Internal Management: Structures and Processes

Abstract

In this chapter we apply the conceptual framework set out in Chapter 1 and developed in Chapter 3 to analyse recent changes which have taken place in the management structures and processes within local authorities. Although the political dimensions of these structures and processes are briefly identified, a more detailed analysis of the role of elected members in the management of local authorities is provided in Chapter 7. This chapter commences with a brief retrospective evaluation of the changing patterns of structure and process in local authorities since the late 1960s developing some of the themes introduced in Chapter 2, and emphasising the changing relationship between structure, strategy and culture over this period. In relation to the pressures for major changes in structure and process, the sources and strength of organisational resistance to change (or ‘organisational inertia’) are recognised and discussed. We then identify a number of key dimensions of analysis from Chapter 3 (integration/differentiation; centralisation/decentralisation, etc.) and show how recent legislative changes have exerted pressure for a radical reassessment both of the significance of these dimensions for organisation structure and of the balance between the pairs of concepts concerned, in each case.