Governance and accountability in English fire and rescue services just keeps getting more complex and confusing and looks like getting worse.

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Murphy, P. ORCID: 0000-0001-8459-4448 and Lakoma, K. ORCID: 0000-0002-2583-3813, 2024. Governance and accountability in English fire and rescue services just keeps getting more complex and confusing and looks like getting worse. In: International Research Society for Public Management Conference 2024, Tampere, Finland, 16-18 April 2024.

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Abstract

Accountability in the public sector is extremely complex. Academics have argued over the recent years that this has always been the case (Sinclair 1995). However, politicians have only begun to realise it more recently. The UK government has introduced various legislative agendas in the fire sector throughout the 21st century to improve accountability. We draw upon government legislation, ministerial statements, parliamentary committee, audit, inspection, and other publicly available reports to highlight the key issues that have been part of the agenda in the Governance and Performance Regime and the Financial Management Regime of English Fire and Rescue Services to-date. Examining how this policy agenda has played out reveals insights into the difficulties of improving accountability in practice. We argue that the Fire and Rescue Services’ governance and accountability issues have become akin to a wicked issue to a government fixated on a reform agenda based upon New Public management principles that have repeatedly proven to be ineffective. We argue that governance and accountability issues in the Fire and Rescue Services need to be addressed through new approaches that embrace the concept of Public Value and are more akin to New Public
Governance thinking.

Item Type:

Conference contribution

Creators:

Murphy, P. and Lakoma, K.

Date:

April 2024

Identifiers: