91 THREE Accountability I repeat that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist. (Disraeli, B. (1826), Vivian Grey, Book VI, Chapter 7, London: Henry Colburn) Most strategic police leaders accept being held to account for what they do as an integral part of living in a pluralist, liberal Europe (Marshall, 1978; Loader, 2000); but it is not always apparent to the public in how many complex ways and in what respects that accountability is manifested: ‘I am
235 ELEVEN Accountability John Rouse and George Smith Introduction This chapter explores the changing nature of public accountability in the welfare state since 1979. The particular emphasis is on the position of the Labour Party in opposition as the radical agenda of public sector reforms progressed through the four terms of Conservative governments to its current position following its election victory in May 1997. Although this is a complex journey, the key theme of this chapter will be to identify and explain the shift from the traditional forms of public
Counter-terrorism is now a permanent and sprawling part of the legislative and operational apparatus of the state, yet little is known about the law and practice of how it is reviewed, how effective the review mechanisms are, what impact they have or how they interact with one another.
This book addresses that gap in knowledge by presenting the first comprehensive, critical analysis of counter-terrorism review in the United Kingdom, informed by exclusive interviews with policy makers, politicians, practitioners and civil society.
The processes for allocating places at secondary schools in England are perennially controversial. Providing integrated coverage of the policy, practice and outcomes from 1944 to 2012, this book addresses the issues relevant to school admissions arising from three different approaches adopted in this period: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation. Each approach is assessed on its own terms, but constitutional and legal analysis is also utilised to reflect on the extent to which each meets expectations and values associated with schooling, especially democratic expectations associated with citizenship.
Repeated failure to identify and pursue specific values for schooling, and hence admissions, can be found to underlie questions regarding the ‘fairness’ of the process, while also limiting the potential utility of judicial responses to legal actions relating to school admissions. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach which makes it relevant and accessible to a wide readership in education, social policy and socio-legal studies.
11 2 Principles and purposes of accountability Drawing on public administration, legal and political science literature, this chapter establishes some of the conceptual framework necessary to understand police accountability, including the vexed notion of operational independence and the empirical evidence supporting the importance of legitimacy for effective practice. At the end of the chapter is a discussion of the changing nature of police governance in neoliberal globalised societies in which state-centred models of governance are increasingly
, risk and sexual violence prevention trainings will be mandatory for members and chapters will have to complete compliance reviews before and after all gatherings when they resume in March, according to details outlined in an action plan this week. ( CBS News , 2022 , 20 January) Nevertheless, this unleashed protests, with staff and students demanding accountability and with concerns about the ‘underlying toxic culture that has persisted for decades’ and that previous efforts at reform and control had failed. For among female guests and students there had long been
1 Introduction: Accountability in the Counter-Terrorist State Our response to counter-terrorism is built on an approach that unites the public and private sectors, communities, citizens and overseas partners around the single purpose to leave no safe space for terrorists to recruit or act … so that our people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.1 This opening paragraph of CONTEST: The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism demonstrates that counter-terrorism is everywhere in the contemporary UK. It has become a quotidian part
jurisdiction and can provide a basis for a conceptual understanding of an inquest law in which the bereaved are at the centre. To explore this issue, this chapter examines accountability and authority in the shifts from the historical, to the modern, to the contemporary inquest. These are not definitive, clear-cut periods of time, but are instead ways to characterize the contested, contingent and changing nature of the inquest over time. The chapter is divided into five parts. It opens by focusing on the modern inquest and the shifts which defined it as a modern system
91 FIVE DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: GOVERNORS IN A CHANGING SYSTEM Introduction As the previous chapters described, the lack of a proper and robust system of accountability and local oversight was thought to be one of the principal reasons why the Trojan Horse affair was allowed to gain such traction, and why it resulted in such a profound crisis for education and for school governance in England. School governing, as the Introduction to this book pointed out, does not operate in isolation, but has evolved according to social and political drivers forming
85 7 Accountability in a values-driven system Policies may not be decisive in driving how voters make choices, but policies still matter. Every day, millions of people are affected by the level of tax, the operation of the health system or the rules for allocating welfare benefits. Policies have long-term macro impacts that shape the destiny of whole countries: the divided Germany example discussed in Chapter 5 was a particularly dramatic case. Whether a country has effective or ineffective policies is clearly important. One of the advantages that
