Abstract
Howard Elcock has passed away, aged 75, while at his holiday retreat in Tolo, Greece, in early summer 2017. He was Professor Emeritus of Government at Northumbria University, UK. He was educated at the Priory School for Boys, Shrewsbury and The Queen’s College Oxford, gaining a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1964 and a B Phil (now M Phil) in Politics in 1966. He took his MA in 1968. He lectured in Politics at the University of Hull between 1966 and 1981, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1977.
He served as a member of Humberside County Council between 1973 and 1981, becoming Planning Committee Chairman in 1975 until 1977, his tenure corresponding to sometimes difficult work on the iconic Humber Bridge. He moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in April 1981 to become Head of the School of Government at the then Newcastle Polytechnic, later to become Northumbria University. He was a Visiting Scholar at Fredonia State College, New York, USA between September 1993 and July 1994 and again between September 1997 and May 1998. While in the USA, he also famously fought off the attentions of would-be muggers in a pedestrian underpass in Chicago. Nothing ever seemed to overcome his work ethic and his positive attitude to life. Howard retired from full time work in April 1997 but remained an active researcher and writer.
Howard was the author of numerous books and articles, including a study of administrative tribunals and public inquiries, which was reported in Administrative Justice, (Longman, 1969), followed by a study of the Paris Peace Conference: Portrait of a decision: The Council of Four and the Treaty of Versailles (Routledge, 1972). Later books included Local Government (3 editions, Routledge, 1982, 1986 and 1994), Change and Decay? Public Administration in the 1990s (Longman, 1991) and Political Leadership (Edward Elgar, 2001). In 1987, Howard established, along with Professor John Fenwick and the late Ken Harrop, the Northern Network for Public Policy which served as a vehicle for public sector management development in the region. His more recent research on the new political management arrangements in local government and especially elected mayors, was carried out largely in collaboration with John Fenwick and was published in numerous articles in Local Government Studies, Public Administration, Public Policy & Administration, Public Money & Management, International Journal of Public Sector Management and the International Review of Administrative Sciences. He also carried out research on the creation of unitary councils between 2007 and 2009, and at the time of his death, again with John, was casting a critical eye over current attempts at English regional devolution. Within the wider academic discipline, Howard served as Chairman of the Public Administration Committee (PAC) between 1987 and 1990 and then as Chairman of the Joint University Council (JUC) between 1990 and 1994. He served on the Executive Committee of the Political Studies Association between 1988 and 1993. He was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2002, having been nominated as a JUC Fellow a few years earlier. Furthermore, he served as an important member of the editorial advisory board of Public Policy and Administration, as well as offering excellent advice and long experience to the editorial team of the revamped Teaching Public Administration journal when Sage Publishing took over publication responsibilities on behalf of JUC.
He served as Chair of the North-East Regional Group of the Campaign to Protect Rural England between 2006 and 2011 and thereafter became its Vice-Chair. His main leisure interests were classical music and sailing where he served as Commodore of two sailing clubs. Howard was a mainstay of the Tynemouth Sailing Club where the vagaries of the North Sea were no challenge to his nautical skills. He had been a member of the Labour Party since 1965, standing in several local elections in the Gosforth area of Newcastle following his successful tenure in Hull.
Howard regularly gave written and oral evidence to the House of Commons PAC, notably to the 2013–14 Enquiry ‘Truth to Power: How civil service reform can succeed’ in which Howard called for the upholding of ethical standards of behaviour in public service. Most of his research had an underlying plea that public leaders should be held accountable and uphold ethical behaviour. He continued to have a strong belief in the need for public service ethics and he vehemently resisted the shift of public administration teaching and research into business schools, in the fervent belief that business management and public service values were very different. The values of business management with their emphasis on profit making were anathema to Howard.
He was an ardent campaigner, with Professor Joyce Liddle, for the Campaign for a North-East Assembly between 1993 and 2004. In the years leading up to the 2004 Referendum, many a Saturday morning was spent in venues around the North-East, including Tony Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield, rallying the voting public. At a time when the UK Cabinet contained several Ministers with North-East constituencies, and the region was experiencing its highest levels of job losses, factory closures and a general economic downturn, the prospect of regional devolution was important and immediate. Howard’s indefatigable dry sense of humour and upbeat approach to the rightness of the cause was accompanied by his sense of modesty: despite his long experience as an eminent Professor of Politics and Governance, he was always eager to learn from younger campaigners. This became obvious to everyone, of course, when he posed very pointed and erudite questions to those opposed to a North-East Assembly, and never once during campaigning did Howard mention that he was a political expert.
Howard was a valued member of the Royal Institute of Public Administration, which during the 1980s met alternately in Newcastle and Durham Universities where Howard and his good friend the late Richard Chapman were leading lights. Richard had established the University of Durham Public Policy Studies group (PPSG) as a mechanism to encourage staff and young research students from North-East Universities to come together and exchange ideas on current policy issues. Howard was a regular speaker and attendee at these afternoon and evening events. He rarely failed to turn up and offer his excellent advice to past and current PhD students and early career researchers. Joyce Liddle was one of those research students in 1985 and Howard and Richard’s mentoring and support were essential to enhancing the research focus and giving direction to her future academic career. Joyce was also fortunate to edit a special edition in her time as Editor of the International Journal of Public Sector Management on managing regeneration, and both contributed separate articles on their shared interest in regeneration in a Greek context.
Howard was an unfailing attendee at JUC/PAC meetings long after he retired from Northumbria. He was an honourable man who believed very strongly in giving something back to the profession that he loved. In more than 30 years of involvement with JUC/PAC, Joyce and other officers and followers could always rely on Howard’s wise counsel on any issue. Howard was always available to offer a historical perspective and he never failed to give due consideration to any current concern. He continually reminded JUC/PAC Executive members of the need to be vigilant on maintaining the academic/practitioner link, and often he would table a paper for discussion lest we let any important issue drop off future agendas. In Joyce’s role as PAC Chair and JUC Honorary Chair it was always very pleasing to see Howard in attendance at Executive meetings, safe in the knowledge that if we failed to discuss certain pertinent issues, Howard would act as the reminder to JUC/PAC as the Learned Society and ‘voice’ of the discipline.
Howard was a strong supporter of the traditional values of scholarship and had little time for the passing fashions of the modern university world. He was a mentor to many others and gave his time and his advice freely and his academic opinions generously. He was a one-off, living out his values in his commitment to the Labour Party, the Cooperative Party and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. He was a good man, a decent man and above all a gentleman. We will miss him.