This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Shaw, K. Articles by Foreman, A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Compulsory competition for local Government services in the UK: A case of market rhetoric and camouflaged centralism

University of Northumbria

John Fenwick

University of Northumbria

Anne Foreman

Leeds Metropolitan University

Recent years have witnessed a considerable extension in the defined activities covered by the CCT regime in UK local government. While the 1980s saw CCT applied to mainly manual services (such as refuse collection), the 1990s have witnessed the spread of compulsory competition into white-collar professions and services such as Housing Management. Recent accounts of CCT have tended to assess its overall impact within a framework that is mainly informed by the emphasis on how the management of local public services will benefit from the contemporary introduction of Competition and Quasi-Markets. While CCT has clearly had some important managerial implications, this article argues that its more important political impact has been to intensify central control and regulation in order to restructure the local welfare state. In this sense, the vocabulary of the market has served to camouflage a process of centralisation which is characteristic both of New Right ideology and more traditional concerns within the UK political system.

Public Policy and Administration, Vol. 10, No. 1, 63-75 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/095207679501000106


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				H. Elcock Management is Not Enough: we need leadership! Public Policy and Administration, March 1, 2000; 15(1): 15 - 28. [PDF]

				L. Keen Markets, Quasi-Markets and Middle Managers in Local Government Public Policy and Administration, July 1, 1997; 12(3): 42 - 58. [Abstract] [PDF]

				H. Elcock Leadership in local government: the search for a core executive and its consequences Public Policy and Administration, September 1, 1996; 11(3): 29 - 42. [PDF]

				M. Kane The Nature of Competition in British Local Government Public Policy and Administration, September 1, 1996; 11(3): 51 - 66. [Abstract] [PDF]