restitution in such cases63 and the non-enforceability of remedial decisions reached by the ombudsman, give continued cause for concern about the accountability of local authorities and the rights of citizens to remedial justice.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE POLL TAX: THE IMPACT ON LOCAL AUTHORITY BUDGETS OF THE REFORM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE IN ENGLAND

In 1990 the United Kingdom government introduced major reforms to the system of local government finance in England. The most dramatic change was the replacement of domestic property taxation by a flat rate community charge, or poll tax. The government's principal argument for this reform was that it would enhance the accountability of local authorities to their electorates. This paper examines the nature of this accountability link, and develops measures of the extent to which the new arrangements have increased accountability. A model is presented which seeks to determine whether the changes in accountability have led to changes in the expenditure patterns of local authorities in the first year of the reforms. The results are negative, and this preliminary evidence therefore suggests that the accountability arguments for the reforms are spurious.

Paying for Local Government: An Appraisal of the British Government's Proposals for Nondomestic Rates

In its recent Green Paper on local government finance, the British Government has proposed that the existing system of nondomestic rates be replaced by a uniform and centrally determined rate poundage. This idea has merit in principle in that it could improve the accountability of local authorities to local residents. But it is argued that the particular proposals in the Green Paper are deficient in ignoring the need for accountability in services provided to local businesses, and in failing to examine the rationale for retaining business rates within a reformed system.

Uniformity v. Flexibility in the Published Accounts of Local Authorities: the UK Problem and Some European Solutions

Uniformity v. Flexibility in the Published Accounts of Local Authorities: the UK Problem and Some European Solutions

Social Accounts of Local Authorities

Social Accounts of Local Authorities

Social Accounts of Local Authorities.

Journal Article Social Accounts of Local Authorities Get access Social Accounts of Local Authorities. By J. E. G. Utting. National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Occasional Paper No. XVI. (London : Cambridge University Press, 1953. Pp. v + 89. 16s.) D. C. Hague D. C. Hague University College, London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 64, Issue 254, 1 June 1954, Pages 379–381, https://doi.org/10.2307/2226848 Published: 01 June 1954

Social Accounts of Local Authorities.

Social Accounts of Local Authorities.

Social Accounts of Local Authorities: An Experiment in Sampling Methods.

Social Accounts of Local Authorities: An Experiment in Sampling Methods.