Public Choice Theory and the Reform of Local Government in Britain: From Government to Governance

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses current and ongoing reforms of British local government in a public choice framework. These involve a shift from a vertically-integrated corporate institutional form of direct service provision by British local government to one of an enabling function within a horizontally- coordinated network of multi-agency service provision. It considers a fundamental reappraisal of the form of democracy and the way in which it can be secured, a questioning of the behavioural characteristics of local government in relation to the public interest, a reinstatement of the public interest, a reinstatement of the rights and responsibilities of the individual and of the family, a reduction of local government's role in providing the welfare state and a preference for multiple solutions provided by agencies in place of monolithic provision by local government monopolies. Such functional decentralisation is in marked contrast to the political decentralisation in other European countries.