Accountability and Local Budgetary Policy: unitary principles?

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The desire to improve local accountability has been at the heart of recent reforms to local government finance in Britain. Local government in Northern Ireland remains immune from these reforms with the government arguing that the same problem of lack of accountability does not apply there. The government’s arguments are reviewed and measures of local accountability are developed. The claim that local government in Northern Ireland is different, and hence that unitary principles of accountability in local government do not apply through out the United Kingdom is then examined. Measures of accountability are developed using the government’s own — essentially public choice based arguments — and thus the government’s claim is examined in the context of its own analytical frame work. It is found that in this respect, at least, unitary principles do apply throughout the United Kingdom.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: