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Bureaucratic decision making in institutional reform: a test of the ‘bureau shaping’ hypothesis

Paper to be presented at the American Political Science Association meeting, Chicago, 30th August to 2nd September 2007 Panel 24-7 Bureaucratic Behavior and Attitudes Francesca Gains and Peter John Institute for Political and Economic Governance University of Manchester M13 9PL UK ++44 161 275 4895 [email protected] [email protected] www.ipeg.org.uk

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Abstract

This paper aims to test the idea that bureaucrats’ preferences for a certain kind of role

and set of preferred working tasks may motivate them to support the reform of their

bureaus. It seeks to be the first survey-based test of Dunleavy’s (1991) bureau-

shaping model, using attitudinal data from a survey of 471 local government

bureaucrats carried out in 2005. But rather than assume one set of senior bureaucratic

preferences, we follow Downs (1967) to put forward the idea that there are different

kinds of bureaucrats who sort themselves into different kinds of jobs. The findings

show that liking for the tasks in the policy-making core is an important element to

bureaucratic preferences; that there are different kinds of bureaucrats, with a clear

distinction between policy-makers and implementers; that these attitudes positively

predict the number of hours bureaucrats spend on different sorts of tasks; and that

liking of working with the mayor/portfolio holders positively predicts attitudes to a

reform of local government that creates a more policy making core to the

bureaucracy.

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Introduction

This paper seeks to explain what motivates bureaucrats when the design of their

bureau alters, changing respectively the roles of politicians and bureaucrats. This

question is a key one to answer in the face of rapidly evolving governance systems

and the search to ‘re-invent government’ to achieve improved efficiency,

accountability and responsiveness which has led to extensive institutional reforms

seeking to clarify the role of the executive and the command systems in

bureaucracies.

The public choice literature has been influential in providing a conceptual lens for

explaining bureaucratic responses to change in arguing that public servants, without a

carefully designed incentive structure, usually act in their short-term self-interest and

may work against public welfare in seeking to inflate the budgets of their bureaus

(Niskanen, 1971). The bureau-shaping hypothesis developed by Dunleavy (1991)

modifies the basic budget maximisation thesis and argues bureaucrats seek to

maximise their preferences for their core budgets, which derive from their wish for

certain kinds of work, closely allied to the policy process rather than managerial tasks.

Bureau shaping approaches hitherto have sought to reveal bureaucratic preferences

from budget and case study data (James, 2003). There is little evidence on what

bureaucrats do, and whether in reformed structures, bureaucrats’ preferences are met

in changed behavioural practices.

The argument here is that the next generation of studies needs to take a more fine-

grained approach to understanding bureaucratic decision making (Brehm and Gates,

1999). What is required is data that captures expressed preferences and then test these

against reported behaviours and institutional variables to accurately assess the extent

to which bureaucratic officials can influence and exploit institutional reform. This

paper draws on survey data of 471 bureaucrats in 40 local government areas in

England following the introduction of constitutional reform to introduce a separation

of powers which afforded considerable opportunities for bureau shaping behaviour by

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local government officials.1 By analysing behavioural data and constitutional

indicators with expressed preferences we seek to develop a more nuanced

understanding of bureaucratic decision making in the face or administrative reform.

Bureaucratic behaviour, administrative reform and the bureau shaping

hypothesis.

To seek to find out how bureaucrats respond to reform, this paper seeks to understand

what kinds of work to bureaucrats prefer to do and the implications of these

preferences for the design of their bureaus. Bureaucrats carry out a range of tasks that

range from advising, making decisions, dealing with external stakeholders and getting

results. The various kinds of bureaucratic jobs that commonly exist provide different

combinations of these tasks; institutions vary to the extent they stress one and not

another; and the tasks needed for these jobs change over time in response to external

constraints. Moreover, bureaucrats even in the same job reveal different preferences

about what kinds of work they do. These kinds of claims are not controversial, so

why should they matter? The reason is that bureaucrats often have more choice about

how they structure their work than over other factors, such as influencing their

political principals, for example. The jobs that they do are part of the bureaucratic

domain and reflect the discretion they have there even when under strict political

control. This could be seen as a merely internal matter, and the way in which

organisations naturally adapt to the different preferences of the people who occupy

roles in them – to the benefit of all. More contended bureaucrats will mean better

organisations for the political principals to run. Who can complain about that?

The problem is, of course, that discretion may have implications for how bureaucrats

affect the design of the state, especially when the design of the bureau alters, changing

respectively the roles of politicians and bureaucrats, which then have knock-on effects

for implementation and the relationships between politicians and bureaucrats. The

question of roles is a key one to answer in the face of rapidly evolving governance

1 This data was gathered as part of an evaluation of the Local Government Act 2000 for the UK Department of Communities and Local Government see www.elgnce.org.uk. The views expressed here are that of the authors only and do not reflect the views of the sponsor.

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systems and the search to ‘re-invent government’ to achieve improved efficiency,

accountability and responsiveness (Peters, 1995; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000; Kettl,

2005; Goodin 1996) which has led to extensive institutional reforms seeking to clarify

the role of the executive and the command systems in bureaucracies. When the

institutional design is up for grabs, then what do bureaucrats do to maintain or

advance their interests?

Decades of research in the public choice literature alerts us to a particular explanation

of bureaucratic responses to change in arguing that public servants, without a

carefully designed incentive structure, usually act in their short-term self-interest and

may use their discretion to work against public welfare in seeking to inflate the

budgets of their bureaus (Niskanen, 1971). The public choice school highlights the

difficulties faced by political principals in overseeing the activities of bureaucrats

with the lack of information held by principals creating the difficulty of moral hazard

with principals unaware of agents’ activities (Moe, 1984; 1989; Weingast, 1984).

This information gap allows bureaucrats act in their short term self interest leading to

what Tullock describes as ‘bureaucratic imperialism’ whereby “all bureaucrats,

whether successful or not thoroughly approve of an expansion of the whole

bureaucracy” (1987, 136). Public bureaucracies are viewed as an ‘acquisitive and

expansive set of organisations’ (Peters, 1995, 13).

In the contemporary public choice literature most attention has been paid to how

bureaucrats can be kept in check through the design of suitable incentives (Moe,

1984) or institutional checks and balances (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984) and

tighter controls on the discretion of bureaucrats (Huber and Shipman, 2002). There is

however relatively little work which explores the budget maximisation premise

empirically (see for example Dolan, 2002).

The veracity of a basic budget maximising thesis is challenged by those highlighting

the need for a more nuanced understanding of bureaucratic motivation. Criticism of

the budget maximisation thesis is made by scholars arguing for a wider and non-

pecuniary conceptualisation of bureaucratic motivation which encompasses socialised

professional norms, a customer orientation or the idea of a public sector ethos (Perry

and Wise, 1990; Brewer, Seldon and Facer, 2000; Dixit, 2002; Meier and O’Toole,

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2006, Buelens and Broeck 2007). Brehm and Gates talk of the incentive effects, not

only of pecuniary preferences but also of functional preferences relating to the

rewards of doing a good job and solidarity preferences where the recognition of peers

is a motivating factor (1999). The strength of the empirical work developed by

Brehm and Gates is in drawing on surveys, observational analysis and administrative

records to link expressed preferences with behaviour and outcomes. However, their

investigation seeks to explore the ongoing activities and motivations of bureaucrats

and does not examine bureaucratic responses to administrative reform.

From within a public choice perspective critics argued the principal-agent model

needs to recognise the institutional features of different decision making systems and

reflect a more adaptive and dynamic pattern of interactions (Bendor and Moe 1985). It

is argued the basic budget maximisation argument of Niskanen fails to accurately

capture the preferences of bureaucrats especially in political systems which are less

federal than the US (Peters 1995). One strand of work that sought to take forward a

public choice modelling of bureaucratic motivation is the idea of bureau shaping

developed Dunleavy (1991) and others (James 2003) to calibrate precisely the

preferences of bureaucrats for institutional design of their bureaus.

Dunleavy provides a more nuanced and contextual public choice account of

bureaucratic behaviour highlighting the collective action problems faced by

bureaucrats seeking to maximise budgets and the way in which budget maximising

strategies vary according to rank of official, agency and budget type (1991, 174-183).

The argument develops from the assumption that senior bureaucrats have non-

pecuniary preferences for intellectually stimulating but low cost policy advice work

with no management responsibilities. Therefore senior bureaucrats only seek to

expand the size of their core budgets (bureaucratic salaries and office expenditure)

“rational officials want to work in small, elite, and collegial bureaus close to political

power centre. They do not want to head up heavily staffed, large budget but routine,

conflictual and low status agencies” (1991, 202). These assumptions are tested by

examining the budgets of UK central departments during a period of rapid

agencification when many executive functions were hived off to arms length

management units. The modelling undertaken by Dunleavy and subsequently James

(2003) seem to show that bureau shaping predictions can be linked to patterns of

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growth, transfer and reduction of different component parts of departmental budgets

at this time of rapid administrative re-organisation.

There are some difficulties with the model. Bureau shaping approaches hitherto have

sought to reveal bureaucratic preferences indirectly from budget and case study data

(James, 2003). There remains a gap in knowledge about what kinds of work

bureaucrats like and whether these preferences are distributed across the officer corps,

or whether the role socialises bureaucrats. There is little data on what bureaucrats do,

and whether in reformed structures, bureaucrats’ preferences are met in changed

behavioural practices. Is it accurate to assume that all bureaucrats prefer policy

advice work over managerial responsibilities (Richards, Smith and Marsh, 2000;

John, 1998). Those at the core of the organisation may operate in a more political and

policy-making world, with close contacts with the politicians, whereas other senior

bureaucrats may head up large service-based bureaucracies and may have more of an

interest in delivery. Secondly, the model assumes causality in that the outcomes

identified are linked to bureaucratic behaviour and not from the activity of other

actors for example the political principals who head departments (John, 1998, James,

2003).

The argument here is that it is important to explore bureaucratic motivation in the face

of wide scale administrative reform which provides highly conducive conditions for

bureau shaping behaviour (Aulich 1999, Egeberg, 1995). But the next generation of

studies needs to take a more fine grained approach to understanding bureaucratic

decision making (Brehm and Gates, 1997). What is required is data that captures

expressed preferences and then test these against reported behaviours and institutional

variables to accurately assess the extent to which bureaucratic officials can influence

and exploit institutional reform. Our claim goes back to the early and pioneering

work of Downs (1967), who argued that that there different kinds of bureaucrats who

like doing different things. The modification we introduce is that these preferences

include many highlighted in the bureau-shaping model, which guide the preferences

and behaviour of some bureaucrats at the senior level for more policy work.

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Institutional reform in English local government a test of bureau shaping

English local government is a useful site for studying political-bureaucratic

relationships, partly because of the well-established system for local administration

that creates a number of structural advantages for bureaucrats in their relationships

with local elected officials: the weakness of the electoral mandate of the politicians

and the scale of the information asymmetry in favour of local bureaucrats. Local

authorities administer the services of housing, education, public health consumer

protection, social services, local roads, waste collection and disposal to name some of

the key ones, all of which require expert and professionalized administration

according to professional standards and national rules. Politicians can influence

overall direction, but the services need detailed and precise administration by the

general and professional bureaucrats that occupy English local government.

The relatively large scale of English local government (the average unit serves a

population of over 100,000) and the extent of national direction of policy and

spending (see Goldsmith and Wolman, 1995, for a comparison with the US system)

makes for an extensive information advantage for local permanent bureaucrats. They

operate in a highly professionalized environment and in the context of strong claims

for expert knowledge, with established powers over appointments and the ability to

regulate workflows in their bureaus. Moreover, as gatekeepers for nationally–led

policy initiatives and legislative demands in their local bureaus, they play a central

role in setting the agenda of local decision-making. Indeed, through their professional

and managerial associations, they have a considerable influence on the direction of

policy, in particular the technical detail of nationally imposed interventions (Laffin

and Entwhistle, 2000).

The second reason that English local government is of interest to the study of

bureaucracy is because the system of political leadership has been reformed in one

piece of legislation introduced by the Labour national government elected in 1997

(Stoker, 2003). In contrast to the predecessor Conservative governments, which

limited local government’s discretion, Labour was keen to increase the delivery

capacity of local government, and introduced the 2000 Act that aimed to create

stronger leadership by a small group of politicians held to account by strong overview

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and scrutiny committees composed of a wider group of representatives. By stressing

a separation of powers there has been a partial move to a separated executive as in the

classic studies of politician principals and bureaucrat agents where the executive is

formally distinct from the legislature, such as Congress. But the relative weakness of

scrutiny means that bureaucrats tend not to face multiple agents as they do the classic

studies of US bureaucracy.

Decision-making authority under the old system had rested in full with the whole

body of the council but could be de facto delegated to committees of elected

politicians operating in specialist areas or individual senior bureaucrats. Since 2002,

the time of the implementation of the act, formal power became concentrated on a

small executive group, although the option to delegate decision-making authority over

some matters to individual senior bureaucrats remained. The legislation requires all

except the smallest authorities to establish a separate executive and to give it day-to-

day decision-making powers under the general supervision of a budget and policy

plans approved by the full elected body. The executive mayoral option is the strongest

expression of these ideas, but the vast majority of local governments chose to adopt

the leader-cabinet model with less than three percent of all councils choosing the

mayoral form.

The leader-cabinet model is one where the political leader is the head of the majority

party or one of the parties in a coalition capable of obtaining a majority of support

from the council where no party had a majority. The leader is joined by a group of up

to ten other elected representatives who form the cabinet or executive, which is given

extensive decision-making authority within a broad framework agreed by the full

elected body. In all types of authority, this reform has led to a strengthening of the

political executive, with a clearer focus on policy-making and the enhancement of

professional executive politician (Gains 2006).

Methods and Data

To test out these ideas this paper draws on survey data of 471 bureaucrats in 40 local

government areas in England following the introduction of constitutional reform to

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introduce a separation of powers which afforded considerable opportunities for bureau

shaping behaviour by local government officials. The paper presents descriptive

statistics on a series of questions seeking to find out what kinds of work bureaucrats

prefer followed by regression models to find out whether these preferences predict

hours of work on specific tasks and satisfaction with the reforms.

The sample is unique in studies of local bureaucracies because most surveys tend to

be of chief executives with little attention to the senior management team and to the

high-ranking officers beyond that group. Yet all are bureaucrats playing important

roles in policy design and delivery We sampled the top three ranks of bureaucrats in

40 local governments stratified by management structure, type of functions and

regional location. The response rate was 50 per cent. The questionnaire contained

questions on satisfaction with the reform, working practices and attitudes to specific

parts of the legislation. The appendix contains basic descriptive statistics on the main

variables used in the analysis.

We first present in Table 1 some descriptive information on what bureaucrats say they

like doing, which allows us to see the spread of activities they prefer. We included in

these questions most of the main items that come from a list in Dunleavy (1991) and

also those from the literature on bureaucrats. We have a large ‘shopping list’ so as to

capture a large range of motivations and so as to avoid leading the respondents to

answering certain kinds of question in a pre-set way.

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Table 1: What kinds of working environment do you like best? Activity Strongly

agree Agree Disagree Strongly

disagree N

Where I can develop new ideas and see them turned into policy

57.4 39.2 3.1 .02 423

Where I mainly write policy position papers

1.0 18.7 64.1 16.3 412

Where I can take decisions properly delegated to me

55.9 43.2 1.0 417

Where I work closely in a small circle of decision makers

27.8 57.1 14.0 1.0 413

Where I work closely with the leader/mayor or portfolio holder

21.2 54.6 23.0 1.2 471

Where I spend much of my time implementing policy on the ground

15.6 51.3 30.3 2.7 409

Where I can concentrate on getting the nuts and bolts right

12.3 41.2 38.1 8.4 415

Where I can have direct dealing with the public

5.4 43.3 45.2 6.1 471

Where I can have regular contact with partners

29.4 57.3 12.4 1.0 412

These descriptive results need to be interpreted carefully: they are not the trade-offs

where the bureaucrats get more of one and less of another. There is no ranking either.

To a certain extent they are all desirable qualities in a bureaucrat – it is possible for a

respondent to tick all of them. What we are interested in the variation in the

responses, especially between strongly agree and just agree, which reveal differences

in attitudes. Here we find that bureaucrats like the classic bureaucratic aspects of

designing policy and taking decisions properly delegated to them – there are very

large majorities supporting these positions. Turning to the Dunleavy bureau-shaping

tasks, we do see some difference in responses. It turns out that the bureaucrats do not

like the task of writing of policy papers – they want to be out and about rather than

cloistered in offices that the Whitehall stereotype suggests. But a large number at 27

per cent strongly agree that they like to work in the policy circles favoured in the

Dunleavy model with 21 per cent strongly liking to work with the politician whether it

is the leader/mayor or a portfolio holder, which again suggests there is a minority of

bureaucrats who have this policy-advice orientation. We see less liking of

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implementation and managerial tasks at 15 per cent or on the ‘nuts and bolts’ at 12 per

cent, and a very low number at 5.4 per cent liking direct contacts with the public,

though more liking contact with partners which may reflect the slightly different

context of local government to the closed policy circles of Whitehall and may reflect

the importance of bilateral relationships across the locality to the well-being of the

local authority. There is thus some truth then in Dunleavy’s basic assertion about the

importance of certain kinds of activities that conform to a desired bureau. There is a

dislike of just writing policy papers as a central civil servant might, but even less

liking of implementation and a preference of working in policy circles close their

political principals.

Rather than just accept these listings as an order of preference, we seek to see if the

bureaucrats select into different types of roles. Instead of summarising the

preferences of all bureaucrats, Dunleavy’s approach may be better suited to thinking

about some of them. A first take at exploring the differentiation of these roles is to

see if the various kinds of factors co-vary together. To do this, we perform principal

components analysis, which produces four factors with eigenvalues greater than one

(1=2.0, 2=1.8, 3=1.1, 4=1.0). The loading on these factors are reproduced in Table 2.

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Table 2 A component matrix of the four factors of liking an environment (Principal components – unrotated)

Component 1 2 3 4 Where I can develop new ideas and see them turned into policy

.701 6.26E-005 -.250 .227

Where I mainly write policy position papers .088 .105 .224 .922

Where I can take decisions properly delegated to me .612 -.050 .175 -.324


.374 -.227 .768 -.077


.627 -.294 .185 -.020


.211 .789 .185 -.034


-.043 .842 .259 -.105

Where I can have direct dealing with the public .416 .523 -.345 -.036

Where I can have regular contact with partners .661 -.086 -.362 .027

Here we find that that factor 1 shows high loading for the classic senior activities of

working on policy, working with the politicians, taking delegated decisions and

working with the partners. This is not quite the bureau-shaping bureaucrats, more the

classic policy-makers, but there is enough cross-over to think it captures the core

policy-makers Dunleavy outlines. Factor 2 shows high loadings for whom might be

thought of as the implementers – the opposite of the bureau-shaper, which seems to

show that these are service-orientated bureaucrats. These are the people who like to

get things achieved rather than deliberate on policy. Factor 3 does seem to be a

bureau shaping term where there is high loading on just one factor ‘working with a

close circle of policy makers’; so too for factor 4 with those who like writing policy

papers. The factor analysis then does show some support for the idea that there are

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different kinds of bureaucrats who like to work on different things with classic policy-

makers/bureau-shapers and implementers as the main divisions that emerge here.

It is useful to see whether this specialisation is linked to the type of job bureaucrats

have. Table 3 presents correlations between the saved factor scores and the types of

officers, which gives an indication of the relationships at work. These are non-

parametric correlations because the officer variables are dichotomous. Here we find a

strong correlation between factor score one and the corporate team and then

negatively with the democratic services and scrutiny officers, which is as we expect

given the policy making role of the corporate team. With factor two we find a

negative correlation with the corporate team and positively with the service heads,

which is just the reverse finding, just as we expect for the different implementer role

implied by the two questions that load on this factor. There is a positive correlation

with democratic and scrutiny officers, which here seem to resemble the task and

delivery orientation of the service heads. Factor scores 3 and 4, which have the core

bureau shaping terms in them, do not load on the corporate team, but negatively on

service heads (but positively for the democratic and scrutiny officers for factor 3).

These principal components factors then seem to relate to real world differences

between the officers. In addition, the bureau shaping terms seem to work as

expected. In answer to the statement, ‘Where I work closely in a small circle of

decision makers’, we find that the corporate team is positive correlated with this at

.121 (p. < .05), but negatively with the democratic and services officers at -.05 (p. <

.05). There is a strong loading on the term, ‘Where I work closely with the

leader/mayor or portfolio holder’, with the corporate team at.24 (p. <. .001) and

negatively with service heads at -.2 (p. <. .001). There are no loadings on the policy-

paper writing variable suggesting low interest in and differentiation amongst officers

with this particular bureau shaping element.

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Table 3: Correlations of orientation of bureaucrats with job function

k-tau_b Factor score 1 Factor score 2 Factor score 3 Factor score 4

Corporate team .104* -.11** .007 -.034 Service head -.047 .105* -.007 -.098* Scrutiny -.17** .090* -.040 .099* * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

These findings show the preferences of bureaucrats are linked to the jobs they have –

which career they have selected into and/or reflect their experience of a particular job

over time. The question to ask is whether these bureaucrats are able to translate these

preferences into a desired working environment. We do this by creating a model to

predict the number of hours they spend each work on certain kinds of activity. We

use regression analysis to control for the idea that their job may predetermine them to

have a certain kind of bureau (as indicated above). What we are interested in is

whether officers are able to create the kind of environment they want over and above

what is created for them. In addition, we control for the number of years they have in

the post, which helps account for variation in personal characteristics leading those

with greater experience to have more opportunity to control their working

environment and to get into positions with their desired work-task balance. Table 4

presents the results using an ordinary least squares estimator because of the interval

character of the dependent variable (hours).

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Table 4: Regression of hours on key work activities by preferences, job role and length in service (ordinary least squares) Portfolioleader/

Mayor

Formal Cabinet meetings

Informal cabinet meetings

Reading Papers

Line management

New ideas turned into policy

.230 (.77)

.240 (.65) .111

(.25) 2.20+ (1.91)

-.523 (.12)

Write policy position papers

-.291 (1.21)

-.100 (.324)

.757* (1.98)

-.168 (.933)

-.739 (.20)

Take decisions properly delegated

-.972** (3.19)

.435 (1.10) .599

(1.27) -1.24 (1.05)

8.36+ (1.80)

Small circle of decision makers

.124 (.53)

-.171 (.52)

-.445 (1.19)

1.85* (2.04)

-10.85** (3.04)

Work with mayor or portfolio holder

.998*** (4.14)

.852** (.319) .758*

(2.01) 1.23 (1.32)

1.71 (.47)

Implementing policy on the ground

-.159 (.69)

-.374 (1.24) .128

(.36) -1.91* (2.12)

1.85** (.53)

Getting the nuts and bolts right

-.447* (2.05)

.321 (1.11)

-.377 (1.10)

1.35 (1.32)

3.87 (1.17)

Direct dealing with the public

.353 (1.52)

.623* (2.12)

.459 (1.29)

-.309 (.35)

3.21 (.92)

Regular contact with partners

.615* (2.51)

-.053 (0.17)

.199 (.53)

.370 (.39)

-.3.92 (1.08)

Corporate Team .937** (2.92)

1.64*** (3.95)

1.79*** (3.79)

.303 (.24)

7.29 (1.49)

Scrutiny Officer .308 (1.48)

.583* (2.22)

.535+ (1.66)

.831 (.805)

1.83 (0.60)

Length of service

.022 (1.57)

.009 (.54)

.012 (.57)

.100+ (1.86)

.392+ (1.86)

Constant 2.48* (2.25)

3.94** (2.76)

6.71*** (1.72)

10.4* (2.40)

32.3 (1.94)

R2 .215 .16 .142 .06 .08 N 336 275 251 336 328

t-values in parentheses * p. < .05, **, p. < .01, *** p < .001, + p. < .1

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The regressions show that not all of the preferences predict the hours for each kind of

task, which is not entirely surprising because of the way in which these tasks are

predetermined rather than preferred. What we are interested in are the occasions

where preferences predict hours independently from job characteristics and

experience in the post. For meeting with the leader/mayor and portfolio holders, we

find that working with the leader and portfolio is important controlling for job type

and length of service. Bureaucrats with more of these kinds of hours do not like to

take delegated decisions; nor do they like getting the nuts and bolts right. The

corporate team here have more hours doing this sort of activity. The second model is

about formal cabinet meetings, which shows the portfolio term to be significant and

also dealing with the public, which may reveal the open character of some cabinet

meetings that attract some officers to attend cabinet. Not surprisingly the corporate

team does more of this activity. The third model for hours spent in informal cabinet

meetings is very important for the bureau shaping hypothesis because this is the kind

of activity that senior bureaucrats are supposed to like. Here we find that those who

like to write policy documents do more of this activity, which indicates some bureau

shaping attitudes. Liking working with their political principals and being in the

corporate team are also significant positive predictors. The fourth model is about

reading papers, which may suit a bureau-shaper who prefers to deal in policy planning

rather than for implementation, which is predicting by preferences for working in a

small circle of decision-makers and negatively by liking of implementing policy on

the ground. The final regression is for the other side of the coin predicting hours that

bureau shaping bureaucrats should not like, in this case on line management activities.

Here we find that those who like to be in a small circle of decision makers do less of

this activity which is consistent with the bureau shaping model, whereas those who

like taking properly delegated decisions do more, which again is consistent with the

bureau shaping model. Thus these five statistical models show support for the idea

that the different dimensions of bureaucratic attitudes explain the varying amounts of

time spend on particular tasks over and above what we expect from their role and

experience. Bureaucrats who value the autonomy of the policy-making core more

than others seem to be able to shape their bureau to achieve their desired goal. Of

course, while the theory behind this model suggests a direction of causation from

attitudes to behaviour, we cannot fully rule out the possibility that the controls do not

pick up all the determinants of the number of hours worked, especially given the low

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r-square statistics, which could mean that it is possible that the numbers of hours

worked could affect the attitudes of the bureaucrats. We think the theory we outline is

more plausible explanation of the data, however.

The final part of the analysis concerns bureaucratic attitudes to reform. This is

important aspect of test of the importance of bureaucratic attitudes because the

reforms allow bureaucrats to reveal their preferences for particular kinds of bureau

where they can alter their work pattern in response to changes in the work conditions.

Not only can bureaucrats adjust their work pattern to reflect their preferences for

certain kinds of work, they may favour an institutional set up that optimises what they

do in terms of their preferences. This thinking is core to Dunleavy’s formulation, and

in particular is the core part of James’s extension of the model.

An act of parliament in 2000 changed the work conditions of the bureaucrats because

it abolished a cumbersome committee structure and streamlined the executive, with

speedier decision-making based on a clear circle of decision-makers around the

cabinet, supervised by a stronger leader. From the perspective of the bureau-shaping

model, reform will be supported if it can deliver increased engagement by senior

managers in policy matters by bringing them closer to the centre of power and taking

away tedious and mundane activities, such as committee work, that might previously

have consumed a lot of time. Managers would be expected to be strongly in favour of

a reform that fosters a closer relationship with a political executive, which is able to

get on with decision-making. Even junior bureaucrats, perhaps those dealing with

committees but now under the new arrangements freed to engage in more interesting

work in supporting overview and scrutiny, would be expected to perceive the reform

as a positive bureau-shaping opportunity.

We asked a question which evaluated whether bureaucrats like the act: ‘Which of the

statements below most closely matches your own view about the working of new

arrangements in your authority?: 1= Introducing the system was a retrograde step; 2=

The new system has some disadvantages; 3= The new system has made little

difference; 4= The new system is to some extent an improvement; and 5= The new

system is a significant improvement. The question to ask is whether their liking of the

act is influenced by preferences for certain kinds of work pattern, which have partly

19

been created by the act. The hypothesis is that the liking of the act would depend on

the extent to which bureaucrats can shape their bureaus in their own interests. To

capture this we set out an ordered a model that predicts satisfaction with the act

depends on a range of characteristics, such as the extent to which it promotes their

career and also the length of the career of the bureaucrats, which may pick up

conservatism toward reform. We also add certain factors that come from what we

know about the change in the design of the bureaus that working with a directly

elected mayor heightens the possibility of working in a circular of policy-makers

close to the mayor. The mayoral option was the most radical version of the new

model of decision-making, so we expect approval to be predicted by working in a

mayoral authority. Working in a coalition authority lessens this potential to create this

desired policy environment because there are more principals to please, more conflict

and the greater likelihood that the cosier policy making circle favoured by bureau

shapers will be in place. We then add the two key attitudinal variables to see whether

those who have bureau shaping preferences like the act. We use ordered probit

because the coding of response variable is ordered rather than measuring discrete

units of performance. The results are presented in Table 5. They show that the

expected variables predict attitudes to reform. Those in mayoral authorities like the

act much better, which reflects the stimulating character of political leadership in

mayoral authorities. Bureaucrats like the act much less in coalition authorities which

reflects the difficulty of working with more than one principal and the loss of

direction and weakening performance that coalition government brings. The personal

and career motivations appeal to the self-interest of the bureaucrats, so it is not

surprising that there is an effect with this variable. In terms of the attitudes to work,

we find that wanting to work with the leader and portfolio holder positive predicts

liking of the act, which is an important element of the bureau shaping argument. But

liking for working in a policy circle does not predict attitudes. So there is some

support for a bureau-shaping hypothesis through the role of leadership and the

structure of political authority.

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Table 5: ordered probit of satisfaction with administrative reform

Coefficient and standard error

Years of service

-.014* (.006)

Mayoral authority .492* (.209)

Coalition authority -.426** (.142)

Reform good for career

.947*** (.154)

Work with mayor or portfolio holder

.171+ (.093)

Small circle of decision makers

.121 (.097)

Cut 1 1.76 (.381)

Cut 2 3.29 (.402)

Cut 3 3.60 (.405)

Cut 4 4.63 (.427)

Log-likelihood -415.8534

* p. < .05, **, p. < .01, *** p < .001, + p. < .1

Conclusions

The paper starts from the claim that there has not been enough attention to the

differences in bureaucratic preferences for job tasks. The literatures on bureaucratic

motivation and in preferences for institutional reform have been hung up on a

distinction between self-interested bureaucrats and those with more of a public service

motivation. But at the heart of a bureaucratic job is the variation between the

different tasks it involves. These job tasks are important for bureaucrats because they

define their activities and make a difference to how they evaluate their jobs. While

they wish to do their jobs well and to balance out properly the kinds of activities, we

21

argue that will seek to maximise their time on the things they like doing and to

minimise the time on the things they do not like. In other words, there is a link

between attitudes and action, reflecting the degree to which bureaucrats are free to

shape their bureaus to gain a desired balance of work tasks. Above all these actions

become important when political principals seek to reform their bureaus, which allow

bureaucrats to make further decisions to follow activities they prefer. Such actions

will have large consequences for how the bureaus work, and whether reformers get

the policy-making machine they desire or whether bureaucracies work in the ways of

before.

One of the few academic pieces of work to take job task preferences seriously is

Dunleavy’s, Bureaucracy, Democracy and the State (1991). Dunleavy’s argument is

that bureaucrats will try to shirk management work and crave for more a more

congenial environment close to policy makers, based on their expectations of a policy

advice role rather than as the manager of a large organisation. Even though bureau

shaping is a plausible explanation for the support for the hiving off of agencies in the

UK central state in the 1980s and 1990s, the line of argument had foundered from a

lack of direct evidence and from the way bureaucrats flourish in many kinds of roles

after the state has been reformed. Rather than either support or dump the model we

put forward an alternative plausible argument that bureaucrats vary in their task

preferences where some may be bureau-shapers, others may be managers. This

argument goes back to line of thinking about bureaucratic motivation that emerges in

the seminal work of Downs (1967), who argues that bureaucrats vary to the extent

they like certain kinds of work, which will impact on the ways they organise their

bureaus and the extent to which they wish to alter their work balance. It will in turn

affect how they respond to their bureaus.

We have uncovered evidence for a variation in bureaucrats’ preferences, especially

between the classic policy-makers and the implementers, which is analogous to the

insights of the bureau shaping model. It is no surprise that we find that those in the

policy-making core hold these preferences; so too the service heads who implement

these policies all like to carry them out. What we show, when controlling for length

in post and for these job types, is that bureaucrats appear to be able to translate these

preferences into the number of hours they spend on different tasks. To do that they

22

must be able control the organisation of their work places. If we accept the causal

model of this data, this finding is the first example of evidence that shows that bureau

shaping does in fact occur. The other conclusion is that when political principals re-

design the executive, bureaucrats support the reform to the extent to which they want

to work with those political principals.

Although our findings are an important advance on the literature, we should note that

not all the bureau shaping preferences are powerful ones in our statistical models.

Although we found that wanting to work in a circle of decision-makers and liking

working with policy papers predicted hours on various sorts of activities, these

preferences did not affect attitudes to reform. The most important variable is the

liking to work with the political principals. We also do not show that bureaucrats are

able to redesign their bureau after a reform, which is a central claim of the bureau

shaping model We would need time series data for that. However, our data are

persuasive evidence that a more Downsian understanding of bureaucratic motivation

helps us understand the differential preferences of bureaucrats and indicate how these

shape the structure of local public agencies. For political principals undertaking

administrative reform an awareness of variation will be key in designing both the

incentives and discretion afforded to bureaucratic agents.

23

References Aberbach, J, Putnam, R and Rockman, B, 1981. Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press. Aulich, C. 1999. “Bureaucratic limits to markets: The case of local government in Victoria, Australia”. Public Money and Management 19 (4): 37-43. Bender J. and Moe, T. ‘An adaptive model of bureaucratic politics’, American Political Science Review’, 79 (3), Brehm, J and Gates, S. (1997), Working Shirking and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Responses to a Democratic Public Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Buelens, M. and Broeck, H. (2007), ‘An analysis of differences in work motivation between public and private sector organizations’, Public Administration Review, 67, 65–74 Brewer, G, Selden, S and Facer II, R. (2000), ‘Individual Conceptions of Public Service Motivation’, Public Administration Review, 60 (3), 254 – 264. Dixit, A. (2002), ‘Incentives and organizations in the public sector: an interpretative review’, Journal of Human Resources, 37(4), 696-727. Dolan, J, 2002 ‘The Budget Minimising Bureaucrat? Empirical Evidence from the Senior Executive Service, PAR, 62 1 Downs, A. 1967, Inside bureaucracy Boston: Little Brown. Dunleavy, P. 1991 Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf Egeberg, M. 1995 ‚Bureaucrats as Public Policy Makers and their Self Interests’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 7 (2), 157 - 167 Goldsmith, M. & Wolman, H. 1992. Urban politics and policy: A comparative approach. Oxford: Blackwell Goodin, R (ed) 1996 The Theory of Institutional Design, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Huber, J. & Shipan, C. 2002. Deliberate discretion? The institutional foundations of bureaucratic autonomy. Cambridge: CUP James, O 2003. The Executive Agency Revolution in Whitehall Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillian Kettl, Donald, 2005. The Global Public Management Revolution, Washington DC, Brookings Institute Laffin, M, & Entwhisle, T. 2000. “New problems and old professions? The changing national world of UK local government professions”. Policy and Politics 28(2): 207-220 Marsh, D. , Smith, M. J. and Richards, D. (2000). ‘Bureaucrats and Reform in Whitehall: Analysing the Bureau Shaping Model’. British Journal of Political Science. McCubbins, M. and Schwartz, T. (1984), 'Congressional oversight overlooked: police patrols versus fire alarms', American Journal of Political Science, 28: 165-79. Meier, K. and L. O’Toole (2006), Bureaucracy in a Democratic State Baltimore: John Hopkins Press. Moe, T. 1989. “The politics of bureaucratic structure”, in J. Chubb & P. Peterson eds.. Can the Government Govern? Washington DC: Brookings Institution. Niskanen, W. (1971), Bureaucracy and Representative Government Chicago: Aldine. Perry, J and Wise, L (1990) ‘The motivational bases of public service’, Public Administration Review, 50, 3, 367 – 373 Peters, Guy, B. 1995. The Politics of Bureaucracy, London, Longmans

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Pollitt, C and Bouckaert, G. 2000. Public Management Reform, Oxford , Oxford University Press Stoker, G. 2004. Transforming local governance Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tullock, G. 1987. Bureaucracy, Lanham, University Press of America. Weingast, Barry. 1984. “The Congressional-bureaucratic System: a Principal-agent Perspective (with applications to the SEC).” Public Choice 44: 147-191.

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Appendix: descriptive statistics of the main variables2 N Minimu

m Maximum

Mean Std. Deviation

How do you think the new reforms are affecting your career prospects as an officer?

397 1 3 1.88 .429

Where I can develop new ideas and see them turned into policy

423 1 4 1.46 .570

Where I mainly write policy position papers

412 1 4 2.96 .622

Where I can take decisions properly delegated to me

417 1 3 1.45 .517


413 1 4 1.88 .667


405 1 4 2.04 .701


409 1 4 2.20 .727


415 1 4 2.43 .813

Where I can have direct dealing with the public

409 1 4 2.52 .693

Where I can have regular contact with partners

412 1 4 1.85 .659

2. These are the raw descriptives from the original data. In the original survey, some of the variables are coded with low values for positive attributions and high values for negative (career motivation, liking of the new arrangements, and job preferences). For ease of interpretation, we have changed the signs in the regressions for these variables to ensure that they are intuitive for the reader.

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Your own view about the working of new arrangements in your authority?

428 1 5 2.41 1.132

Corporate Team 471 .00 1.00 .2633 .44088 Service head 471 .00 2.00 .8747 .99318 Scrutiny and Democratic Services Officers

471 .00 3.00 .1592 .67329

Hours a week spent meeting with the Mayor/Leader and other portfolio holders?

411 0 31 2.34 2.831

Formal cabinet meetings

334 .00 26.00 2.5192 3.02507

Informal cabinet meetings

299 .00 20.00 2.4007 3.42022

Preparing for cabinet meetings

348 .00 74.00 3.4443 6.05935

Liasing with overview and scrutiny committee

337 .00 56.00 2.9470 5.84460

Liaising with partners

341 .00 112.00 13.8402 17.15741

Writing reports 397 .00 70.00 7.9705 8.55204 Reading reports 411 .00 100.00 10.5547 10.69186 Meeting with non executive members

332 .00 20.00 3.3233 3.83211

Briefing meetings 367 .00 70.00 6.4805 8.30533 Line management function

401 .00 560.00 32.1322 36.98101

Overseeing and ensuring delivery

376 .00 610.00 34.1130 41.58325

Direct dealings with the public

339 .00 70.00 6.0325 7.53485

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