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Public service outsourcing: the implications of ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ for accountability and policymaking (2019)
Journal Article
Eckersley, P., & Ferry, L. (2020). Public service outsourcing: the implications of ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ for accountability and policymaking. Public Money & Management, 40(1), 72-80. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2019.1660096

Outsourcing is difficult to define and trickier to measure. Despite transparency and procurement requirements, there are no comprehensive datasets detailing the extent to which English councils have contracted-out service provision. This lack of info... Read More about Public service outsourcing: the implications of ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ for accountability and policymaking.

The practical relevance of public sector accounting research; time to take a stand – A response to van Helden (2019)
Journal Article
Tucker, B., Ferry, L., Steccolini, I., & Saliterer, I. (2020). The practical relevance of public sector accounting research; time to take a stand – A response to van Helden. Public Money & Management, 40(1), 5-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2019.1660098

As with his previous commentaries on the ‘research-practice’ gap as it relates to accounting in the public sector, van Helden’s observations on our book, The Research–practice gap on accounting in public services; an international analysis, are both... Read More about The practical relevance of public sector accounting research; time to take a stand – A response to van Helden.

Corporatization in the public sector: Explaining the growth of local government companies (2019)
Journal Article
Ferry, L., Andrews, R., Skelcher, C., & Wegorowski, P. (2020). Corporatization in the public sector: Explaining the growth of local government companies. Public Administration Review, 80(3), 482-493. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13052

The creation of companies by local governments to provide public services—referred to as “corporatization”—is an example of systemic public entrepreneurship that is popular across the world. To build knowledge of the antecedents of public sector entr... Read More about Corporatization in the public sector: Explaining the growth of local government companies.

Audit and Inspection of Local Authorities in England: Five years after the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 (2019)
Report
Ferry, L. (2019). Audit and Inspection of Local Authorities in England: Five years after the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. [No known commissioning body]

The Conservative-led coalition government announced the abolition of the Audit Commission in 2010. Following on, the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 set out the new local audit regime. The purpose of this report to the Housing, Communities an... Read More about Audit and Inspection of Local Authorities in England: Five years after the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

New development: Corporatization of local authorities in England in the wake of austerity 2010–2016 (2018)
Journal Article
Ferry, L., Andrews, R., Skelcher, C., & Wegorowski, P. (2018). New development: Corporatization of local authorities in England in the wake of austerity 2010–2016. Public Money & Management, 38(6), 477-480. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2018.1486629

A key institutional driver of current reforms within English local government is ‘alternative service delivery’. Our review of councils’ annual accounts between 2010/11 and 2016/17 suggests ‘corporatization’—the creation of local authority companies—... Read More about New development: Corporatization of local authorities in England in the wake of austerity 2010–2016.

Hybridizing the institutional logics of performance improvement and budgetary stewardship in English and Welsh local government (2018)
Journal Article
Ferry, L., & Eckersley, P. (2020). Hybridizing the institutional logics of performance improvement and budgetary stewardship in English and Welsh local government. Public Policy and Administration, 35(1), 45-64. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952076718781433

This article introduces and applies a three-stage process to show how advocates of the conflicting institutional logics of budgetary stewardship and performance improvement in English and Welsh local authorities created a hybrid logic. Drawing on int... Read More about Hybridizing the institutional logics of performance improvement and budgetary stewardship in English and Welsh local government.

Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities. Written Evidence to Public Accounts Committee (2018)
Report
Ferry, L. (2018). Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities. Written Evidence to Public Accounts Committee. [No known commissioning body]

I welcome this opportunity to submit written evidence to the Public Accounts Committee Inquiry on the Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities. This reply draws on my personal senior level experience and recent published academic work on financi... Read More about Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities. Written Evidence to Public Accounts Committee.

Public value, institutional logics and practice variation during austerity localism at Newcastle City Council (2018)
Journal Article
Ferry, L., Ahrens, T., & Khalifa, R. (2019). Public value, institutional logics and practice variation during austerity localism at Newcastle City Council. Public Management Review, 21(1), 96-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2018.1462398

This article outlines how a local authority, Newcastle City Council (NCC), employed a public value strategy to address austerity localism. Borrowing from neo-institutional theory, it traces how organizational change constituted also a variation of de... Read More about Public value, institutional logics and practice variation during austerity localism at Newcastle City Council.

Response to Centre for Public Scrutiny Consultation Paper on Local Public Accounts Committees (2018)
Report
Ferry, L. (2018). Response to Centre for Public Scrutiny Consultation Paper on Local Public Accounts Committees. [No known commissioning body]

I welcome this opportunity to submit written evidence to the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) Local Public Accounts Committees (LPACs) Discussion Paper. This reply draws on my personal senior level experience and recent published academic work on fi... Read More about Response to Centre for Public Scrutiny Consultation Paper on Local Public Accounts Committees.

The hybridising of financial and service expertise in English local authority budget control: A practice perspective (2018)
Journal Article
Ahrens, T., Ferry, L., & Khalifa, R. (2018). The hybridising of financial and service expertise in English local authority budget control: A practice perspective. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 15(3), 341-357. https://doi.org/10.1108/qram-09-2017-0085

Purpose: This paper aims to trace the hybridising of financial and service expertise in English local authority budget control to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the contexts that gave rise to hybridisation than do previous accountabili... Read More about The hybridising of financial and service expertise in English local authority budget control: A practice perspective.