Metropolitan Authorities Research Articles

Stephen Bubb, Chief Executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (acevo)

Renowned as a consummate networker who ‘stalks the corridors of power’ Stephen Bubb's work on leadership, sector funding and public service reform has radically shifted attitudes and policies in both government and the third sector. Born and brought up in Kent, he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Christ Church, Oxford. He lives in the London borough of Lambeth and in Charlbury in the Cotswolds. He has been a Youth Court Magistrate, Councillor, Health Authority Member, Open University Tutor, Non‐Executive Director in the private sector, Chair of an orchestra and Founder of a charity. He is an Independent Assessor for government appointments and a member of the Honours Advisory Committee.Stephen has been in major national roles in the TGWU, NUT and the AMA (Association of Metropolitan Authorities) and was a Founding Director of the National Lottery Charities Board. He was recently appointed Chair of Adventure Capital Fund. In 2007 he became Secretary General of EUCLID, the European Third Sector Leaders Network. He is much in demand as a speaker and media commentator both in the UK and abroad, where he advocates a radical role for the country's third sector.

A transport policy toolkit for the West Midlands

This paper presents the hierarchy of transport models that has been developed in the West Midlands to support policy-making by metropolitan authorities. Transport policies and schemes—which cost money, have both positive and negative impacts on different parts of the population, and must be assessed on a wider set of criteria, including the impacts on economy, safety and the environment—are increasingly questioned by the public. By transferring state-of-the-art academic developments into practice, validated by real-life observations, the toolkit enables engineering solutions and non-intrusive transport policies to be tested using a robust, comprehensive and integrated set of methods. The visualisation capabilities of the toolkit ease the involvement of non-experts, such as the business community and the public.

“Maintaining the connexion”: Orangeism in the British North Atlantic World, 1795–1844

I, A— B—, do solemnly and voluntarily swear, that I will, to the utmost of my power, support and defend Her present Majesty, Queen Victoria, and her lawful heirs and successors … so long as she, he, or they, shall support and maintain the Protestant Religion … that I will to the utmost of my power, defend her against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against Her person, crown or dignity; … that I will steadily maintain the connexion between the Colonies of British North America and the Mother Country, and be ever ready to resist all attempts to weaken British influence, or dismember the British Empire.1 This article examines the Orange Order in the context of the British North Atlantic world during the early nineteenth century. It simultaneously conducts circum-, cis-, and trans-Atlantic analyses to argue that although Orangeism was a distinctly Atlantic institution, distinct local contexts – in this case Irish, metropolitan, and colonial – had a profound impact on the fate of the order in this period. Specifically, “local peculiarities” determined the authorities’ attitude toward the Orange Order: the connection between Orangeism and politics led metropolitan authorities to discourage and ultimately ban the order, while the political activism of Orangemen actually served to strengthen the order's position in British North America. This examination concludes that the Atlantic remains a viable unit of historical analysis for the history of Orangeism in the first half of the nineteenth century but suggests that studying the brotherhood after the 1860s requires one to adopt the methodologies of world history.

Disputes and deliberations over language policy: the case of early colonial Hong Kong

This case study of colonial language policy examines the disputes and deliberations over language policy in Hong Kong education during the Governorship of Sir John Pope Hennessy (1877–1882). Although language policy had been a source of controversy at various times during the 1860s and 1870s, it was not until Hennessy’s term that conflict over the roles of English and Chinese in Hong Kong’s education system came fully into the open. One consequence of this sudden upsurge of interest in language policy was that the colonial and metropolitan authorities were finally forced to confront the issues and problems associated with two decades of government-sponsored English-language education. The debates and decisions about language policy during this period provide revealing evidence of the British government’s position on the learning and use of English in colonial education and society.

The Benin Kingdom in British Imperial Historiography

The body of knowledge that constituted British imperial writing, and the expression that interacted with it were attempts to engage European readership on the imperial adventure in Africa in the age of the new imperialism. This study is an attempt to address the complex issues involved in the production of historical knowledge about precolonial Benin to justify British colonial rule. The argument advanced in this paper is that, since imperial discourse set out to deal with history in terms of civilization, British imperial writing was a struggle to articulate certain ideas about Benin into a position of dominance before the British public. As Mary Louise Pratt explains, “depicting the civilizing mission as an aesthetic project is a strategy the west has often used for defining others as available for and in need of its benign and beautifying intervention.” British imperial discourse will form the basis of the discussion in this paper.Imperial discourse and its subjectivity raises questions about issues of power and privilege of those writers who were determined to sustain their voices in the debate on European imperialism in Africa. Their approach to the constitution of knowledge about Benin was one of many ways that opened the frontiers of knowledge about African states and societies to redefine civilization, albeit for the purposes of understanding various meanings and implications in this intellectual assault. This provides a vital entry point for examining the European colonial approach to the construction of the image of Africa. The aim is to demonstrate how this process suggests a connection from imperial expansionism to forms of knowledge and expression that reaffirmed metropolitan authority in the context of colonial subjugation.

More aid, better institutions, or both?

It has been nearly 20 years since a working definition for “sustainable development” was put forward by the World Commission on Environment and Development. The concept endures in the mission statements and frameworks of action of various societal actors, including those of neighborhood associations, metropolitan development authorities, environmental ministries, and United Nations (UN) specialized organizations, to name a few. Yet many observers doubt that sustainable development is occurring in poor countries. This failure, the critics contend, stems from miserly transfers of foreign aid. The extent to which inadequate aid is to blame for poor environmental/developmental outcomes is an open question. But vocal demands for increasing aid to meet sustainable development goals come from many parts of society and are persistent. Exhortations for more aid to help poor countries are noble, perhaps even justifiable, but there are understandable doubts about the wisdom of transferring large capital and technical resources to countries that are slow to adopt needed institutional reforms. Aid without institutional reform is a recipe for wasted resources and donor fatigue. Worse, it may enhance inequities of wealth and power in recipient countries. There are few illustrations to draw on demonstrating how institutionally impoverished societies are affected when they are compelled to absorb massive aid inputs over a short period––a remedy suggested by some prominent aid experts. As a proxy, it is valuable to examine instances where swift macroeconomic changes, spurred by external investment and export-led growth, has occurred without significant institutional development. The case of Equatorial Guinea and its sudden oil riches is examined to discern whether, in the absence of meaningful institutional reform, rapid and profound increases in foreign direct investment and export income enable poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Experiment for Urban Great Fire

Tokyo had two fantastic chances to rebuild its urban areas based on ideal city planning. Unfortunately, it failed to take them. The first chance was after the Great Kanto Earthquake, which leveled Tokyo in 1923. The second chance was just after World War II, when the US Air Force flattened Tokyo with a carpet bombing that left 330,665 citizens dead, 2,316,325 houses burned to the ground, and a deserted area of 40,000,000 ha. The Tokyo metropolitan authorities failed again, mostly due to the desperate living conditions during the postwar occupation. Tokyo was therefore hastily and haphazardly reconstructed of combustible wooden housing without a planned sequence. In the decade from 1945 to 1955, Japan suffered every time typhoons hit the archipelago. These disasters prevented effective disaster management measures from being adopted to mitigate damage. National disasters continued to be local rather than national matters until well after 1955 and urban restoration based on advanced urban planning was sacrificed to economic growth, although economic growth greatly assisted restoration of urban areas. When the Korean war broke out in 1950, the US military force had many military requirements that stabilized economic conditions in Japan. Many business and manufacturing plants were restored but without long-term urban infrastructure planning. In 1959, the Ise Bay typhoon caused 4,697 deaths, left 407 missing and 38,921 injured, and destroyed 557,501 houses. This disaster forced the Japanese government, which had not formulated a framework for disaster mitigation management, to begin studying formulation of the Basic Disaster Measures Act. The Ise Bay typhoon highlighted key problems in disaster mitigation measures, resulting in the formulation of the Basic Disaster Mitigation Act in November 15, 1961.

“A Civil Inconvenience”? The Vexed Question of Slave Marriage in the British West Indies

This article revisits the debates on the question of slave marriage that were carried on for roughly two centuries, both back and forth across the Atlantic and on the local terrain of the British West Indian plantation colonies. These debates came into critical focus during the fifty-year showdown over “amelioration,” which ended—though only in a manner of speaking—with the British Abolition Act of 1833. For a long time the lines were starkly drawn, but, in the context of laissez-faire political imperium or “indirect rule,” seldom tested. The metropolitan authorities felt some obligation to uphold the grand moral and civilizational integrity of the as-yet imperfectly imagined British Empire, as well as of Western Christendom. They, therefore, were inclined to see the slave as a species of imperial subject, still vaguely conceived within the emerging terms of reference of their global trusteeship and presumptive legal jurisdiction. They felt that, to honor the dignity of the latter, and sustain and nurture its moral legitimacy, the slaves—their subjects, ultimately—should be encouraged to marry, and their marriages should be formally marked, if only symbolically or by summary Christian rite. The planters, for their part, were unshaken in their certitude that the slaves were a species of property,theirproperty no less, and that the idea of any kind of formal marriage among them was preposterous, a great impertinence, an attack on their authority and rights of property, a threat to public safety, and a dangerous intrusion upon the sacrosanctity of European racial exclusivity and superiority.

News

The group, which represents some of the poorest funded county, metropolitan and unitary authorities in England, is launching a campaign for fairer funding for all pupils regardless of where they live.

Managing a city's transportation network—a case study

As pressures on the transportation network continue to increase, the Traffic Management Act 2004 places a duty on the network manager to monitor and manage the network in normal and abnormal conditions. Birmingham City Council, UK, is creating the services to address these needs by implementing an urban traffic management and control system. The system will be open-ended, with an emphasis on helping public transport. The Birmingham system will become part of a larger countywide system, so that in the event of an emergency, the county's transportation network can be managed from any location, to support the emergency services and controlling delay on the network. A key element of the service will be the relationship of the seven West Midlands county metropolitan authorities with the Highways Agency and the eventual development of automated and shared strategies.

Metropolitan restructuring (and more restructuring) in South Africa

AbstractThis article analyses the evolution of metropolitan government in South Africa. During the past ten years South Africa has progressed from having no metropolitan government, to a two‐tier metropolitan system and now to a single‐tier metropolitan system. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) prefers single‐tier metropolitan authorities as a means to, inter alia, promote redistribution of resources and services, promote strategic land‐use planning and facilitate economic and social development. A single‐tier system was accordingly introduced in 2000. The major thrust of this article is an examination of the process that led to the introduction of six metropolitan governments, and the theoretical debates that underpinned this decision. It also analyses new types of executive systems, forms of public participation, development and service delivery. Finally, it provides a preliminary analysis of the performance of the new metropolitan governments. The article argues that structural reform, territorial changes, development in local government and new forms of service delivery have seriously overburdened local government in the short term and have detracted from service delivery. These unitary metros have, however, been operating for less than four years and must be given time to prove themselves before an informed evaluation can be made. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

O Senado da Câmara de Vila Rica e sua relação política com a Coroa Portuguesa na Segunda Metade do Século XVIII

O presente artigo visa analisar o governo político e administrativo dos oficiais do Senado da Câmara de Vila Rica (1760-1808), procurando analisar a atuação dessa "burocracia local" no caráter mutante da temporalidade evocada. A perspectiva de longa duração procura abarcar um período em que ocorreu uma reestruturação econômica interna na capitania mineira, sendo que o auge minerador passava a ceder lugar às atividades mercantis de subsistência voltadas à economia urbana. Nesse período, portanto, a economia das Minas Gerais deixou de ter a mineração como atividade principal e as atividades mercantis e as agropecuárias passaram a ser seu eixo central. Nesse contexto, buscamos estabelecer as relações travadas entre o Senado da Câmara de Vila Rica e o poder metropolitano, procuramos retratar os canais de comunicação e negociação estabelecidos diretamente entre os camaristas e os representantes do Estado metropolitano, que se encontravam em Lisboa.

The Haitian Revolution Race & Plantation Management in Early Nineteenth Century Jamaica

One of the ironies of Eric William's ground breaking work Capitalism and Slavery is that racism as a feature of slave society in the British West Indies has been relegated in favor of economic determinism. Although some scholars argue that racism is most difficult to measure plantation correspondence is replete with racial assumptions. One would be very surprised at the extent of racial comments by the Jamaican planters resulting from the Haitian revolution. Many of the Jamaican planters, while concerned with issues of security, were more concerned with the implications of a Jamaican society managed by former enslaved Africans. They could not imagine uncivilized Africans creating an orderly, stable and successful society. This paper argues that the paranoia among many of the Jamaican planters to the Haitian revolution, indirectly, contributed to further socio- economic and political decay in early 19th century Jamaican slave society. The planters' hysteria and repression towards their enslaved Africans were racially motivated1 and resulted in their vigorous resistance and sabotage of amelioration that was being recommended by the metropolitan authorities. The Jamaican planters were fearful of the results of amelioration. With the constant decline in the protection of British West Indian sugar from free trade advocates in London, the Jamaican planters' resistance to amelioration was counter-productive to efficient plantation management. Secondly, this paper refutes Eric Williams' argument that racism was a result of the economic forces existent in British West Indian slave society. I will show that both racism and economics operated simultaneously from the very beginning of British West Indian slave society. Thus, racial and economic motives were not in opposition to each other but were mutual partners.2 Development of Racial Theory: The larger European context from which the British emerged has to be the starting point for any serious study of racism in the Americas.3 Were the British racists in their categorization of Africans even before they arrived in the New World, as hinted by William Green?4 Was racism a by-product of slavery, as Williams claimed? In examining the development of racial theory the definition of 'race' has to be first studied followed by its meaning in both Catholic and Protestant thought. When that is examined, then, the practice of European racism can be described as a continuous development. European racism towards Africans started before their arrival in the Caribbean and developed into the scientific racism of the late 19th century.5 Franklin Knight argues that attitudes towards race and towards slavery were not necessary the same. The European concept of race started as a form of identification among the extended family, friends and members of one's village. It then moved onwards and outwards to the larger society. Thus, Englishmen in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries thought of themselves as a race distinct from the Spanish, the Portuguese and other Europeans. Nevertheless, as the Englishmen pushed farther and farther into the wider world and as they began to realize the diversity of the colours and conditions of man and society they changed their notions of race. Race took on characteristics of colour since all Europeans had similar features to be classified as white; Asians had similar features to be described as yellow and Africans south of the Sahara had similar features to be described as black. The colour element in race replaced the previous distinctions of 'Christians' and 'Infidels'.6 Once colour and culture became associated with race then the next logical step was the stereotyping of cultures which eventually led to racial discrimination. By the 16th century European ethnocentrisms had a tendency to place all non-Europeans in a colour continuum. Those more closely approximating white in appearance were regarded as more pleasing,7 while those less approximating white were less pleasing. …

Metropolitan Miasma: Blurred Accountabilities in the Governance of London

The abolition of the GLC in 1986 left London without a metropolitan authority for a period of 14 years. During this 'interregnum', the lack of accountability and the blurring of responsibilities became a matter of acute concern. The creation of Greater London Authority in 2000 countered these criticisms by apparently creating a clear new focus for the government of London. To what extent have the new arrangements succeeded in establishing clear lines of accountability as envisaged by the architects of GLA Act, 2000? This paper examines some of the complexities in the new governance of London and the blurring of accountability that bedevils a wide range of public services.

Metropolitan Miasma: Blurred Accountabilities in the Governance of London

The abolition of the GLC in 1986 left London without a metropolitan authority for a period of 14 years. During this 'interregnum', the lack of accountability and the blurring of responsibilities became a matter of acute concern. The creation of Greater London Authority in 2000 countered these criticisms by apparently creating a clear new focus for the government of London. To what extent have the new arrangements succeeded in establishing clear lines of accountability as envisaged by the architects of GLA Act, 2000? This paper examines some of the complexities in the new governance of London and the blurring of accountability that bedevils a wide range of public services.

Modernising Local Government: Micro-Organisational Reform and Changing Local Structural Configurations

This article takes an indicative group of county, metropolitan and unitary authorities located in the English West Midlands to examine how effectively local government is grappling with modernising’ reforms in a context where the appropriate unit of analysis has become problematic because of broader changes to local governance. Sub-national territorial structural variability is becoming more pronounced while, paradoxically, what stands out in the micro-organisational dimension is the extent to which local authorities are increasingly working to a common reform agenda, notwithstanding the need to resolve incoherences in New Labour's modernisation project. The explanation for these observed (contrary) changes lies not only in the vagaries of top-down pressures emanating from central political and regulatory infiuences, but also in local institutional dynamics, as well as in lateral or peer dissemination of ‘good’ practice within local government.

URBAN REGENERATION RATIONALTIES AND QUALITY OF LIFE: COMPARATIVE NOTES FROM TORONTO, MONTREAL AND VANCOUVER

NOTIONS OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND LIVEABILITY have for several decades pervaded representations of the Canadian urban experience offered by metropolitan authorities across the country. In a state that has targeted both inward investment and immigration as pivotal sources of economic growth, this might be seen as no more than boosterist rhetoric, and successful at that: in Toronto and Montreal over 40 per cent of the population is now foreign-born, 25 per cent in Montreal - a demographic influx generating economic opportunities and enriching urban cultures. Yet Canadian municipal authorities have more recently portrayed a quality of life in jeopardy, as voiced on their behalf, above all, by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). According to this national body, poverty is becoming concentrated in large urban communities, exacerbated by lower levels of government assistance to low-income families than other parts of the country. Added to income inequalities, metropolitan authorities also face higher than average crime rates, homelessness and drug abuse, giving rise to fears that Canada may face the type of urban decay commonly associated with her southern neighbour (FCM 2001). It is not difficult to attribute instrumental political motives to this crisis rhetoric. Since the election of the Liberal government at the federal level in 1993, metropolitan authorities have suffered substantial cuts in national (and also provincial) transfer payments; yet also faced growing capital investment needs to meet expanded responsibilities for environmental management, public transportation and social housing. At the same time, their capacities to generate revenue remain tightly circumscribed by provincial legislation and regulations. In 1996 FCM launched a Quality of Life Reporting System (QOLRS) with the explicit intention of graphically demonstrating the social and economic conditions within Canadian cities; FCM employed the findings in its first report to lobby the federal government for an annual budget commitment of $3 billion for ten years towards an intergovernmental Quality of Life Infrastructure Programme (FCM 1999a; 1999b). QOLRS provided an unprecedented collection of local data from sixteen municipal and regional governments (growing to eighteen for its second report in 2001) across eight themes - population resources, community affordability, quality of employment, quality of housing, and community - stress, health, safety and participation (FCM 2001: 12); this information has afforded FCM the opportunity to quantify and standardise the traditionally nebulous concept of quality of life, reinforcing the claim of municipal governments as politically legitimate champions of well-being for their communities. Acknowledging the national backdrop of municipal government concern over a growing investment deficit in urban governance, this article addresses the articulation of quality of life objectives within the current urban regeneration rationalities of three Canadian municipal (city) authorities - Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. All three cities have pursued strategies to assist disadvantaged areas, selecting regulatory practices informed by quality of life norms and measures. Identifying in these regeneration discourses an ideological subscription to 'advanced liberalism' - the formulation and implementation of political-policy objectives according to norms of competition, active responsibility and performance accountability (Rose 1996), this article teases out the particular role afforded to quality of life and liveability in the reasoning of city planning officials as elicited in interviews in Toronto (September 2001), Montreal (September 2001) and Vancouver (June-July 2002). This brief (necessarily selective) survey, which relays some initial findings from a wider research project on social and economic regeneration in Canadian and uk cities (Evans at al. 2002), highlights three thematic areas in which quality of life informs official urban revitalisation discourses: i) the spatial allocation of livelihood (economic) and life quality (socio-environmental) benefits; ii) the construction of neighbourhood communities as actively responsible for regeneration practices; and iii) the emerging use of quality of life indicators as measures of policy success. …

From Command and Control to Self-Confidence in Government: Meeting the Challenge in Doncaster

This article compares some themes of change management theory against the practical experience of a large UK local authority as it attempts to move from `command and control' leadership to a more assertive, self-confident style of local government. This move is a response both to changing national legislation and local demand arising from a significant corruption scandal. The concept of `command and control' management is compared with that of self-confidence within the context of organizing for government, both central and local. The nature of self-confident government is then examined more closely in an attempt to answer some central questions — what is self-confidence, what sustains it and what benefits does it offer? These questions are then considered against the practical experience of a large metropolitan authority in England. The local pressures for organizational and cultural change, including those arising out of recent municipal corruption, are discussed along with the developing local responses. The article then considers the change issues that are arising for local service managers and the role of developing self-confidence in adapting and expanding their capabilities into the future. Some key learning points are identified.

Modernity, Modernization and the Deinstitutionalization of Incremental Budgeting in Local Government

Governmental reform programs in the UK have a long history of failed attempts to end incrementalism in local government budgeting. Drawing on structuration theory, incrementalism is presented as institutionalized organizational behaviour. From this perspective, the recent New Labour reform agenda may be interpreted via a theory of de‐institutionalization. The approach is illustrated through an analysis of recent developments in a large UK metropolitan authority where new political structures, inspection regimes and regulatory pressures are beginning to challenge incrementalism. A new belief in the measurability of public sector performance seems to be legitimized by a post‐bureaucratic modernity rather than any significant technical innovations.

Water Privatization in Spain

Water management in Spain is submitted to a non‐uniform geographical and seasonal distribution of water resources. The non‐uniform distribution of resources is worsened by the non‐uniform allocation of demand (mainly irrigation and urban). Because that, water supply, aquifers, and wetlands are driven to a high risk. Even though, there are examples of good water management, as is shown for the private industrial productivity of used water. Spain has a very long tradition in public water management (first water law in 1879) at different levels from ministry to municipalities, including users communities. A lot of these organisations are anchored in very old ways of doing, given private sector the opportunity to enter and grow up. A survey about it is presented. In the management of urban water, there are different organisations involved: central administration; autonomic, regional and metropolitan authorities; urban water suppliers and the sanitation authority. The recently approved changes in the former Spanish Water Law, limiting water rights and introducing water market, the new and expected Hydrological National Plan and the European Framework Directive, reinforce the opportunities of the private sector to enter, giving financial resources, technological advances and quick answers to new social concepts in water managerial procedures. We can observe how the Spanish administration uses private water suppliers' front desks to collect taxes and to supply capital to invest in infrastructures and water technology. The question that needs to be addressed is the nature and the impact of the privatisation process in Spain. The unrealistic water urban services price in Spain has been studied and it is presented and evaluated by regions, presenting a deficit to be covered in the future and been a significant gross value of the future business, which invite private sector to participate in. To give a general scope over the evolution of the roll played by the private and public sector, the case of Catalonia, the more evolved autonomous region of Spain in water management, is presented as an example of the future for the rest of the country.