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From 1998 the Government launched Beacon award schemes in local government, schools, the National Health Service, further education and central government. The schemes were distinctive in that they all shared the assumption that organisational learning could be advanced through a competitive process of identifying successful organisations and recruiting them to disseminate their good practices. Drawing on a number of evaluations of the different schemes, this article identifies three tensions in the operation of the Beacon model. We conclude that the relative persistence and success of the Beacon idea, in local government at least, is more a function of its effects on aspiration and morale than its concrete contribution to learning and improvement.

The role played by evidence in policymaking is hotly disputed and there is no agreement over how evidence is defined. This article examines whether policy actors have different views of what counts as evidence and which factors influence these perceptions (for example, professional background, length of service, organisation setting, cultures of evidence)? In addressing this question, we contribute to the growing research focus on the context of evidence use. Q methodology – a mixed method approach to study people's attitudes towards a topic – is used in interviewing 67 policy actors and comparing two countries, Scotland and Wales, to find out whether there are different cultures of evidence. In both countries, we identified four distinct profiles of attitudes towards evidence: the evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) Idealist, the Pragmatist, the Inclusive, and the Political. Our research highlights important differences between the two contexts, with a greater leaning towards EBPM views of evidence in Wales, and more pragmatism in defining evidence in Scotland. We illustrate how different cultures of evidence coexist in a same context and highlight their similarities and differences. We also contribute to the understanding of the value of Q methodology research by showing that it can be used to compare two datasets collected in different countries.

The claim that evidence-based policy (EBP) produces better outcomes has gained increasing support over the last three decades. Knowledge brokering (KB) is seen as a way to achieve improved policymaking and governments worldwide are investing significant resources in KB initiatives. It is therefore important to understand the range of these activities and to investigate whether and how they facilitate EBP. This article critically reviews the extant literature on KB. It identifies six important limitations: the existence of multiple definitions of KB; a lack of theory-based empirical analysis; a neglect of knowledge brokering organisations; insufficient research on KB in social policy; limited analysis of impact and effectiveness; and a lack of attention to the role played by politics. The paper proposes an agenda for future research that bridges disciplinary boundaries in order to address these gaps and contribute new insights into the politics of evidence use.

AbstractLeadership is widely seen as having an important role in fostering ethical conduct in organizations, but the ways in which the actions of leaders intersect with formal ethics regulation in shaping conduct have been little researched. This article examines this issue through a qualitative study of the operation of the "ethical framework" for English local government, which entailed all councils adopting a code of conduct to regulate the behavior of local politicians. Studying local government provides an opportunity to examine how personal and managerial factors combine to influence ethical conduct and to analyze the ways in which ethical leadership is exercised through multiple people in leadership roles (politicians and managers). The article finds that organizations that exhibit consistently good conduct have multiple leaders who demonstrate good conduct but also act to preempt the escalation of problems and thereby minimize the explicit use of ethics regulation.

Leadership is widely seen as having an important role in fostering ethical conduct in organizations, but the ways in which the actions of leaders intersect with formal ethics regulation in shaping conduct have been little researched. This article examines this issue through a qualitative study of the operation of the "ethical framework" for English local government, which entailed all councils adopting a code of conduct to regulate the behavior of local politicians. Studying local government provides an opportunity to examine how personal and managerial factors combine to influence ethical conduct and to analyze the ways in which ethical leadership is exercised through multiple people in leadership roles (politicians and managers). The article finds that organizations that exhibit consistently good conduct have multiple leaders who demonstrate good conduct but also act to preempt the escalation of problems and thereby minimize the explicit use of ethics regulation.

AbstractPerformance management systems have become a key component of contemporary public administration. However, there has been only limited analysis of the social construction of performance by public managers who are subject to them. This article examines the ways in which public managers create, maintain, and disrupt performance management practices. The authors find that managers make external performance assessments perform for themselves by constantly negotiating boundaries in ways that combine bureaucratic and managerial rationales. The authors argue that the ways in which organizational boundaries are constructed are fundamental to understanding the success or failure of performance management systems and the transformation of managerial ways of thinking about performance into a logic of improvement through which contemporary public sector reforms become embedded.

Concern for fostering trust in public institutions has prompted many governments to invest in systems of ethics regulation, embracing various dimensions of good governance. This article assesses the impact of ethics regulation on the conduct of English local politicians using Foucauldian perspectives on government, power, and resistance. The research finds that ethics regulation encountered problems when politicians resisted the models of political identity and behavior that it was perceived to promote. Particular concentrations of misconduct complaints were identified in which politicians believed that changes to political management structures, designed to make local governance more effective, caused a loss of voice for elected representatives. Ethics regulation itself sometimes served as a device for controlling others and effecting resistance. The article concludes with reflections on how far we should expect political conduct to be managed by such regulatory practices.

Recognition of the importance of interactions between policies has fuelled demand for larger, longer-term, more holistic studies of their impacts and effectiveness. The broader perspective provided by evaluations of this kind appears to have been useful to policy makers, but their scale and complexity present practical and methodological challenges. Research funders need to commission and coordinate groups of studies rather than procuring research on an ad-hoc basis. Researchers need to be willing to share data and develop methods of collecting evidence relating to overarching themes as opposed to more narrowly defined programme and policy objectives.