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Private Law Controls on the Delegate

Catherine M Donnelly

in Delegation of Governmental Power to Private Parties: A Comparative Perspective

Human rights obligations and administrative law obligations are, in practice, rarely extended to private delegates. This chapter assesses the extent to which private law can provide an appropriate ... More

Human rights obligations and administrative law obligations are, in practice, rarely extended to private delegates. This chapter assesses the extent to which private law can provide an appropriate substitute for these obligations, focusing on contract and tort. Given that contract is one of the primary mechanisms through which private delegation is achieved, commentators, and particularly those writing from an economic perspective, have often embraced contract law as ‘a critical source of accountability’, while tort law requires consideration as it is an area of private law that is frequently modified to accommodate governmental concerns. It is argued here, however, that tort law and contract law do not provide sufficiently extensive mechanisms of holding private delegates accountable, particularly, for example, given the difficulties of recognising third party beneficiaries to contracts. Proposals for improving the drafting of government contracts are presented.Less

Partner and Contractor to Government

Robert J. Bennett

in Local Business Voice: The History of Chambers of Commerce in Britain, Ireland, and Revolutionary America, 1760-2011

Modern chambers rely to a major extent on government finance through contracts. Early relationships developed through municipal improvement and local partnerships. This expanded to cover various ... More

Modern chambers rely to a major extent on government finance through contracts. Early relationships developed through municipal improvement and local partnerships. This expanded to cover various consultations processes on local and national committees; then provision of apprenticeships. Since the 1990s there has also been chamber leadership of local economic initiatives. Links became so close that after 1996 some chambers merged with government financed Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). After these were abolished, chambers have worked with regional agencies, and after the 2010 election with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). In Ireland there has been important partnering of chambers with EU initiatives. The modern chamber of the last 20-30 years is different from any stage in the past. This creates major challenges for the future.Less

Government by Contract

Hugh Collins

in Regulating Contracts

This chapter considers the regulation of contracts used by governments for the delivery of public services. Although these contracts provoke many of the distributive issues already considered, such ... More

This chapter considers the regulation of contracts used by governments for the delivery of public services. Although these contracts provoke many of the distributive issues already considered, such as relations of domination, unfairness, and poor quality, they also present particular difficulties for adequate self-regulation by parties. The chapter addresses the question of what kind of legal regulation can best assist governments in the use of markets to deliver services to the public.Less

Conclusions and Future Prospects

A C L Davies

in The Public Law of Government Contracts

This concluding chapter summarises the book's main arguments. While there is no need for an entirely separate public law of government contracts, some public law regulation is desirable to deal with ... More

This concluding chapter summarises the book's main arguments. While there is no need for an entirely separate public law of government contracts, some public law regulation is desirable to deal with specifically governmental issues not addressed by the ordinary law of contract. The chapter considers the prospects for reform, and sets out an agenda for teaching and research within public law on the topic of government contracts.Less

Discourse Ambiguity in a Contract Fraud Case: US v. David Smith

Roger W. Shuy

in Creating Language Crimes: How Law Enforcement Uses (and Misuses) Language

Government contracts can be very complex, as illustrated by this 1997 case involving a Texas-based manufacturer of helicopters. It was made even more complicated by the fact that the company was a ... More

Government contracts can be very complex, as illustrated by this 1997 case involving a Texas-based manufacturer of helicopters. It was made even more complicated by the fact that the company was a subsidiary of a French corporation that could legitimately make sales to other countries without the Texas company’s involvement or knowledge. The contract in question was eligible for the US Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF), created to promote the interests of domestic American businesses by providing funds to eligible allies to support their costs. Smith, president of the US company, was the target of a federal investigation concerning his knowledge of possible misuse of FMF funding. Over a two-year period, one of Smith’s employees secretly tape-recorded conversations with Smith that the government believed showed his complicity in contract fraud. Linguistic analysis of the ambiguity of the words and expressions used in these conversations, among other things, showed that Smith was not guilty.Less

Government by Internal Contract

A. C. L. Davies

in Accountability: A Public Law Analysis of Government by Contract

This chapter introduces internal government contracts and cites some of the main examples of this phenomenon: in central government, framework agreements between government departments and their ... More

This chapter introduces internal government contracts and cites some of the main examples of this phenomenon: in central government, framework agreements between government departments and their agencies, and Public Service Agreements (PSAs) between the Treasury and government departments. It introduces the book's case study: contracts between purchasers and providers in the NHS. It discusses two themes of importance in this study. First, it examines the similarities and differences between different types of internal contract. This information aids in the determining of whether or not internal contracts are a coherent category for the purpose of study and reform. Secondly, it explores the legal status of each of the internal contracts described in the chapter. The chapter concludes that the most prominent aspect of the common internal features is the fact that they are highly unlikely to be enforceable by law.Less

A Social Accounting Matrix Model of Inner-City New Haven: An Alternative Framework for Development

C. Michael Henry (ed.)

in Race, Poverty, and Domestic Policy

This chapter introduces a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) model to demonstrate how positive policy interventions alleviate inner-city poverty and racial economic inequality. Data for inner-city New ... More

This chapter introduces a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) model to demonstrate how positive policy interventions alleviate inner-city poverty and racial economic inequality. Data for inner-city New Haven are applied to the SAM model to determine the economic impact of skill endowment of inner-city labor coupled with annual procurement of government contracts.Less

Forces of Local Association

Robert J. Bennett

in Local Business Voice: The History of Chambers of Commerce in Britain, Ireland, and Revolutionary America, 1760-2011

This chapter reviews the main academic and practitioner discussions of what gives chambers their USP. It explores how unity of voice is developed through deliberation. It shows that earlier academic ... More

This chapter reviews the main academic and practitioner discussions of what gives chambers their USP. It explores how unity of voice is developed through deliberation. It shows that earlier academic views of instability of early chambers are overstated. The forces underpinning collective action and free-rider behaviour are examined to demonstrate how chamber service bundles develop: as trust goods based on transaction costs and networking advantages. Institutional benefits and social capital assist chamber development. Additions to service bundles from government contracts are shown to have tensions of ‘non-preferred’ goods. Political non-alignment, and social networks are critical aspects of the historical and modern chamber brand. However, at critical points chambers have been ‘elite’ social movements that have participated in changing frames and policy repertoires; especially during times of extreme contention.Less

Administrative Law as Regulation

Peter Cane

in Regulating Law

The first section of the chapter aims to identify differences between a ‘legal’ and a ‘regulatory’ approach to administrative law. The second section defines administrative law, and, in the process, ... More

The first section of the chapter aims to identify differences between a ‘legal’ and a ‘regulatory’ approach to administrative law. The second section defines administrative law, and, in the process, discusses Hugh Collins's analysis of the respective roles of public law and contract law in regulating government contracts. A major task in this section is to establish the importance of distinguishing between goals and tools of regulation. The third section discusses the goals of administrative law. The fourth section takes a closer look at administrative law viewed as a regulatory tool. This chapter also discusses empirical research about the regulatory impact of judicial review on bureaucratic behaviour.Less

Constraint and Opportunity: Government Contracting

in Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool: Mercantile Business and the Making of a World Port

This chapter addresses the tensions inherent in the link between national government and traders. It also evaluates the drive behind this effort to establish Liverpool as a serious alternative to ... More

This chapter addresses the tensions inherent in the link between national government and traders. It also evaluates the drive behind this effort to establish Liverpool as a serious alternative to London as a provider of government contract services, concentrating specifically on wartime requisitions, passenger trades, and mail. In mid-century, the diversity of shipping utilised by Liverpool traders ensured that they could take advantage of opportunities across the range of vessel types and sizes required by government. Liverpool was directed as a centre for Atlantic emigration, which was growing as a business that needed full-time commitment and extensive networks of connections. Furthermore, while government contracts might have been easy money once ensured, developing them in the first place required the decision of leading shipowners to challenge impinged interests and break into hitherto restricted sources of income and prestige.Less

Voluntary and community sector organisations as enterprising care providers: keeping organisational values distinctive

Irene Hardill and Susan Baines

in Enterprising care?: Unpaid voluntary action in the 21st century

This chapter focuses on VCSOs, which it is claimed are tending to become more like state agencies as a result of taking on the delivery of service under government contracts. It explains that VCSOs ... More

This chapter focuses on VCSOs, which it is claimed are tending to become more like state agencies as a result of taking on the delivery of service under government contracts. It explains that VCSOs resemble private sector enterprises in response to an increasingly competitive environment for resources. It notes that the notion of social enterprise ‘draws on the exceptional effort of individuals and organisations working in the most testing circumstances to meet social needs and empower communities’. It clarifies that ‘social enterprise’ is a term that can be applied to charities and voluntary groups that adopt income-generating strategies, including public sector contracts, although such organisations often do not recognise themselves as being enterprises or entrepreneurial.Less

Standard Forms of Contract and Bespoke Contracts

John Denis-Smith

in Wilmot-Smith on Construction Contracts

This chapter focuses on the United Kingdom’s (UK) most substantial building contracts that were let under standard forms of contract, such as the RIBA JCT forms, the standard forms issued by the ... More

This chapter focuses on the United Kingdom’s (UK) most substantial building contracts that were let under standard forms of contract, such as the RIBA JCT forms, the standard forms issued by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the government contract (GC/Works/1). It explains how the forms adopted a similar format for the execution and management of the works wherein the employer’s agent was responsible for the design and the administration of the contract terms. It also describes the certification of interim payments to the contractor as the works progressed, certifying extensions of time, completion, and the date the works ought to have been completed.Less

Mail Routes and the Costs of Expansion, 1866–83

Cameron Blevins

in Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West

Chapter 4 examines the transportation of mail in the western United States. During the 1860s and 1870s the Post Office Department contracted with private stagecoach companies to carry the mail on its ... More

Chapter 4 examines the transportation of mail in the western United States. During the 1860s and 1870s the Post Office Department contracted with private stagecoach companies to carry the mail on its behalf, allowing it to extend mail routes across the region without establishing its own costly public infrastructure. Government mail contracts effectively subsidized the western stagecoach industry and facilitated the region’s breakneck growth during these decades. But staging companies began to lobby, collude, and bribe their way into exorbitant contracts worth millions of dollars, and by the end of the 1870s the situation had devolved into a full-fledged institutional crisis. This chapter is a story about mismanagement, fraud, and corruption, but it also speaks to the federal government’s lack of centralized administrative capacity. The decentralized agency model may have allowed the US Post to rapidly spread across the West, but this frenetic regional expansion project came with considerable costs.Less

The war economy, 1941–45

Philip Ollerenshaw

in Northern Ireland in the Second World War: Politics, economic mobilisation and society, 1939–45

In this chapter, the experience of agriculture and key industries including textiles and clothing, shipbuilding and aircraft manufacture are considered, as are labour and industrial relations and how ... More

In this chapter, the experience of agriculture and key industries including textiles and clothing, shipbuilding and aircraft manufacture are considered, as are labour and industrial relations and how the government began to plan for the post-war world. Feeding the nation was a key priority for the government in London, and agriculture in Northern Ireland not only expanded during war, it also underwent considerable mechanisation. However, the experience of the rural economy, along with the 1941 blitz on Belfast, helped to focus on issues such as rural and urban housing and the provision of social services which would have considerable political consequences in the later stages of the war and in the years afterwards.Less