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10 - UN sustainability goals and social value: local authority perspectives
- Edited by Adrian Bonner, University of Stirling
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- Book:
- COVID-19 and Social Determinants of Health
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 20 January 2023, pp 192-209
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
In this chapter the concepts of social value reviewed by Liddle in Chapter 8 will be developed to include environmental value and, in particular, the wicked issue of climate change. Liddle critically reviews the literature on public and social value, and the historical development of these ideas in relation to New Public Management and the quantification of social value in relation to the relative importance that people place on changes experienced in their lives from a wellbeing perspective. Using a combination of accounting and economic measures, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and Deloitte have used international accounting standards and UN Sustainable Goals.
Social value and environmental value is defined with reference to the different approaches through the lens of various organisations and, where focusing on environmental value in this chapter, it covers its impact at an international, national, regional and local level in particular with reference to climate change strategies and with references to housing. More detailed discussion of housing will be presented in Chapter 11, and youth employment in Chapter 12.
Global climate change concern
Concern and debate relating to climate change is not new. While provisions on climate change were adopted in the ‘Declaration of the United Nations Conference’ on 16 June 1972 in Stockholm, it was not until much later that decisive action could be said to have occurred. The size and scale of the problem was noted at the time within a statement released on 16 July 1992 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group of leading US scientists dedicated to raising issues around climate change. In its press release it noted that ‘human beings and the natural world are on a collision course’ and went on to outline specific areas of environmental concern, namely, the atmosphere, water resources, oceans, soil, forests and living species Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992).
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
In May 1992, underlining the need for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the UN stated that ‘human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and that this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind’ (UN, 1992).
9 - The Changing Landscape of Local Authority Commissioning
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- By Dave Ayre
- Edited by Adrian Bonner, University of Stirling
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- Book:
- Local Authorities and the Social Determinants of Health
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 25 March 2021
- Print publication:
- 14 October 2020, pp 177-196
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Summary
Introduction
The relationship of public and private sectors in the United Kingdom (UK) and the commissioning, procurement and development of public private partnerships is driven by the prevailing political and economic environment. This chapter explores the history of the relationship between public and private sectors and the extent to which the political and regulatory environment of governments and institutions such as the European Union (EU) can help or hinder the efforts of public bodies in seeking to deliver services that determine the health and quality of life for communities.
The political and regulatory environment
In the mid-19th century, when local government was beginning to develop into a more recognisable form, many urban local authorities began to deliver gas, water and sanitation services (University of Warwick, 2012).
In 1945, Clement Attlee's Labour government was elected at a time of severe post-war austerity. It marked the start of a new social-democratic consensus that was to develop over 30 years under successive governments. By 1973, the top rate of income tax for earned income stood at 75 per cent (Clark and Dilnot, 2002). Key industries such as rail, coal and steel, and all major utilities, water, electricity, gas and telecommunications, were publicly owned.
This post-war consensus was turned on its head with the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979. Influenced by the free market think tanks of the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, the government embarked on a programme of wholesale privatisation. For councils, the Local Government Acts of 1988 and 1992 introduced and extended compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). Services such as waste collection, construction, grounds maintenance and catering were some of the first to be affected. This was later to be extended to white collar architectural and civil engineering design services towards the end of the John Major Conservative government. Although an enthusiastic proponent of CCT, the Major government was keen to portray a less ideological approach to public services than its predecessor.
In 1992, the Major government introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and branded it as a new form of public private partnership.