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AbstractLegislatures face difficult challenges holding modern bureaucratic democracies to account due to the scale, complexity, and diverse impacts on citizens' lives. One way that democracies bridge the gap between the legislature and executive is through financial accounts of government departments. This paper examines whether financial accounts are trusted by MPs in the UK Parliament for purposes of transparency in the service of accountability. The article does this through examination of two linked inquiries by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee at the UK House of Commons. The article argues that transparency, accountability, and trust are involved in a rhizomatic relationship where each is related to the other without a hierarchy between them. The article uses a framework proposed by Oomsels and Bouckeart to show the accounts are not trusted, which has implications both for the accounts as a tool of accountability and for creating transparency.

Purpose: The financial resilience of local authorities has been a serious concern over the past decade due to austerity and its effects on local government budgets despite rising service demands. More recently, the scale and suddenness of the shock from COVID-19 has exacerbated problems of financial resilience. This paper explores the financial management responses required by a sudden, nationwide pandemic of such severity. Design/methodology/approach: This paper applies the concept of financial resilience to English local government to analyse their situation in the aftermath of COVID-19. It is based on a close reading of official reports and the news media. Findings: Local authority's financial resilience could deal with normal levels of risk arising from austerity. However, the seriousness of COVID-19 alongside pressures still emanating from Brexit requires a significant level of central government support. This is critical as local government is expected to underpin future economic growth of the UK as well as deliver an important social response. Presently, the financial framework for funding individual local authorities through central government in terms of COVID-19 support is not on a reliable footing to answer specific demands. This can lead to gaming and perverse incentives. Originality/value: This is the first paper to connect the financial resilience in the local government framework with the required central government funding procedures for sudden nationwide crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies the need to define what effect key variables, such as local government financial reserves, local deprivation indices and anticipatory financial management practices in local government should have on the determination of central government aid for individual local authorities.

This article introduces and applies a three-stage process to show how advocates of the conflicting institutional logics of budgetary stewardship and performance improvement in English and Welsh local authorities created a hybrid logic. Drawing on interviews with officers in 25 councils, it demonstrates how cooperative working environments meant that hybridization proceeded largely 'peacefully', in contrast to previous studies of more competitive contexts that found it occurs on a 'battlefield'. We argue that the nature of conflict within the hybridization process, along with the power dynamics between representatives of different logics, shapes the nature and sustainability of the resulting hybrid.