Institutional Reform for Political
Control: Analysing the British Labour
Government’s Approach to the
Pathologies of Governance
A Scancor Workshop in Collaboration With SOG
April 1 - 2, 2005
Stanford University
Call For Papers
Autonomization Of The State: From Integrated Administrative
Models To Single Purpose Organizations
Authors:
Dr. David Richards
Reader
The Department of Politics,
The University of Sheffield,
Elmfield, Northumberland Road,
Sheffield,
S10 2TU,
United Kingdom
E-mail: D.Richards@Sheffield.ac.uk
Direct Line: 0114 222 1666
Fax: 0114 273 9769
Professor Martin J. Smith
The Department of Politics,
The University of Sheffield,
Elmfield,
Northumberland Road,
Sheffield,
S10 2TU,
United Kingdom
E-mail:M.J.Smith@Sheffield.ac.uk
Direct Line: 0114 222 1667
Fax: 0114 273 9769
This paper is part of the ESRC ‘Public Services Programme’. Our project is entitled
Analysing Delivery Chains In The Home Office (Ref: RES-153-25-00 37.)
1
The principal challenge is to shift focus from policy advice to delivery.
Delivery means outcomes. It means project management. It means
adapting to new situations and altering rules and practice accordingly. It
means working not in traditional departmental silos. It means working
naturally with partners outside of Government. It's not that many
individual civil servants aren't capable of this. It is that doing it requires a
change of operation and of culture that goes to the core of the Civil
Service.
(Tony Blair, speech on 24th February 2004)
All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
(George Bernard Shaw The Doctor’s Dilemma 1911)
Introduction
Hill (2003: 267) argues that much of the public policy literature assumes that
‘policy meanings are shared, a priori, among policy implementors and their managers.
But evidence suggests that policy can often carry vague, unresolved or conflicting
meanings…’. The suggestion here is that implementors - street-level bureaucrats often make judgements about the meanings of policy (see Lipsky 1971)1. In this
paper, we wish to develop this theme by considering the changing environment in
which policy makers and implementors in Britain interpret policy messages, the
degree of variable autonomy different actors within the policy-chain command and
the effect this then has on policy implementation.
1
Lipsky (1971) defines street-level bureaucrats as front-line staff in policy delivery agencies.
2
First, we examine two contrasting narratives of governance – the state-centric
and modern governance approaches - and their somewhat contrasting caricatures of
the extent to which the policy process has changed in recent decades. We then turn to
the perennial public policy issue of how best to ensure effective policy delivery. We
argue that the traditional response of British governments to addressing such issues
has been to draw from within the Westminster model by imposing a top-down
strategy based on increasing the power of the centre in order to assert greater control
throughout the policy chain. We then turn to the way in which the present Labour
Government, elected in 1997, responded to what it understood to be the impact of
governance on policy-making. Here, we suggest Labour recognised the importance of
issues of fragmentation and a loss in central controlling capacity. This was reflected
in its subsequent reform programme aimed at improving policy delivery. We argue
that since 1997, Labour’s broad approach to reform has been based on a dual-level
strategy:
1] it has attempted to sustain and even increase its control over the policy process by
concentrating on increasing the size and strength of the ‘centre’, pursuing a
programme of joined-up government and imposing rigorous targets on service
delivery agents [a state centric approach].
2] it has argued that the most effective way of delivering public policy is to increase
the autonomy of the multiple service deliverers responsible for policy implementation
[a modern governance approach].
What then follows is an analysis of Labour’s reform programme, focusing on some of
the potential tensions this two-pronged strategy has created.
In particular, we
consider what we regard as a key contradiction - increasing central control, while at
the same time affording greater autonomy to service providers at the street-level.
3
Governance and the Policy-Making Arena
At the core of much of the literature on governance are questions concerning the
way in which state change has transformed the policy-making arena. Here, the focus
is on the extent to which the capacity of the core executive to control policy has been
eroded. Broadly, the literature can be characterised as embracing two contrasting
narratives – the ‘hollowed-out state’ and the ‘reconstituted-state’. The first set of
literature avers that the nature of state transformation is best understood as a a
transition from a Weberian, hierarchical model to a complex mix of markets,
networks, and hierarchies (see Rhodes 1996, 1997, Pierre, J. 2000, Pierre, J. and
Peters, B.G. 2000, Jessop 2004). Central to this argument is that the core executive
has seen its power eroded through a process of hollowing-out, so undermining its
capacity to impose control on policy. Alternatively, ‘the reconstituted-state’ literature,
while recognising that such forces as globalisation, marketisation and new public
management have transformed the nature of the state, suggests that the structural
position of the core executive, relative to other actors in the policy process, ensures it
is best placed to respond these forces. It recognises that state transformation has not
merely been a constraint on the core executive, but has also presented opportunities.
Here, the relationship between state change and the response of the core executive is
understood as contingent and interactive. The core executive possesses both the
resources and strategic-learning capabilites to reshape its existing capacities and
develop new forms of intervention, in order to sustain its position as the dominant
actor in the policy-making arena (see Saward 1997, Holliday , Richards and Smith
2002, Marsh, Richards and Smith 2003).
4
Elsewhere, Peters (2000) characterization of the literature on governance
embraces a similar, but different perspective. He likewise suggests that there are two
different approaches towards governance: the first, he labels ‘old’ or ‘traditional
governance’ which refers to a state-centric approach concerned with ‘identifying the
capacity of the centre of government to exert control over the rest of government and
over the economy and society’; the second approach is ‘new’ or ‘modern governance’
which questions: ‘how the centre of government interacts with society to reach
mutually acceptable decisions, or whether society actually does more self-steering
rather than depending upon guidance from government, especially government’
(Peters, 2000:36). First, it must be pointed out, that both approaches characterising
the governance literature are not mutually exclusive.
The ‘hollowed-out state’
literature is broadly aligned to the ‘modern governance’ approach, whilst the
‘reconstituted-state’ literature draws from the same tradition as the ‘state-centric’
approach (see Table 1).
Table 1: Competing Narratives of Governance
Literature
Governance Narrative
Governance Narrative
One
Two
‘Hollowed-out State’
‘Re-constituted State’
[Rhodes, 1996, 1997]
[Marsh, Richards, Smith
2001,2003]
Forces of Governance
‘Modern Governance’
Approach
[see Peters 2000]
‘State-Centric’
Approach
[see Peters 2000]
Globalisation,
Internationalisation, NPM,
Neo-liberal reforms,
Devolution etc.
Globalisation,
Internationalisation, NPM,
Neo-liberal reforms,
Devolution etc.
5
Nature of Policy-Making
Multiple Actors across a
Multiple Actors across a
Arena
variety of terrains
variety of terrains
Nature of Policy-
Multiple service delivery
Multiple service delivery
Organising Perspective
Differentiated Polity
Asymmetric Polity
of the Political System
[Rhodes 1997]
Impact of change on
Core Executive
Core Executive power
eroded by state
transformation
Impact on State Power
Diffuse - pluralistic
[Marsh, Richards and
Smith 2003]
Core Executive power
sustained by strategic
response to state
transformation
Concentrated - elitist
Implementation
Below, we wish to draw on these contrasting narratives of governance to
highlight the dual-level strategy the present Labour Government has adopted in its
reforms of the policy-making process.
But, in order to do this, we must first
understand the effect the Westminster model has had on shaping core executive
responses to issues in the policy process.
Issues in Public Policy: the Shadow of the Westminster Model and State-Centric
Solutions
Le Grand’s (2003: 2) recent analysis of public policy making is predominantly
couched at a micro-level, in which he attempts to interpret the motivations and actions
of individual agents within particular policy areas. He asserts that:
Policy-makers fashion their polices on the assumption that both those who
implement the polices and those who are expected to benefit from them will
behave in certain ways, and that they will do so because they have certain
kinds of motivation and certain levels of agency.
Sometimes, the
6
assumptions concerning motivation and agency are explicit, more often they
are implicit, reflecting the unconscious values or unarticulated beliefs of the
policy-makers concerned.
At one level, Le Grand’s analysis is simple, but intellectually compelling.
He
suggests that depending on the political make-up of the policy-maker, s/he will hold
different views on human nature, which lead to different assumptions about the
motivations underpinning the actions of agents further down the policy chain. Le
Grand (2003: 2) presents a generalised model in which policy-makers can assume
agents are either self-interested actors [a complete knave], or altruistic/public-spirited
agents [a pure knight].
Depending on which notion of agency policy-makers
subscribe to, in turn conditions the type of policy instrument they then choose to
utilise. While Le Grand’s account is useful in identifying the contrasting perceptions
held by different types of policy-makers, it is also important to recognise the broader
structured environment in which policy-makers operate. In the British context, we
would argue that the ‘unconscious values or unarticulated beliefs’ policy-makers hold
are themselves in part shaped by the Westminster model. It is important not to
underestimate the impact this model has had in conditioning the actions of the core
executive when responding to implementation problems in the policy process. Here,
we must recognise the macro-context in which public policy in Britain is conducted
by first focusing on the nature of the British political system.
Prior to the perceived fragmentation of the British state in the last thirty years,
the British political system was most often portrayed as a unitary administration,
based on a hierarchical form of government.
This view was captured in a key
normative, though rarely stated, element of the Westminster Model: that the real locus
of political power and authority in Britain was the core executive territory (see Marsh,
7
Richards and Smith 2003). As Judge (1993) rightly observes, the nature of the British
parliamentary state in practice confers a high concentration of power on the core
executive. Until recently, few commentators have dissented from the view that the
nature of Britain’s political system was designed to accrue a high degree of power at
the heart of government. For example, one only has to recall the arguments made by
the former Conservative Minister, Lord Hailsham in 1976, when delivering the BBC
Dimbleby Lecture in which he lamented that Britain in effect had a five-year ‘elective
dictatorship’.
While, more recently, Peters (2000: 42) observes from a more
comparative perspective that:
By appearing to argue that the state, or the centre of government, is largely
incapable of ruling, it appears to refuse to consider that indeed there are
cases in which the centre may be effective. That variance may be by
country, with the state in some countries – Singapore, Iraq [sic], but also
the United Kingdom – having a great deal of capacity to achieve
compliance from society.
Yet, at this point, if we turn to an alternative set of literature, a disjuncture starts to
emerge. On the one hand there appears to be an almost uniform view that the nature
of the British political system has evolved in such a way as to afford the centre a high
concentration of power. Yet, observations from a key set of actors within the core
executive – cabinet ministers – portrays a different picture. Scattered throughout the
memoirs of former Conservative and Labour ministers over the last forty years are
numerous testimonies expressing frustration and a sense of failure concerning their
ability to deliver on their policy goals (see for example, Crossman 1975, Castle 1984,
Heseltine 1987, Healey 1989 , Benn 1990, Jenkins 1991, Ridley 1991, Lawson 1992,
Parkinson 1992, , Howe 1994).
8
Elsewhere, analysts of public policy have long emphasized the problem of
successful policy delivery in liberal democracies (see for example Lindblom, 1959,
1968, Braybrooke and Lindblom 1963, Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Lipsky 1971,
1978, 1980, Rose 1980, Barrett and Fudge 1981, Williams 1982, Hogwood 1985,
1987; Hogwood and Gunn 1984, O’Toole 1986, Sabatier 1986, Davis and Rose 1994,
Kingdon 1996, Hill and Hupe 2002, Rose 2004). First, it should be noted that the
original ‘implementation literature’ is based on accounts drawn from the 1960s-70s,
pre-dating more recent state transformation from top-down, monolithic models to the
growth of single purpose organisations and multiple service delivery agents (see
Richards and Smith 2002). It recognises the importance of observing the link between
policy-making and society, and not simply assuming that once a policy decision has
been made, successful implementation will simply follow.
In particular, it argued
that those responsible for implementation - street-level bureaucrats [police, social
workers, doctors, agency staff etc] – play a vital role in determining the success or
failure of a policy2. As Marsh and Rhodes (1992: 6) observe:
Discretion is inevitable in all organisations in order to cope with
uncertainty. The activities of street-level bureaucrats will thus generate
‘control deficits’ as they develop coping mechanisms to deal with the
pressures upon them…[The] top-down model also focuses on central
objectives and ignores not only the adaptive strategies of street-level
bureaucrats but also the unintended consequences of government
action…Finally, the theoretical distinction between policy formulation and
policy implementation cannot be sustained in practice because policies are
Hill and Hupe (2002: 27) observe that: ‘…public servants working on the street-level have a relative
autonomy…a specific “logic of implementation” can be observed. Street-level bureaucrats see
themselves as decision-makers, whose decisions are based on normative choices, rather than as
functionaries responding to rules, procedures or policies’ (see also Maynard-Moody and Musherno
2000).
2
9
made and remade in the process of implementation. (see also Hay and
Richards 2000)
Within the context of the UK, Marsh and Rhodes (1992) have adapted the
policy implementation literature to argue that while the last Conservative
Administration (1979-97) may have had more radical objectives than previous postwar governments, its actual record of policy delivery was no better than its
predecessors. Here, their in-depth study of nine different policy areas highlighted
what they refer to as an ‘implementation gap’ between the radical rhetoric of
Conservative ministers and the actual reality of the policies being pursued. They
suggest that the Conservative Government experienced policy delivery and
implementation problems for a variety of reasons including: a rejection of
consultation/negotiation with lobby groups; a lack of a clear ideological blueprint of
reform; poor statecraft in the form of adopting the wrong models and/or tools; a
failure to recognise that the resources available to government are constrained; and
that implementing new polices often have unforeseen or unintended consequences.
Marsh and Rhodes’s (1992: 184) case-study approach to analysing policymaking leads them to conclude that one of the problems of achieving effective
implementation is that: ‘the British administrative system is not designed to give the
centre hands-on control over local officials.’ Yet, interestingly, governments in the
post-war era when addressing issues of implementation, do not appear to recognise
the structural constraints imposed on them by the British system. Their standard
response has broadly been state-centric - to reform the machinery of government in
such a way as to further concentrate powers at the centre, in the hope that such a
10
solution would improve the delivery of policy at the street-level3 (see Kavanagh and
Richards 2000).
So, the pattern of reforms pursued by different administrations in Britain over
the past fifty years in an effort to improve on policy delivery and implementation can
be characterised as - state-centric responses based on consolidating further powers at
the centre. Here, it is easy to discern the imprint of both a modernist value-set and a
firmly embedded belief in the utility of the Westminster Model. The Westminster
model provides a prism through which politicians and civil servants view the British
political system (see Richards and Smith 2002). A key feature of the Westminster
model is its legitimation of an elitist system of governing, in which ‘government
knows best’ (see Marsh et al 2003). Where problems arise in the policy-making
arena, they are not regarded as systemic, but localised and, as such, a solution can
always be found within, not beyond the existing model. The Westminster Model
therefore acts as a structure conditioning the institutional response of the core
executive.
The parameters it imposes tend to lead the core executive towards
pursuing reforms that enhance its own power, based on a belief that such a response
will provide an adequate solution to, rather than exacerbating, existing problems
within the policy-making arena.
New Labour, Delivery and the Pathology of Governance
For example: in 1951 Churchill introduced supervising ministers referred to as ‘overlords’; in the
1960s-70s the trend was towards ‘super ministries’; the 1974-79 Labour Government introduced the
‘Joint Approach to Social Policy’ [JASP]; the Thatcher Government introduced Next Steps Agencies in
1988 to assert more control over the actual process of policy-making. During the last Conservative
Administration there also occurred an ‘audit explosion’, with the dramatic growth of regulation by UK
Government (see Hood et al 1998, 1999 and Moran 2003). ‘Audit by government’ can be seen as a
strategy by the centre to assert control over other actors/agencies within an increasingly fragmented
policy-making arena. Cumulatively, these Conservative reforms were essentially concerned with reimposing executive dominance.
3
11
More than any previous Labour Government, the present Blair Administration has
shown [and maintained] an interest in reforming the machinery of government with a
view to improving policy delivery. Two and a half years into his first term, Tony
Blair complained of having ‘scars on my back’ from his attempts to get Whitehall
departments to improve on policy delivery; public servants, he implied, were
concentrating on operating in ‘policy chimneys’, protecting their turf and their own
interests rather than advancing government programmes (see Kavanagh and Richards
2000).
The signs that Labour were to take up the challenge of reforming the policy
process were clearly discernible prior to their coming to power in 1997.
In
opposition, key Labour figures believed that at a general level, government had lost
the ability to operate in a single, unified, co-ordinated manner across the whole policy
spectrum (see Blair 1996, Mandelson and Liddell 1996, Gould 1998). This in turn,
they concluded, was leading to policy failure. Underpinning this view was a narrative
Labour embraced that suggested that the British state had become increasingly
fragmented. Fragmentation had emasculated the ability of the core executive to
pursue holistic policy programmes that cut across different functional areas of
government (see Richards and Smith 2000). In particular, Labour subscribed to the
notion that the key issue was the inability of elected governments to control and coordinate policy across Whitehall. Their view was that the policy arena had become a
more crowded environment with numerous actors competing for political space,
curtailing government’s ability to maintain some semblance of control. This can be
referred to as the pathology of governance (see Richards and Smith 2002). One effect
of this changed environment was that policy was being developed in a more isolated,
segmented manner, often leading to unintended and unforeseen consequences, most
12
notably when different departments pursued conflicting policy goals (see Smith
1999).
Not surprisingly, as with its predecessors, the response of the Labour
Government since 1997 has been to implement a series of reforms that aim to increase
the power that the centre wields – a state-centric response. As Richards and Smith
(2000:146) observe: ‘Labour politicians have been conditioned, as much as
Conservatives, by the Westminster model’. They therefore drew from within the
confines of this model in order to find a solution to the problem of fragmentation, a
loss of central controlling capacity and implementation failure. Thus, in the year
before Labour won the election, Blair declared that: ‘People have to know that we
will run from the centre and govern from the centre’ (see Richards 2004: 37).
Since 1997, the response of the Labour Government has been to try and wirethe-system back up. This is an attempt to bring together the many, often disparate,
elements that constitute the policy arena. Thus, Labour’s antidote to failings in policymaking has been ‘joined-up-government’ and ‘improvement in service delivery’
based on a model of strong central control from Number 10 and the Cabinet Office
(see Cm4310 1999; Cabinet Office 2000, 2002). At the same time, it has set in place
what appears to be a countervailing force at the street-level, by continuing to pursue a
policy of semi-detaching delivery agencies from government [boutique bureaucracy]
and increasing the local autonomy of the multiple service deliverers – a modern
governance approach (see Office of Public Service Reform, 2002, Peters, 2000). This
raises the key issue of whether or not increasing central control, while at the same
time attempting to enhance local autonomy creates diametrically opposed goals,
which are difficult to reconcile.
13
What we argue throughout the rest of this paper is that Labour’s reform
programme has produced a paradox - government has been concerned with improving
policy delivery by enhancing its central controlling mechanisms [a top-down, statecentric strategy]. At the same time, it has rhetorically at least, continued to argue for
the need to increase the level of autonomy for officials charged with delivering
services [a bottom-up, modern governance strategy]. As we saw above, the British
political system is not designed in such a way as to afford the centre hands-on control
over street-level bureaucrats. We therefore argue that while formal targets and audit
programmes imposed by central government can be quantitatively measured, control
over the actual process of delivery still often remains with street level bureaucrats
based on their own subjective interpretation of a particular policy. As Lipsky
(1980:xii) observes, street-level bureaucrats: ‘…believe themselves to be doing the
best they can under adverse circumstances and they develop techniques to salvage
service and decision-making values within the limits imposed upon them by the
structure of work.’ We aver that the more autonomy street-level actors have in terms
of delivery, the more likely it is that they will interpret policy in different ways to the
intentions of the original policy makers. This can lead to an array of unforeseen or
unintended consequences for a Government aiming to re-impose control over the
policy-making arena.
Labour’s Programme of Reform for Improving Delivery: State-Centric, Core
Executive Control Vs Modern Governance, Service Delivery Autonomy
Improving Delivery Part 1 –State-Centric, Core Executive Control
On one level, Labour’s response to problems of delivery and implementation
in the policy process have characterised the standard reaction of previous
14
governments in the form of accruing more powers at the central executive territory.
From the outset, the view of the new Government was that it aimed to ‘govern from
the centre’.
This statement was made in the light of concerns over: the previous
tendency of the Labour Party to fragment in government; the institutional divisions
within the central state in the form of departmentalism; and for changing patterns of
governance to fragment further the central state (see Kooiman1993, Rhodes 1997,
Richards and Smith 2000). The rhetoric of the new Blair Government rejected the
statist approaches of past Labour Governments for achieving its policy goals, instead
the emphasis was to be on control: ‘..the era of “big government means better
government” is over’, - ‘control’ was to become its new mantra’ (Blair 2003: 132).
As Blair (2003: 132) observed: ‘Leverage, not size, is what counts. What government
does, and how well, not how much, is the key to its role in modern society’,
sentiments not far removed from the ‘reinventing government’ discourse associated
ten years earlier with the American centre-right commentators Osborne and Gaebler
(1992).
Strengthening the Centre
In order to achieve ‘leverage’, the Blair leadership team initially concluded
that it should prioritise greater co-ordination. Consequently, one of the slogans of the
government’s first term was the need for joined-up government at the policy making
and delivery level. From the its perspective:
The ‘tubes’ or ‘silos’ down which money flows from government to
people and localities have come to be seen as part of the reason why
government is bad at solving problems. Many issues have fitted
imperfectly if at all into departmental slots. Vertical organisation by its
15
nature skews government efforts away from certain activities, such as
prevention – since the benefits of preventive action often come to
another department.
It tends to make government less sensitive to
particular client groups whose needs cut across departmental lines. It
incentives departments to dump problems on each other – like schools
dumping unruly children onto the streets to become a headache for the
police…Over time it reinforces the tendency common to all
bureaucracies of devoting more energy to the protection of turf rather
than serving the public (Mulgan, 2001, 21).
Consequently, the Government created a range of bodies such as the Social Exclusion
Unit, task forces, the Delivery Unit, tsars and the Strategy Unit to overcome
departmentalism. In some ways, this has further extended the reach of Number Ten
into departmental affairs under the guise of ensuring a co-ordinated approach.
Changes at Number Ten
Initially, pursuing joined up government was a mechanism for increasing the
control of the centre because it was a way of ensuring that strategies developed in
Number Ten were not undermined by the conflicting goals of departments. As Blair
told the Liaison Select Committee in July 2002: ‘I make no apology for having a
strong centre, particularly in circumstances where, one, the focus is on delivering
better services.’ Since 1997, an important development has been the way in which the
resources of the Prime Minister have increased. When Blair came into office, he
expanded the size of the Policy Unit (now the Policy Directorate) almost doubling the
personnel compared to the Major years (see Kavanagh and Seldon 2000). Crucially,
16
the role of the Policy Directorate has become one not so much of making policy but
ensuring that departments are aware of the Blair agenda and are delivering policy in
line with Number Ten’s wishes. Blair reinforces this policy steer through regular
bilateral meetings with ministers to ensure that they and the Prime Minister are agreed
on policy objectives. This is an important development because it means that there is
an institutional relationship between departments and Number Ten. Also, Prime
Ministerial policy activism does not rely on the whim or attention span of the Prime
Minister. Number Ten is developing capabilities to direct departments, which are
based on the special advisers within Number Ten overseeing and commenting on the
policy proposals that are coming from departments. Again, this is an important
change in the patterns of dependency between departments and the Prime Minister
with departments becoming more dependent on the Prime Minister for policy
initiatives.
Whilst the role of the Policy Directorate is largely oversight, strategic policy
capability is provided by the Strategy Unit created in 2002. The stated aim of the
Strategy Unit is to: ‘improve Government's capacity to address strategic, cross-cutting
issues and promote innovation in the development of policy and the delivery of the
Government's objectives’ (see http://www.strategy.gov.uk/output/page82.asp). When
the Unit was established, it brought together the Performance and Innovation Unit
(PIU), the Prime Minister's Forward Strategy Unit (FSU), and parts of the Centre for
Management and Policy Studies (CMPS). The Unit has three main roles: ‘to provide
strategy and policy advice, to carry out occasional strategic audits and to help build
departments' strategic capability (see http://www.strategy.gov.uk/output/page82.asp)
17
Again, this can be seen as an attempt to consolidate control over the policy process at
No.10, with the Unit reporting to the Prime Minister through the Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, Alun Milburn and the Cabinet Secretary, Andrew Turnbull.
The third change introduced by Labour is centred on their distrust of the Civil
Service. This is not related to the ideological disposition of officials, but instead
Labour has questioned Whitehall’s ability to develop and deliver policy. The element
of distrust was revealed in significant changes in policy-making. Labour looked
much more to outside sources for policy advice. This has taken the form of greater
use of task forces, tzars and special advisors: in terms of the former, the government
created an array of ad hoc bodies – task forces - with the intention of crossing
departmental boundaries and providing a range of sources of advice. There role
remains rather nebulous, but in response to a Parliamentary Question between May
1997 and October 2000, there were over 200 ‘live’ task forces drawing upon
individuals from the private, public and voluntary sector, including academics and
civil servants. Some task forces are chaired by ministers, but others are not, and the
topics they cover are diverse; the second element, that of the creation of Tsars was a
strategy employed by Labour to improve both horizontal and vertical ‘joined-upness’
within and between departments. Tsars are an eclectic mix of outside appointments,
bearing an array of informal titles as ‘Drugs Tsar’, ‘Health Tsar’, ‘Transport Tsar’,
‘Anti-Cancer Tsar’, ‘Children’s Tsar’ etc. They are appointed by the Prime Ministers
but then work within individual Whitehall departments; the third element saw an
increased role for special advisers which have more than doubled in number since the
last Conservative government. These political appointees offer an alternative source
of advice to ministers. Their influence has changed the established pattern of policy
18
making for the Treasury. For example, according to a report in The Guardian (15
April, 2002), the then Treasury Special Advisers, Ed Balls and David Miliband…:
…act as gatekeepers, letting civil servants know what the Chancellor is
interested in and acting as a filter for policy ideas coming from below. An
official knows that he or she is getting somewhere when they get a halfhour slot with Ed Balls.
The state-centric, organisational reforms pursued by Labour have not simply been
reflected in the enhanced number of agencies at the centre and increased power at the
heart of the Labour Government. It has also been about extending the culture of audit
and the use of ‘governing by targets’ - initiatives introduced by the previous
Conservative Administration.
Again, the application of such tools of governing
should be seen in the light of ensuring Whitehall retains control over other actors
operating further down the policy-chain.
Governing by Target and Audit
The previous Conservative Administration (1979-97) while willing to abandon
its role of service provider in many areas was much less willing to relinquish any
controlling capacities. A similar approach has been adopted by the present Labour
Government, leading to what Hood et al (1999) refer to as a new ‘regulatory state
inside the state’. The growth in the use of targets and audit mechanisms reflects an
attempt by central government to ensure it maintains control over those agencies or
actors delivering services to the public (see Hyndman and Eden 2002). Hood et al
(1999) observe that the regulation of public-sector bodies grew substantially in the
last two decades coinciding with the perceived fragmentation of the state. For
example, they contend that individuals employed in ‘oversight bodies for public
19
organisations’ rose approximately 90 per cent between 1976-95, whilst at the same
time Civil Service numbers were cut by about 30% and local government service by
20%. Moreover, the institutionalisation of this process by central government is
reflected elsewhere in such initiatives as the ‘Citizen’s Charter’, introduced by the
Major Government and then extended and re-branded by the Blair Government as
‘Service First’. The rationale behind this approach was to shift power away from
service providers to consumers. In practice, this has become an explicit process of
auditing the public sector – by publishing performance lists for schools, hospitals,
universities etc.
Accompanying this process has been the rise in magnitude of an
array of regulatory units including; the Deregulation Unit, also created by the last
Conservative Administration but again re-branded by Labour – firstly as the Better
Regulation Unit and later, the Regulatory Impact Unit; the Better Regulation Task
Force; the National Audit Office; the Audit Commission; and the Public Sector
Benchmarking Service. Stemming from these government agencies has been the
growth of governing by targets and auditing which has taken a variety of forms:

the creation of numerous regulatory agencies; by the mid 1990s, Hood et al
(2000) estimated that the number of national-level regulatory organisations
ranged from between 135-200 with running-costs ranging from between £750
million-£1 billion.

the appointment of a set of regulatory or inspectorate officials; the figures
were estimated in the mid-1990s to be between 14,000-20,000. Here, there are
numerous examples: the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales
created in 1980 to look at the condition of prisons and the treatment of
prisoners; or the GM Inspectorate created in 1990 to inspect release sites of
GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to ensure that they comply with the
20
terms of the consents granted for trial release or marketing of a GMO.
Inspectorates cover almost all areas of social life including health, education,
building, the fire service, police, wildlife, vehicles etc.

most importantly, the establishment of a wide array of performance-indicators
and league-tables for services (see Painter 1999, Cutler and Waine 2000,
Hyndman and Eden 2002, Ling 2002, Perri 6 and Peck 2004). The most
obvious institutional form in which target-setting has been pursued by the
present Labour Government are Public Service Agreements (PSAs), set-up
after the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review. PSAs establish in one
document the aims, objectives and performance targets for each of the main
Government departments. They include value for money targets and a
statement of who is responsible for the delivery of these targets. PSAs are
agreed on by the individual department following discussions with the
Treasury and the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. At present, the Treasury
estimates that it has 130 PSA’s in place (see Cm5571 2002, HM Treasury
2005a). An obvious example would be the Department of Health’s PSA,
which includes a variety of targets set for the National Health Service: no
patient should have to wait longer than six months for an inpatient
appointment by 2005; no patient should have to wait longer than 15 months
for surgery; no patient should be waiting longer than three months for an
outpatient appointment by 2005; patients should not have to wait more than
four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge in Accident &
Emergency (see HM Treasury 2005b).
Where organisations fail to meet the prescribed targets laid down by
government, they can incur an array of prescribed penalties ranging from a
21
simple cut in government funding to the out-right closure of an organisation,
such as has occurred for example with a number of ‘failed’ secondary schools.
The practice of target setting has become the key tool of control now exerted
by government, as a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, focusing
specifically on Next Steps Agencies testifies: ‘…performance measurement
and reporting are intrinsic to the whole process of public management,
including planning, monitoring, evaluation and public accountability’ (HM
Government 2000: 2)
Analysis
At a generic level, Labour’s broader reforms of the policy process were originally
identified in the 1999 White Paper Modernising Government (Cmnd 4310). This
committed the Civil Service to six key changes that derived from Labour’s
modernising government agenda: stronger leadership with a clear sense of purpose;
better business planning from top to bottom; sharper performance management; a
dramatic improvement in diversity; a service more open to people and ideas, which
brings on talent; and a better deal for staff. The White Paper suggested that past
reforms: ‘paid little attention to the policy process and the way this affects the ability
of government to meet the needs of the people’ (Williams, 1999, 452). Labour’s
concern was not simply about improving efficiency; it wanted to change relationships
within government and between government and the citizen. This relates to the need
to increase the autonomy and devolve power further down the policy chain.
Labour’s first two terms saw some significant changes in the organisation of
central government and the way that policy was made. The key changes included the
emphasis on joined up government, the multiplication of the sources of advice, an
upsurge in the use of targets and auditing tools, the strengthening of the centre and the
22
shifting role of the Civil Service. The goal of joined up government created tensions
within Whitehall.
The ability of departments to work together was greatly
constrained by the continuation of departmental structures and the notion of
ministerial responsibility (Marsh, Smith and Richards, 2000). Further problems arose
because these changes partly built on the reforms introduced by the Conservatives,
but also reflected the concerns of Labour and the changing external environment.
This produced contradictory demands, for instance, between the notion of market
mechanisms as a principle of reform through contracting out and empowering
managers and centralized notions of reforms through the use of targets.
Improving Delivery Part 2 –Modern Governance, Service Delivery Autonomy
The Labour Government, like other governments around the world has seen
the detachment of delivery agencies from government, the development of new
management techniques and an increase in local autonomy as the key mechanisms for
improving delivery. It is the latter theme of autonomy that is fundamental to the
present government’s reform programme. As we saw above, the reform programme
was initiated by the Modernising Government White Paper (CM4310:1999), but the
key theme of enhanced autonomy at the street-level is more clearly expounded on in
Reforming Public Services: Principles into Practice (March 2002). In its foreword,
Tony Blair enunciates four ‘Principles for Public Service Reform’:
National Standards: mean working with hospitals, schools, police forces
and local government to agree tough targets and to see performance
independently monitored so people can see how their local services
compare.
23
Devolution: means Whitehall is serious about letting go and giving
successful front-line professionals the freedom to deliver these standards.
Flexibility: means removing artificial bureaucratic barriers which prevent
staff improving local services.
Choice: acknowledges that consumers of public services should
increasingly be given the kind of options that they take for granted in other
walks of life.
(Office of Public Service Reform 2002: 3)
The notions of choice and flexibility are explicit references made by the government
in response to what it regards as an entrenched approach in Whitehall to delivery in
public services based on a view that ‘one size fits all’. For the Government, diversity
of provision is the new mantra. This is to be achieved through devolution and
delegation4 for front-line professionals – street-level bureaucrats – who are best
placed to understand the most appropriate means of delivery in order to meet the
specific needs of their individual client groups.
As Hill and Hupe (2002: 27)
observe: ‘Enhancing street-level discretion may, under certain conditions, be more
functional for the implementation of those policies than curbing it.’ Yet, here a
proviso must be added. The government is not simply abandoning the state-centric,
controlling tendencies that it has traditionally clung onto when pursuing reform. The
right to increased autonomy for front-line professionals is not being dispensed carte
blanche. Instead, it is based on the ‘carrot and stick’ principle:
Better services should get more freedom and flexibility – earned autonomy
for schools, hospitals, local government and other public services. Failing
services should be given the incentives to improve, and receive intervention
In this context: ‘devolution is defined as the handing over of power from central government to a
constituent part (e.g. to local government); delegation means entrusting another with the authority to
act as agent’. (Office of Public Service Reform 2002:16)
4
24
in proportion to the risk of damaging under-performance. (Office of Public
Service Reform 2002: 17)
Thus, the Labour Government is committed to freeing up those frontline staff that
have earned this right through a proven track record in meeting centrally imposed
national standards5 in the form of PSA agreements. In developing this strategy,
Gordon Brown announced in his 2003 Budget Statement, a review of: …new ways of
providing departments, their agencies and other parts of the public sector with
incentives to exploit opportunities for efficiency savings, and so release resources for
front line public service delivery’ (HM Treausury: 2003). This culminated a year
later in the publication of the Gershon Report (2004) - Releasing Resources to the
Front Line - which outlined a programme of efficiency savings6 aimed at financing
the increased cost of the Government’s new front-line delivery strategy. The report
also identifies what it understands to be the delivery chain within the policy-making
process (see Figure 1).
5
One of the four key principles of public service reform referred to above.
The report has identified £20 billion in what it refers to as ‘efficiency gains’ to be made by 2007-8,
partly based on cutting 84,000 posts in the Civil Service. From that figure, 60% will be directly
released to fund front-line delivery services (Gershon 2004:3).
6
25
Figure 1: Generalised Delivery Chain
Government Policy and Key
Targets
One or more
Core Departments
One or more Intermediate
Supervisory Management
and Administrative Bodies
One or more Intermediate
Funding Bodies
One or more Regulatory
and Inspection bodies
One or more Front-Line Delivery
Bodies
Outcome
Source: Gershon( 2004:17)
The report then goes on to identify gaps in the knowledge of individual Whitehall
departments relating to the way in which policy chains function:
Work on the policy funding and regulation workstreams during the
Efficiency Review identified that departments in general have insufficient
understanding of the efficiency (and effectiveness) of key delivery chains.
Departments should undertake robust holistic scrutiny of priority chains
where either delivery of key outcomes are not meeting targets or the costs of
26
the chain are disproportionately high compared to the value added. (Gershon
2004:28)
Here, it should be noted that the Report’s interpretation of the first stage of the
delivery chain [see Figure 1] explicitly conflates government policy and key targets. It
is also important to recognise that while targets can be measured, control over actual
delivery still remains with the street level bureaucrats.
Moreover, the incentive
principle identified in Reforming Public Services: Principles into Practice - that
street-level bureaucrats who are ‘successful’ in meeting prescribed national standards
are subsequently rewarded with greater autonomy in the form of increased devolution
and delegation - ignores existing disparities in levels of autonomy already
experienced by different types of street-level bureaucrats within the policy chain. For
example, it is clear that in certain types of organisations, the autonomy of street level
bureaucrats is particularly circumscribed.
Variable Autonomy - Scenario 1:
Here, we might consider a teacher in a school having to address issues related to drug
misuse and is provided with a clear set of directives which must be followed.
However, a police officer also dealing with crime related to drug misuse, whilst in a
hierarchical organization, has considerable discretion over for example, whether or
not to arrest someone or caution them.
We must also contrast the scope for variation in autonomy that occurs depending on
which level within a policy chain one is examining.
Variable Autonomy - Scenario 2:
If we adopt the Gershon interpretation of the delivery chain, then in returning to our
example above, a police office already experiences a certain degree of autonomy
within the delivery chain operating as the primary interface in the delivery of front-
27
line services to consumers – in this case law and order. Yet, within that same
delivery-chain, a Chief Inspector of a Constabulary7 who is identified by Gershon as
an ‘intermediate supervisory manager’, has much greater levels of autonomy in
determining how to respond to government policy and centrally imposed targets.
What the proposed incentive structure appears to ignore is the existence already of a
wide variety of levels of autonomy experienced by different sets of actors in the
delivery chain.
Labour’s Dual-Strategy Reform Programme: A Research Agenda
One of the key themes enunciated in Lipsky’s (1971, 1980) original groundbreaking
research into implementation and the role of street-level bureaucrats in the policy
process is that discretion or subjective interpretation is an inevitable consequence of
organisational specialisation.
Here, he suggested that front-line delivery agents
develop ‘coping mechanism to reduce pressure at the coal face’ which undermines the
extent to which the centre8 can wield control (see also Elmore 1978). So, for Lipsky,
to understand the implementation of policy it is important to recognise that the key
cog in the delivery chain is a street-level worker, holding high public service ideals
and exercising discretion under intolerable pressures. He therefore concludes that:
‘…attempts to control them hierarchically simply increase their tendency to stereotype and disregard the needs of their clients’ (see Hill and Hupe 2002: 53). In many
ways, this theme, a normative concern that shifts the attention away from traditional
top-down studies of public policy about how best the top can impose its will, are at
the heart of understanding some of the key dilemmas facing the present Labour
Government’s own reform programme. Labour has wanted to shift away from the
7
8
A constabulary is a devolved regional police force.
In the British context - the core executive.
28
principle of public services predicated on the notion that ‘one size fits all’. They have
therefore recognised that to achieve this entails a degree of devolution and delegation
to front-line service deliverers who are best placed to recognise the more specific and
variable needs of their client groups. Yet, at the same time, Labour has wished to
relinquish control over the wide array of service delivery agents created in the
modern era of governance. How then, to paraphrase Lipsky, does Labour ensure
control over street-level bureaucrats without forcing them to then stereo-type the
needs of their client base and continue to pursue a ‘one-size fits all’ strategy. This
central theme spawns a further series of dilemmas surrounding Labour’s reform
programme, all of which revolve round the key theme of its attempt to increase
central control while at the same time paying lip-service to the notion of greater
street-level delegation. Further analysis is needed to establish the extent to which
Labour’s dual-strategy has:

created tensions between those at the centre [the core executive] whose
primary responsibilities is for the formulation of policy and the imposition of
control over the policy process to ensure policy is implemented as originally
intended and the multiple service deliverers [the street-level bureaucrats] who
have been promised greater autonomy to allow them to determine the most
effective ways of delivering policy on the ground, yet find their autonomy
curtailed both by a restrictive culture of audit and interference from the
centre? This issue is one which the Government recognises, but claims is not
irreconcilable:
The argument is sometimes advanced that national standards and
devolution are incompatible, since the one represents centralised
controls, whereas the other should mean freedom from such
29
accountability. However, demanding standards and devolution
need to go together. The best way in which a national standard
can be met is by recognising local and often individual
differences, and giving service providers the flexibility to shape
services around the needs and aspirations of customers and
communities. Equally, taxpayers fund public services and have
the right to expect that they will be provided fairly to customers,
wherever they live, so national standards are essential. (Office of
Public Service Reform 2002: 16)

the extent to which, in an era of governance, policy is implemented by a
multitude of different types of service deliverers: depending on the type of
agent responsible for service delivery, have some been able to increase the
degree of their autonomy from the centre more than others?

where the autonomy of the service deliverer from the centre remains limited,
has the response to policy implementation tended to be routinized and
standardised, not breaking away from Labour’s perceived pathology that ‘onesize fits all’ in service delivery?

concomitantly, do those actors with limited autonomy nevertheless, remain
more closely aligned to the original goals intended by those formulating
policy, compared to those experiencing greater devolution and delegation?

where the autonomy of the service deliverer is much greater, has the response
to policy delivery become much more varied, increasing the scope for
unforeseen or unintended consequences, and in so doing created policy
outcomes which are further removed from the original aims of the policymakers?
30
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