Life After DPIR - Professor Howard Elcock

Alumni 1966, The Queen's College

Summary

Howard Elcock was born on 6th June 1942. He is Professor (emeritus) of Government at Northumbria University. He was educated at the Priory School for Boys, Shrewsbury and The Queen’s College Oxford, gaining a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1964 and a B Phil (now M Phil) in Politics in  1966. He took hs MA in 1968. He lectured in Politics at the University of Hull between 1966 and 1981, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1977.

He served as a member of Humberside County Council between 1973 and 1981 , becoming Planning Committee Chairman in 1975 until 1977.He moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in April 1981 to become Head of the School of Government at the then Newcastle Polytechnic, later to become Northumbria University, in 1981. He was a Visiting Scholar at Fredonia State College, New York between September 1993 and July 1994 and again between September 1997 and May 1998. He retired from full time work in April 1997 but remains an active researcher and writer.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including a study of administrative tribunals and public inquiries, which was reported in Administrative Justice, (Longman, 1969), followed by a study of the Paris Peace Conference:Portrait of a decision: the Council of Four and the Treaty of Versailles (Routledge, 1972). More recent books include Local Government (3 editions, Routledge, 1982, 1986 and 1994), Change and Decay? Public Administration in the 1990s (Longman, 1991) and Political Leadership (Edward Elgar, 2001). His recent research on the new political management arrangements in local government and especially erected mayors, carried out in collaboration with colleagues at Northumbria University and elsewhere, has been published in numerous articles in Public Administration, Public Policy & Administration, Public Money & Management, International Journal of Public Management and the International Review of Administrative Affairs. Another recent research study, conducted with Professor John Fenwick of Newcastle Business School, was a review of the reorganisation of some English local authorities into unitary authorities between 2007 and 2009, which was published in Public Money & Management in December 2010.

Howard served as Chairman of the Public Administration Committee between 1987 and 1990 and then as Chairman of the Joiont University Council between 1990 and 1994. He served on the Executive Committee of the Political Studies Association between 1988 and 1993He was elected an Academician of the Social Sciences in 2002.

He served as Chairman of the Campaign to Protect Rural England's North-East Regional Group between 2006 and 2011 and is currently its Vice-Chairman. His main leisure interests are sailing (he has served as Commodore of two sailing clubs) and classical music. He has been a member of the Labour Party since 1965.