Smoke and mirrors and performance management : Democracy, accountability and community engagement, as a hidden agenda emerges?

Purpose – This paper aims to initiate debate about the tension between ideologies being played out in local government, as illustrated by the case of the empowerment agenda. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers a range of evidence from: academic research; government documents; personal perspectives from the author's experience as an elected member in local government; and semi‐structured interviews with a number of senior managers in local authorities in England. Findings – The paper suggests that the development of performance management frameworks for community engagement has been a means to shift the agenda away from democratic representation to a governance agenda around empowerment. This now includes giving a role to the voluntary sector both as the voice of the people and as providers of public services. It is argued that this illustrates a tension between ideologies at work behind the facade of performance management in local government. Research limitations/implications – The paper can only sample both the extensive range of government output on the community agenda and the academic work in this area over the last few years. Nor is it examining a finished product, as the government is setting up more agencies to develop the work further. The implications of this paper are that there is a need for future academic work to relate accountability and democracy locally to new public management and its connection to the global ideology of neoliberalism. Originality/value – Paralleling recent work in critical management studies, the paper links the consideration of local/national issues of democratic representation, community engagement and the role of the voluntary sector to the impact of the global ideological framework of neoliberalism.