Sub-National Governance in England

This discussion is concerned with sub-national governance in England. It will suggest that the most striking characteristic of English sub-national governance is its fragmentary and incoherent nature, embracing regions (if they can still be said to exist), city-regions (which are subject to a number of different definitions) and local government (which itself is sub-divided from place to place into metropolitan, non-metropolitan, unitary and two-tier systems, with a range of differing political management arrangements). This pattern of sub-national provision has grown ever-more varied, subject to ad hoc initiatives, and with no overall rationale. It will be argued that - in contrast to other parts of the United Kingdom - there is currently no political incentive to address the nature of English sub-national governance. Hence there is little likelihood that the pattern of governance depicted here will change, unless new factors are brought into play. Some of these are suggested at the end of this paper

Is Co-Production Possible? Tensions and Opportunities in the Relationship Between Public Sector Practitioners and Academic Providers

The paper explores some of the tensions and dilemmas in the relationship between public sector organisations and academic providers of training and consultancy. Developing the analysis offered by the authors at IRSPM XV, Dublin (Fenwick and McMillan, 2011) the paper considers critical factors in the relationship between client (public organisation) and contractor (higher education provider). This includes specific instances of collaboration, obtained from interviews with HE providers. These illuminate the crucial area of ‘co-production’ of knowledge and learning. It is our proposition that the rhetoric of co-production may bolster the aims of those in the organisation who seek to implement their own agendas for change, or the organisational need of academic providers to achieve their own internal goals, such as financial targets. The instrumental objectives of each party may be addressed through a language of co-production. We do not suggest that the public organisation-HEI relationship thus conceived necessarily generates negative outcomes. On the contrary, there is no doubt that tangible benefits (for both parties) may be produced by such collaborative programmes. But this is not our focus. Our aim is to illuminate the processes that are going on within this, that is, to deconstruct the meaning and practice of co-production and to identify its constituent elements and consequences at a time of unprecedented uncertainty for the public sector

Making Sense of Public Policy in a Fragmented World: the Search for Solutions and the Limits of Learning

This paper explores innovation, learning and change in an environment where the historical moment of ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) has given way to unprecedented fluidity in public policy and decision making. To begin, we examine key elements of the post-NPM environment, where foundational approaches (in theory and practice) can be challenged either by innovation or by default to previous positions: both trends are evident in the incoherence of policy responses to the global economic crisis. We then consider the search for meaning and sense-making by policy actors who seek new solutions to cope with intractable problems. This can generate innovative responses, including the growth of Third Sector (voluntary organisation) involvement in public policy and public services, or the rediscovery of a public service ethic amidst the banking crisis, including citizen withdrawal from multi-national banks in favour of ethical or mutual providers. We will then suggest that although there is a certain inevitability to the process of change in an era which has moved beyond modernist and foundationalist solutions, this does not necessarily generate positive and desirable innovation. Change may instead involve a retreat to failed responses of a previous era. It is as though a familiar script is still recited by policy actors even though the overall storyline has fundamentally changed. In this sense, entrenched learning may produce negative results even though ‘reverse organisational learning’ (ie organisational amnesia) may accord a superficial appearance of novelty. This may be readily illustrated by examples from recent European public policy. Finally, in an era where the modernist conception of gradual mastery (of the world, and of theory) has fallen away, the discussion considers the kind of analytical tools that may assist in the theoretical understanding of a changed public policy environment

Real Urban Images: Policy and Culture in Northern Britain

This paper explores recent attempts to re-imagine and re-brand northern British cities through processes of economic and (mainly) cultural regeneration. It analyses the creation of new contemporary urban images and presentations and compares these with the economic, social and cultural life experiences of people living in the areas. It examines the process of recharacterising former industrial conurbations as being at the cutting edge of contemporary, postmodern culture. A range of features is identified here within similar political, economic and policy contexts: deindustrialisation and regeneration driven by local business and political elites; emphasis on culture as spectacle to the exclusion of other cultural configurations; reliance on tourism and advertising, hyper consumption and leisure as determining aspects of the local economy; and the reorganisation of city population

Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

The directly elected executive mayor has been with us in England for more than a decade. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience (see Elcock and Fenwick, 2007) the elected mayor has appealed to both Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. For the Left, it offered a reinvigoration of local democracy, a champion for the locality who could stand up for the community: in one early pamphlet, a Labour councillor envisaged that an elected mayor could “...usher in a genuinely inclusive way of doing civic business as well as giving birth to an institution that encourages and values people” (Todd, 2000: 25). For the Right, it offered the opportunity to cut through the lengthy processes of local democratic institutions by providing streamlined high-profile leadership. Although inconsistent in their expectations of what the new role of executive mayor would bring, Left and Right shared a view that leadership of local areas was failing. Despite the very low turnout in referendums on whether to adopt the system, and the very small number of local areas that have done so, the prospect of more executive mayors, with enhanced powers, refuses to exit the policy arena