Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 62 No.

3, 2009, 438– 455

Advance Access Publication 8 April 2009

Delivering ‘Public Value’: Implications for

Accountability and Legitimacy
BY FRANCESCA GAINS AND GERRY STOKER

ABSTRACT

The possibility that public servants can act to create ‘public value’ offers a popular
and potentially liberating normative code for the activity of public managers.1 The

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adoption of the concept however implies a changed understanding of legitimacy
and accountability for policy actions. It is argued this new ‘public service contract’
is likely to be easier to adopt in local settings than in the core executive although
in neither case is the adoption of new modes of working between politicians, offi-
cials and citizens unproblematic. Old codes and informal ways of thinking provide
an awkward backcloth for the adoption of public value as a guideline for public
management.

Introduction
THE idea that public servants act to create and deliver ‘public value’ is
an attractive and popular concept which has gained increasing atten-
tion since Mark Moore first argued for a distinctive ‘public’ metric for
assessing the outcomes of the actions of public servants.2 Moore’s tem-
plate implies a proactive role for public servants in recognising and
mediating political demands and enabling public responsiveness. The
idea that public servants can create public value stretches the tra-
ditional Westminster Model which sees decisions as made by Ministers
and implemented by a neutral civil service.3 The Westminster model
stresses the legitimacy of politicians to make decisions arising from
their electoral mandate and the accountability of public servants to pol-
itical leaders and not directly to the public. Public value creation chal-
lenges conventional Westminster notions of the legitimacy of
bureaucratic engagement and the consequent accountability of both
politicians and bureaucrats.
The central argument of this article is that even though the empirical
picture of contemporary governance arrangements strays far from the
Westminster model, the normative conventions, around who has legiti-
macy to make decisions and who is accountable for policy decisions,
still provide an important guide to behaviour for politicians and civil
servants especially in policy areas with high political salience. Public
managers working in local governance however have different

Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 62 No. 3 # The Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the
Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions,
please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
doi:10.1093/pa/gsp007
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 439

traditions and constitutional codes of engagement with local political

leaders, and public value is a concept which appears to be easier to
enact in localised decision making.
Initially this paper introduces the normative arguments set out in the
public value literature, the way in which these ideas are permeating
policy circles and the consequent implications for the legitimacy and
accountability of bureaucratic actions under the Westminster Model.
The next section contrasts the Westminster Model with the empirical
features of network governance in contemporary Britain drawing atten-
tion to the complicated and sometimes contradictory relationships
which operate and the way in which policy making can become highly

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politicised. Drawing on the interpretive literature, it is suggested that
despite the empirical picture challenging the Westminster Model, this
model is important in providing the formal and informal normative
codes or ‘rules of the game’ on legitimacy and accountability for senior
civil servants. Next the traditions and interpretations of local bureau-
crats are examined to explore notions of legitimacy and accountability
found in localised decision making where decision making is more
clearly delineated and the public value concept is already enacted. The
article draws on the published accounts of politicians and civil ser-
vants, over 30 interviews with senior civil servants and ministers, over
100 interviews with local politicians and bureaucrats and a focus
group of 20 policy and special advisors from central and local govern-
ment. In concluding it is argued that if normative aspirations for public
servants to be involved in creating public value are to be realised in the
context of a complicated and fast changing delivery arena in central
government, that a reflexive re-conceptualisation of notions of legiti-
macy and accountability is necessary, but insufficient, without new
constitutional arrangements which go beyond those set out in the
‘Governance of Britain’ White Paper and reflect more closely the lived
experience of ministers and civil servants in attempting to deliver
public value.

Public value and the implications for legitimacy

and accountability
The concept of ‘public value’ is a grounded theory which was informed
by the experience of public managers attending the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard.4 In an attempt to move on from the rather
restrictive and deterministic view of bureaucratic activity underlying
New Public Management (NPM) with its focus on efficiency and
designing out self-interested behaviour: Moore argued that public man-
agers were involved in the creation of public value requiring dynamism,
entrepreneurial and creative activity.5 Unlike the creation of value in
the private sector, public value has no bottom line, so in the
‘Government world’ the creation of public value needs to be assessed
440 Parliamentary Affairs

through the collective democratic processes and dialogue between citi-

zens, politicians and managers about what is provided at what cost.
The underlying philosophy of public managers (whether politicians
or officials) should be to create public value. The issue that needs to be
addressed is whether the public intervention which they are directing is
achieving positive social and economic outcomes. Providing services is
no longer a sufficient justification for state intervention funded by
citizens—whether those services are provided directly or commissioned.
The question that has to be answered is does the service advance
valued social or economic outcomes? Does it deliver public value? And
that judgement itself can only be made in the context of political

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debate and deliberation. To know whether public value is delivered
requires a political engagement and an exchange between the relevant
stakeholders and government officials at all stages in the policy
process.
The role for public servants according to Moore is ‘to facilitate a
coherent conversation within the collective about what should be pro-
duced as well as producing it’. Managers need to pay attention to
obtaining legitimacy and support for public policies as well as ensuring
operational capacity. So on the one hand, managers pursuing public
value should be concerned about achieving the right structure, finances,
staffing and information management in their organisations and
systems since these are all key ingredients in ensuring their operational
capacity. But it is equally important for managers to devote time and
attention to understanding the political environment in which they are
operating as that will have a major impact on their achievement of
public value.
The idea that public endeavours create public value is clearly one
which has resonance with both managers and politicians currently and
the concept is one which is being used across the core executive and in
elite policy-making circles.6 The Strategy Unit examined the concept in
a paper published in 2002 and subsequently the Work Foundation has
systematically explored the application of the public value concept
across the UK public sector with reports examining its application in
different sectors. In this literature and elsewhere7 at least two expla-
nations for this attractiveness are discernable.
First that the concept of public value captures an important truth
about the purpose of public service programmes: citizens accept and
support public administration and services because they add value to
their lives as citizens and more generally to society as a whole. The
legitimacy of government as a whole depends upon how well it creates
value. As former Prime Minister Blair outlined in a speech on civil
service reform ‘Consumer expectations of Government services as well
as others are rising remorselessly. People no longer take what is given
them and are grateful. They want services that are responsive to their
needs and wishes’.8 These sentiments are echoed in Gordon Brown’s
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 441

reform agenda particularly for the NHS.9 Given these rising citizen
and consumer expectations of public services, both politicians and civil
servants are keen to improve their ability to respond. Cabinet Secretary
Gus O’Donnell sees the notions of public value as assisting with this
process ‘there is a need to think about the value created by government
through laws, regulation and other activities—public value in other
words. This means not just measuring customer satisfaction. We need
to consider how to involve users in determining how services are
delivered’.10
Secondly, the idea of public value management is posited as an
alternative to and development from NPM with the latter’s narrow

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focus on squeezing out inefficiency and meeting performance targets.
The public value framework reflects a desire to move on from a sterile
debate between dichotomous views of public bureaucracy as either
passive and responsive, as in a hierarchical commissioning environ-
ment, or self-interested and therefore in need of quasi market disci-
plines to ensure efficient delivery. Moore’s public managers are enabled
to be innovative, entrepreneurial, creative and responsive something
again valued by both elected and non-elected actors, with the Cabinet
Secretary talking of creating a civil service ‘passionately’ committed to
making Government work and Prime Minister Blair acknowledging the
need for politicians to allow managers to take risks ‘if we want the
Civil Service to be more entrepreneurial, to be more adventurous like
their private sector counterparts we have to loosen up’.8 In short the
concept of public value enabled managers to think and speak again
about the public purposes of their public organisations and aided rec-
ognition of the distinctiveness of managing in the public domain.
Here then managers have a role in enhancing the legitimacy of the
organisation and its outputs.11 Legitimacy can be acquired alongside
and outside of the political process of the democratic mandate. And
consequently there is a need for a ‘more rounded accountability’ for
the activities of public managers, ‘one which faces outwards as well
as upwards’.12 Accountability can be delivered managerially through
performance and financial management objective setting and targets,
through greater informatory accountability and transparency as well as
through the formal conventions of parliamentary accountability via
ministerial responsibility.
The recent Cabinet Office (2008) report13 on public service reform
marks a final break from the NPM concern with targets and markets
to achieve reform. The focus is on empowering citizens and a new pro-
fessionalism that is autonomous but citizen-focused. These are the key
ingredients in driving reform with central government forgoing micro-
management in favour of setting minimum standards and providing an
information and transparency culture to drive forward change.
Although the concept of public value management is not directly fore
grounded, the White Paper appeals to public value aspirations of
442 Parliamentary Affairs

extended legitimacy and more rounded accountability for the achieve-

ment of public service reform.
There is increasing attention in academic, management and policy-
making circles devoted to exploring how to develop, apply and
measure public value in different policy sectors14 and there is a critical
academic and policy literature which addresses the issue of contesta-
tions for example in relation to medical and lay conceptions of value in
treatment protocols, community safety and service user involvement.15
However, less attention has been paid to the way in which politicians
and managers work together to create public value. The focus here is
on the implications for governance rules and how they are interpreted,

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in how public value is created, for how policies are legitimised and
who is held accountable for their execution. There are empirical, con-
ceptual and analytical difficulties with the transfer of the public value
framework into the lived experience and relationships enacted by poli-
ticians and public managers in the UK. The US provides a very differ-
ent constitutional and managerial context for the delivery of public
services. In the UK there is a far less distinct separation in the
Wilsonian sense between politicians (who decide) and administrators
who implement.16 In particular the argument here is that conceptual
shifts in understanding how legitimacy is achieved, and accountability
provided, in Moore’s model, does not travel easily into the UK setting.
The overall impression of Moore’s book is that politics, in practice,
is often grubby, short-sighted and not much to be admired, but man-
agers have to live with it and in the hands of managers, political
engagement can become a tool for identifying societal goals. Managers
are there to encourage ‘the capacity of the political process to establish’
and ‘articulate collective aspiration’ as the most ‘appropriate guide to
public action’.17 This line of thought leads Moore on to a depiction of
the manager as a leader of a political process. However as Rhodes and
Wanna argue there is certain naivety embedded in the conception of
politics offered by Moore and more generally the management litera-
ture accounts of politics.
The growing public value literature assumes a somewhat naive ‘common-weal’
view of politics and governance. The roads to public value are apparently only
paved with good intentions. Actors such as governments, public organisations
and interest groups are assumed to want to do good things. They are viewed
through a prism whereby they seek to assist and please citizens, to be motiv-
ated by notions of creating public value and improving the public good.18

But this in turn becomes advocacy of a politics of high idealism and

benign intent. Crucially public management is as much about control
as it is about achieving customer satisfaction. It is about ensuring the
rules are obeyed, rationing scarce resources and regulating citizen beha-
viour. Moreover outcomes in the political process are not always ‘win–
win’ situations, as Moore tends to suggest, but rather reflect power
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 443

imbalances and political conflict. Any adoption of public value con-

cepts into contemporary UK governance requires a more grounded
understanding of the dynamic of power and conflict that drives it. The
adoption of a public value approach to public services needs to take
account of both empirical complexities in the delivery landscape and in
how the rules of engagement between politicians and managers are
interpreted and enacted.

The empirical challenge of network governance

The original idea of ‘public value’ was conceived in an American
context in an arguably less troubled and challenging public service

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arena. However over the last 30 years there have been significant
changes in the nature and scope of public services delivery in all devel-
oped countries. The introduction of NPM techniques and disciplines
like performance management, privatisation, contractorisation and
consumerism have been combined with a continuing search for ‘effi-
ciency’ savings.19 Secondly through the rise of network models of gov-
ernance seeking to utilise partnerships and collaboration between
public agencies, the private sector, the third sector and public.20
This section identifies how NPM and network governance reforms
have acted to blur the boundaries between management and politics
creating a confusion of roles, practices and responsibilities. The central
argument set out here is that the public value debate needs to acknowl-
edge better the contemporary governance context within which public
goods are conceived, commissioned, delivered and experienced. The
ability of public managers to anchor, or broker, a conversation
between citizens and politicians in order to ensure efficient, appropriate
and innovatory public service provision is taking place in a more com-
plicated delivery environment. In particular, four developments are
identified which impact upon the ability of public managers to follow a
public value approach: the pluralism of policy advice, overlapping
accountabilities, greater pressure to deliver and complex patterns of
vertical integration in governance.

INCREASING PLURALISM OF POLICY ADVICE. Debates around the creation

of public value have sensitised public managers to the complexities of
capturing ‘voice’ in public services and highlighted the necessity for
public managers to facilitate better and more frequent citizen access to
the policy-making authorising environment. But a reliance on the
public manager in this dynamic does not acknowledge that in the
current authorising environment, policy advice is more pluralistic. In
comparison to the relationship between politicians and civil servants
ten or 15 years ago there is a more complex set of sources for advice to
politicians in the forming of policy.21 Policy advice no longer
necessarily originates in the bureaucracy that the politician sits at the
444 Parliamentary Affairs

head of and may come from special advisors inside the system, think
tanks and other external sources.
In part this pluralism reflects a deliberate attempt during the
Thatcher era to separate political from operational decisions by creat-
ing arms length agencies. Even though executive agencies remained
part of the civil service responsible to ministers, the creation of separate
delivery structures created tension in the policy environment with com-
peting sources of policy advice and the loss of input on managerial
matters to the policy core.22 Outside the formal remit of direct minis-
terial control, thousands of non-departmental public bodies, public
corporations and other quangos operate at the national, devolved,

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regional and local government levels providing advice, delivering ser-
vices and running tribunals.23
Since New Labour came to power partly in response to concerns
about a lack of trust in politics, reform plans and developments in
public administration have tried to deny the role of politics and place
faith in the role of independent, well-intentioned experts attempting to
respond to new challenges by putting politics to one-side and handing
power over to organisations whose legitimacy and accountability
appears to rest primarily on their expertise. Non-departmental public
bodies have been created often with the specific intention of removing
decision making from the political arena, bodies like the National
Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the Foods Standards Agency (FDA). Some of these
bodies hold public meetings and publish annual reports, many do not
and yet the accountability relationship with ministers is distant.
Quangos have long been a feature of the political environment, but
although formally the number of NDPBs has fallen on paper, the dis-
tributed nature of governance involving arms length bodies has
increased with just over one-third of government expenditure spent
through executive NDPBs.24
In part the increasing diversity in the sources of policy advice
reflects a desire to draw in to the core advice from beyond public
servants. Just as a large number of civil and public servants are
operating in bureaucracies at arms length to Ministers, there has been a
growth of the sources of advice from non-civil servants. Although
Royal Commissions have long been a feature of Government, New
Labour have increased usage of a variety of task forces to draw in
outside advice into Government thinking.25 Ministers also look to
independent think tanks and policy research units for a range of
options. Similarly special advisers have been a feature in Whitehall
since the early 1970s. Their numbers have grown steadily and currently
stand at 81. Although this is a relatively small number compared to
the numbers of politically appointed advisers in other countries or
the over 3000 members of the senior civil service, their impact has
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 445

been noticeable.26 Most Whitehall insiders know that winning

Ministers over requires working through and with their special
advisers.27
The consequence of this pluralism in the sources of policy advice for
managers in the public sector is three-fold. First, managers may not be
the source of policy advice. Secondly managers may even be competing
with other sources of policy advice for politicians’ attention. And
thirdly, as a consequence, managers may not as a result always own
the policies they are being expected to see through to effective
implementation.

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THE CHALLENGE OF MULTIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES. In the classic Weberian
idea of bureaucracy, public servants are situated in a hierarchy of
decreasing spans of control headed at the apex by an elected politician.
This pyramid ensures oversight of the activities of public servants at all
stages in the process of delivering public services and a mechanism for
responsiveness to the electorate through the political mandate. In this
model, the citizen is sovereign with the political principal directing the
activities of bureaucratic agents and accountability is mediated through
the electoral mandate of the political principal. This is the normative
model which underpins the UK’s Westminster model of parliamentary
democracy and is reflected in the departmental structures of Whitehall
and the conventions for ministerial responsibility to Parliament.28 The
Haldane Report of 1918 set out the ‘symbiotic’ relationship between
politicians and civil servants with the latter being both neutral and
subservient but charged with advising, assisting and influencing policy
development but, crucially, in private.29
The public value approach suggests that actually public managers
need not be so passive—that they can supplement and enhance the link
between citizen and delivery within a context of continued accountabil-
ity to the political principal and awareness of the wider the authorising
environment. Here the broad thrust of public value discussions focuses
on how to marry the tensions of more direct and participative demo-
cratic engagement alongside the representative mandate which under-
pins the Westminster model.30 However the debate needs to
acknowledge that the accountability frameworks within which public
service delivery is nested, are growing ever more complicated and oper-
ating in a fragmented system where political principles are more distant
from decision making and the point of delivery.
Operating under a policy and resources framework, contract or legal
mandate, huge rafts of delivery are undertaken by arms length agencies
and not for profit organisations with the policy formation responsibil-
ities of departments and ministers separated from these delivery
agencies and independent bodies. When the Next Steps agencies were
446 Parliamentary Affairs

established there were attempts at formally clarifying spheres of respon-

sibility by separating accountability for policy making from account-
ability for operations in allowing the Next Steps agency chief
executives to respond directly to parliamentary questions. The Ibbs
Report called for a new understanding about the nature of accountabil-
ity and an extension of the conventions of ministerial responsibility.31
But this led to concerns of an ‘accountability’ gap as parliamentarians
were unable to scrutinise agency staff directly. Politicians were accused
of scapegoating agency staff for mistakes while simultaneously interfer-
ing in the day-to-day running of agencies.32 On coming to office New
Labour was keen to express the re-assertion of ministerial responsibility

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for executive agencies yet at the same time, the constitutional picture is
yet more fragmented through devolution, and the pluralisation of
policy advice, privatisation and contractorisation.33 The difficulty of
separating policy from operations continues to cause confusion for
example in the health arena between the authority of NICE and the
Secretary of State for Health over issues of postcode lotteries and drug
purchasing policies.
Although the Weberian model for accountability is stylised it still
informs the Westminster model espoused by most UK Ministers and
their senior civil servants and is unchallenged even by the quite exten-
sive constitutional developments seen so far in the New Labour era.34
Indeed New Labour has sought to maintain and strengthen aspects of
this hierarchical accountability. Yet although notionally Ministers still
remain accountable through Parliament this is less clear now as man-
agers have their own and overlapping accountabilities. Indeed in some
senses it is now no longer clear what politicians are accountable for
except their personal behaviour.35 The dynamic of the relationship
between politicians and managers has changed.
Other forms of accountabilities supplement the overarching frame-
work of ministerial responsibility and parliamentary accountability
leaving managers with professional, financial, managerial and legalistic
accountabilities of their own. We highlight the impact of increased
information, media scrutiny and of a performance management system
driven by targets below. Although overall it is undoubtedly the case
that informatory accountability through technological advances and
audit and performance management are vastly increased and improved,
scrutiny of decision making remains weak at national and local level.36
The lines of accountability remain blurred and now perhaps more
uncertain and confusing to citizens than in the past.

THE SPEED AND INTENSITY OF DELIVERY PRESSURE. The same

technological advances which have opened up informatory access and
accountability of public services also can cause intense pressure on
public managers for managing demand and expectations. Public
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 447

managers and politicians are operating in a delivery environment where

there is increasing public pressure not only to get delivery right, but
rapid media scrutiny when problems arise. The growing importance
of media scrutiny was noted by one Whitehall insider in the mid-1990s
but the growth of 24-hour news media coverage and the diversity
of media outlets in the last few years has intensified that pressure.37
The rise of 24-hour media news and with the rapid exchange of
information provided by the internet, world wide web and social
networking sites open-up the policy process to rapid exposure and
create a fast and furious pace to public management.38 This pressure
was described recently by the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office

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Sir David Normington ‘you’re trying to put things right and every day
there is a new angle being put to you, seeing yourself in the headline
day after day, a sense of the issue running away with you, not being
able to get ahead of it. I think all these things put a lot of pressure on
actually the politicians and civil servants’.39 These intense delivery
pressures have the potential to increase tension and conflict between
politicians and public managers and lead to the conflict itself becoming
the story.40

THE VERTICAL INTEGRATION OF DECISION MAKING. The complex

governance picture depicted above describes a sideways ‘hollowing out’
through the creation of new policy networks involving new advisers,
partners and providers challenging and complicating the roles played
by politicians and public managers and their accountabilities.
Additionally policy making is also made along vertical lines reflecting
both the dominance of national decision making and the growing
influence of globalisation through supra-national bodies such as the EU
and other international organisations.41 National politicians and
managers both at the centre and in the regional and local arenas are
required to engage both vertically as much as in their own
organisations. All feel the pressure more than before to negotiate with
external vertical constraints to decision making. National politicians
are subject to a European framework of directives which in turn have
led to policy frameworks for delivery at the local level. Local decision
makers, both elected politicians and officials, are held to tightly
constructed national performance framework with limited
opportunities to deviate from central targets. As Sir Andrew Turnbull
noted this performance framework puts pressure on to push public
managers ‘out of their comfort zones’ and to work with others up and
down a delivery chain.42
448 Parliamentary Affairs

Problematising legitimacy and accountability in network

governance
So when considering the context within which public managers are
expected to engage with politicians and citizens in order to create
public value within their authorising environment, a picture of con-
siderable complexity emerges. The political mandate won by elected
politicians is far from the only source of legitimacy for policy change.
The increasing dominance of globalised markets, population flows,
ideas and technology as well as the growth in supra-national auth-
orities like the EU, together with a performance management frame-
work executed through performance targets means there is increasing

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vertical constraints on decision making and more interdependency ver-
tically as well as horizontally through wider policy and delivery net-
works. Both politicians and managers may be involved in ‘selling’
policies to their electorates and indeed are increasingly engaged in
seeking behaviour change from voters and users of public services as
well as garnering legitimacy from the ‘authorising environment’. The
growth of media outlets and their reach increasingly offer alternative
and competing arenas for the legitimisation of policy ideas and the
relationship between politician, manager and public is mediated in
many cases by competing new agendas, technology and media compe-
tency. Amidst this confusion where legitimacy can be claimed by many,
when does the political claim outweigh others?43
For accountability the implications of the developments described
above are that as accountability frameworks extend beyond the conven-
tions of ministerial responsibility and with the creation of special
purpose bodies designed to remove decision making from political
interference, public managers find themselves more frequently being
held to account publicly yet possibly for policies they do not own. Yet
ultimately ministers are still politically accountable and have the power
to step in when difficulties arise. This confusion about roles can lead
to conflict about responsibilities especially, at times, where both poli-
ticians and public managers need to have shared understandings about
their roles and to demonstrate public confidence in their stewardship.
Because of rising expectations, technological advances and 24-hour
media scrutiny the exchanges between politicians, managers and the
public are of a greater intensity and any confusion in roles become pol-
itically salient and can feed into a loss of public confidence about the
stewardship of both manager and politician.
This was demonstrated in the experience of trying to introduce a
new convention for accountability when the Next Steps agencies were
established. Attempts then to encourage managers to develop their
legitimising role and be part of a more rounded accountability frame-
work floundered when the inevitable political problems arose. Derek
Lewis as Chief Executive of the Prison Service met his targets and
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 449

fulfilled his contractual obligations. However in crisis, when the politi-

cal pressure on Home Secretary Michael Howard rose, despite his
denial of responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Prison
Service, he sacked Lewis underlining the legitimacy of Ministerial over-
sight over all aspects of public policy, a message which reverberated
around Westminster and Whitehall and reinforced the Haldane conven-
tion as a guide to behaviour under the Westminster model.44 That the
‘Haldane’ informed Westminster narrative still guides the narratives
and behaviour of senior civil servants and ministers is apparent in more
recent events at the Home Office when a planned ‘contract’ between
the Home Secretary and his officials, specifying separate roles and

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expectations, did not materialise following difficulties negotiating
trade-offs in policy agendas given limited resources.45 As the Cabinet
Secretary explained at the Public Administration Committee “if some-
thing goes wrong, who will be on the Today programme?”.
Despite the empirical changes to decision making and policy for-
mation presented by network governance, the Westminster narrative,
with the symbiotic relationship between political and managerial actors
at its heart, still provides a deeply embedded and shared governing nar-
rative and guide to behaviour especially in highly salient policy areas.46
This narrative places political legitimacy as the dominant voice and
sees accountability channeled through elected representation. David
Blunkett expresses this most clearly talking of policy making at the
Home Office where officials ‘had what they thought of as departmen-
tal policy. It had evolved over the years and in the first few months
they actually said “but Home Secretary, that isn’t Home Office
policy”, and I said, ‘no, Home Office policy is what I and my ministers
tell you it is’.47 At the centre of Government, there is not only an
empirical challenge from network governance but a normative disjunc-
ture between the Westminister model as it is interpreted and enacted
and the public value concept requiring pluralism in legitimacy claims
and extended accountability. For Rhodes and Wanna this disjuncture
leads them to argue that the concept of public value in the Westminster
systems of Government in Australia, Canada and the Britain is one
‘fraught with enormous public risk’.48

Public value in local governance

In local government there has been a similar change in the governance
landscape. Where once chief officers in a locality advised the appropri-
ate committee chair drawing on a professionalised knowledge base and
with a monopoly of provision in the field, currently local government
officers will work to a small group of decision makers in a cabinet, are
answerable to non-executive councillors scrutinising service provision
both internally and externally and must broker with a range of partner-
ship agencies in the public, private and not for profit sectors.49 The
professional knowledge base of the local government professionals has
450 Parliamentary Affairs

been to some extent eroded and is in some ways replaced by manage-

ment skills in negotiating, commissioning and brokering.50
Yet public managers in local governance in many ways face an easier
adoption of the public value approach and it is possible to argue that
the ideas and governing rules suggested by the concept of public value
finds easier expression in local governance settings. Despite politicisa-
tion in the 1980s and more recently the introduction of local political
executives with strong decision-making power, there are at least three
reasons why the concepts of legitimacy and accountability associated
with public value might find a more receptive empirical and normative
fit in local government.

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First, the legacy of the committee system in local government is still
apparent in the formal and informal accountability rules of the game
expressed and enacted by officers who still are required to ‘serve the
whole council’.51 Indeed over one-third of local councils are hung or
balanced and no one party is in control. Officers in local government
are also very aware of their responsibilities stemming from central gov-
ernment legislation and targets. Accountability to politically elected
leaders is recognised as key but accountability is accepted to be more
‘rounded’ than in the ‘symbiotic’ Westminster model relationships
between minister and civil servant. So despite the introduction of stron-
ger political executives in the leader cabinet system, and the establish-
ment of individual portfolio holders in cabinets, there is no evidence
that officers have changed the way they interpret and enact this looser
and more general picture of accountability.
Secondly there is also scope for officers in local government to take
overtly active roles in enhancing the legitimacy of local public services.
Officers still have stronger professional identities than hitherto in the
civil service52 and the information asymmetry between politician and
officer is still more firmly weighed in the latter’s favour providing pro-
fessionalised legitimacy for policy developments. Indeed there is a
history of delegated decision making in local government which was
strengthened in the 2000 Local Government Act. Local authorities are
encouraged to explore income generation possibilities and policies to
enhance community well being, diversification is on the agenda and
local public managers will be putting such policies on the agenda to
local communities and elected politicians for the locality. Although
there are signs that the elected portfolio holders in local cabinets are
becoming more experienced in writing and presenting their own policy
positions, it is still largely officers who prepare and present policies for
politicians to ratify, permitting greater opportunities for engaging in
the legitimation of a policy area with a separate and distinct policy
voice.53
Thirdly local authorities have had a longer history and greater
experience of partnership working and again although local political
executive members are becoming more involved it is still largely
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 451

officers who undertake most of the policy development role in partner-

ships.54 Local authorities are also more experienced in engaging in user
consultations over services and participative decision making over local
provision and budgets.55 The very nature of local service provision puts
managers closer to citizens than the centrally provided functions of
central government. Accessibility, responsiveness and creativity are
arguably more relevant at the local level than for functions like benefits
or penal policy where discretion is less appropriate. Indeed one of the
most striking features of local government is the shared focus on
‘place’, on achieving the best outcome for a locality expressed which is
expressed by both local politicians and local managers.56

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Most local authorities operate as leader cabinet systems but a small
number moved to become mayoral systems where the separate elected
mandate of the mayor provided a stronger expression of political legiti-
macy arising from the separate mandate. In these authorities, this more
clearly delineated source of political legitimacy does not appear to have
prevented others from undertaking legitimising activities. Indeed this
change to the formal rules of the game appears to have prompted
reflexive discussions about the informal rules which apply in these set-
tings. One mayor and chief executive discussed how to operate in the
various partnership arrangements, another chief executive explained ‘I
have to manage the parts the Mayor is not interested in’.57
Of course if there is not some shared sense of the formal and infor-
mal rules of the game as they apply in localities, then just as in central
government departments, tensions can arise. Ultimately politicians are
elected and have a democratic mandate, officers are there to serve that
mandate. In the one authority which adopted a council manager consti-
tution, the council manager had authority but not the legitimacy which
stems from the democratic mandate and found it difficult to operate
without it.58 The most public expression of confusion in roles and
responsibilities in local government was played out in Liverpool where
the elected leader and appointed chief executive were not clear on how
to share and own the policy space and competed to perform the legiti-
mising function for the locality with politically and personally costly
consequences to both.59 Nevertheless, it is argued here that local gov-
ernment offers both an easier arena for the adoption of public value
concepts of legitimacy and accountability and lessons for how this can
be addressed in Whitehall and Westminster even in local decision
making which is quite high risk on the ladder of public value presented
by Rhodes and Wanna.60 In concluding the possibilities for further
articulations of public value approaches are assessed given the empiri-
cal and normative issues outlined.
452 Parliamentary Affairs

Re-conceptualising legitimacy and accountability in the

pursuit of public value
Public value is being presented as a new normative approach to guide
the work of public managers and one which looks beyond the achieve-
ment of efficiency alone as the key task. In celebrating the creativity and
responsiveness of public managers and the legitimacy they bring to the
policy arena, the concept has found support both in academic and
policy circles. However, we argue there is a difficulty in reading across
uncritically the associated new normative understandings of how pol-
icies are legitimised and how accountability is provided in contempor-
ary network governance settings. This is particularly the case in central

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government where the doctrine of ministerial responsibility is still the
key rule of the game especially in difficult and contested policy agendas.
However the argument here is not therefore that as a concept public
value has no traction or that the current rules of the game—legitimacy
and accountability as ultimately linked to ministerial responsibility—is
unchangeable. Rather the argument is that any adoption of public
value as a normative statement needs to acknowledge and embrace the
realities of politics and political relationships. Managers need to have a
realistic understanding of politics and recognise its pitfalls and difficul-
ties. The crucial challenge is to develop a critical rather a cynical
appraisal of the way the politics plays into the achievement of public
value and what this means for politicians, managers and stakeholders.
Public value means there is a need to expand the repertoire of politi-
cal opportunities but at the same time it means that politicians and
managers need to recognise their crucial role in shaping and defining
the political process. An essential feature of changing pattern of gov-
ernance analysed above is that governing takes place through multiple
agencies, relations and practices. Decision-making power is dispersed
across a range of new sites for action. Politics is to be found in the
dynamic of the relationships between managers, politicians, citizens,
lobby groups, think tanks and special advisors and the media. It
obliges all of these groups to have a more open expression of the rules
of engagement when a complex mix of politicians, bureaucrats, stake-
holders and citizens all insist on the right to be part of definition of
what public value is or is not.
The arguments here for an acknowledgement of the complicated gov-
ernance environment for the delivery of public services, for a realist but
positive approach to politics when creating public value have impli-
cations for the roles of both politicians and public managers. The pol-
itical realities outlined earlier in this paper and the extension of
political engagement in the context of network governance argued
above, imply a more nuanced and reflexive understanding of account-
ability and legitimacy in the pursuit of public value. The Westminster
model and its formal and informal codes and conventions are no
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 453

longer either reflective of reality or sufficient to guide appropriate

action in a modern context.61 Given that the roles of politicians and
public managers are blurred and sometimes interchangeable there is a
need for greater transparency of relationships and how these are
accountable through political, financial, informational and legal frame-
works. Without robust and defendable accountability arrangements
which are understood by those involved and the public, policy pro-
blems can escalate and confidence in public value ebb away.62
During 2008 the ‘Governance of Britain’ White Paper and the draft
Constitutional Renewal Bill had stimulated a wide debate on consti-
tutional matters. The argument made here is that radical debate is

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required, not to retune the citizen to the old rules of governance as the
White Paper sometimes implies, but rather to codify and clarify the
new ways necessary for governance in the twenty-first century.
Without such a debate and clarification of legitimacy and accountabil-
ity, public value will be much harder to pursue. The experience of
local government suggests that when the formal governance rules
change, as in the introduction of new constitutions and especially a
mayoral mandate, this can stimulate discussion of how legitimacy and
accountability rules can and should operate.
There are currently several governance policy options being discussed
ranging from radical reform, to either move to a ‘Wilsonian’ system as
in the US where the separation of politics and administration is consti-
tutionally and legally clearer, or to introduce areas of delegated
decision making for civil servants for which they could be separately
accountable; to the more informal ‘codified’ tweaks suggested in the
current White Paper.63 Whatever changes are made to the formal con-
stitutional, legal or managerial rules established to support the
accountability and legitimacy of public value activity, it is also critical
for those involved to retain reflexivity, both about how to act and the
boundaries for authoritative action. The legitimacy which flows from
elected authority means that politicians predominantly can claim
executive authority. Public managers need to remember this ultimate
political reality and develop their political antennae. Likewise poli-
ticians need to acknowledge the ability of public managers to engage
directly with others in policy development and delivery. No one blue-
print will serve as a template for the action and interaction of the
many stakeholders in network governance only an explicit acknowl-
edgement of the political complexity and yet potential for creativity
entailed.

Francesca Gains
University of Manchester
UK
francesca.gains@manchester.ac.uk
454 Parliamentary Affairs

Gerry Stoker
University of Southampton
UK
g.stoker@soton.ac.uk
1 By public managers we are referring to civil servants in central, regional government and executive
agencies, local government officers and other managers in publicly funded organisations.
2 M. Moore, Creating Public Value, Harvard University Press, 1995.
3 D. Richards, New Labour and the Civil Service, Palgrave, 2007.
4 Interview with M. Moore, National School of Government, http://www2.nationalschool.gov.uk/
media/markmooreinterview.asx 21 March 2008.
5 Ibid., 1995.
6 G. Kelly, G. Mulgan and S. Muers, ‘Creating Public Value’ Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, 2002; See also

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the Work Foundation http://theworkfoundation.com/products/publicvalue.aspx especially R. Blaug,
L. Horner and R. Lokhi, Public Value, Politics and Public Management, Work Foundation, 2006.
7 G. Stoker, ‘Public Value Management: A New Narrative for Networked Governance’, The American
Review of Public Administration, 36, 2006, 41 –57.
8 T. Blair, Speech at the Civil Service Reform, Delivery and Values event, 24 February 2004, http://
www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_cabinet_office/speeches.aspx 6 November 2007.
9 M. Evans, ‘A Project in Search of a Big Idea? Gordon Brown, Public Services Reform and Public
Value’ in M. Beech and S. Lee (eds), The Brown Government – A Policy Evaluation, special issue of
Policy Studies, 30, 2009, 6– 38.
10 Sir Gus O’Donnell, ‘90 Years on – Influence and Sir Gus O’Donnell, ‘90 Years on – Influence and
Capability at the Heart of Government’, Whitehall Conference speech, 25 January 2007 http://
www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_cabinet_office/speeches.aspx 6 November 2007.
11 Blaug et al., op. cit., note 6.
12 Kelly et al., op. cit., note 6, p. 35.
13 Cabinet Office, Excellence and Fairness: Achieving World Class Public Services, HMSO, 2008.
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17 Moore, op. cit., note 2, p. 36
18 R.A.W. Rhodes and J. Wanna, ‘The Limits to Public Value, or Rescuing Responsible Government
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19 C. Pollitt, Managerialism in Public Services, Blackwells, 1990; C. Pollitt and G. Bouckaert, Public
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20 R.A.W. Rhodes, Understanding Governance, Open University Press, 1997; E. Sorensen and T. Jacob,
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21 Sir Andrew Turnbull’s valedictory lecture, 27 July 2005, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/story/
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Outcomes’, Journal of Public Policy, 23, 2003, 55 – 79; F. Gains, ‘Surveying the Landscape of
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23 Public Administration Committee, HC 367, Mapping the Quango State, 5th Report, 2000 –2001;
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25 Foster, op. cit., note 21.
26 Sir Richard Wilson, ‘Portrait of a Profession Revisited’, Public Administration, 81, 2003, 365 –378;
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27 Sir Andrew Turnbull’s valedictory lecture, 27 July 2005, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/story/
0,9061,1537060,00.html 6 November 2007.
 Implications for Accountability and Legitimacy 455

28 Public Administration Committee, HC122 Third Report, Politics and Administration: Ministers and
Civil Servants, The Stationary Office, 2007.
29 D. Kavanagh and D. Richards, ‘Prime Ministers, Ministers and Civil Servants in Britain’,
Comparative Sociology, 2, 2003, 175 –195.
30 Blaug et al., op. cit., note 6.
31 Efficiency Unit, Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps, HMSO, 1988.
32 D. Lewis, Hidden Agendas, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1997; Public Administration Select Committee,
HC 853, Second Special Report, Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions, The
Stationary Office, 2005.
33 Gains, op. cit., note 22.
34 D. Richards and M. J. Smith, ‘Interpreting the World Of Political Elites’, Public Administration, 82,
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35 D. Woodhouse, ‘Ministerial Responsibility: the Tale of Two Tesignations’, Public Administration, 82,
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36 F. Gains, New Council Constitutions: A Summary of the ELG Research Findings, DCLG, 2006, 16

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pp; Public Administration Select Committee, op. cit., note 32.
37 Foster, op. cit., note 21.
38 Sir Richard Wilson, op. cit., note 26.
39 Sire David Normington, Taken from a transcript of ‘Shape Up Sir Humphrey, BBC Radio 4 broadcast
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40 F. Gains, ‘Hardware, Software or Network Connection Theorising Crisis Catalyst in UK Next Steps
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41 R.A.W. Rhodes, ‘New Labour’s Civil Service: Summing up Joining Up’, Political Quarterly, 71,
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42 Sir Andrew Turnbull’s valedictory lecture, 27 July 2005, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/story/
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43 Stoker, op. cit., note 7.
44 F. Gains, ‘Hardware, Software or Network Connection: Theorising Crisis in the Prison Service and
Child Support Agency’, Public Administration, 82, 2005, 547 – 566.
45 Public Administration Committee, 6 February 2007, The Work of the Cabinet Office, HC 305-I
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46 Richards and Smith, op. cit., note 34.
47 David Blunkett, ‘Shape up Sir Humphrey’, BBC Radio 4 broadcast 15 March 2007.
48 Rhodes and Wanna, op. cit., note 18, p. 419.
49 G. Stoker, F. Gains, P. John, S. Greasley and N. Rao, The New Council Constitutions http://
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50 SOLACE, ‘Leadership United: Managing in a Political Environment’, London, 2005.
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54 Stoker et al., op. cit., note 49; H. Sullivan and C. Skelcher, Working across Boundaries, Palgrave,
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55 V. Lowndes, L. Pratchett G. and Stoker, ‘Diagnosing and Remedying the Failings of Official
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56 Gains, op. cit., note 49.
57 Private conversation; Stoker et al., op. cit., note 49.
58 Private conversation.
59 M. Smulian, ‘Truce in Liverpool Row’, Local Government Chronicle, 2 June 2005.
60 Rhodes and Wanna, op. cit., note 18.
61 G. Wilson and A. Barker, op. cit., note 21; M. Moran, The British Regulatory State, Oxford
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62 Gains, op. cit., note 44.
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