Policy and action : essays on the implementation of public policy

Abstract

PrefaceThis book is about the relationship between public policy and action, the processes at work within and between agencies involved in making and implementing public policy and the factors affecting those processes. As a working approximation we suggest that the term 'public policy' may be defined as the implicit or explicit intentions of government and the expression of those intentions entailing specific patterns of activity or inaction by governmental agencies. Public policy provides the framework within which agencies of government operate to control, regulate or promote certain facets of society in the interests of national defence, law and order, economic and financial management, social welfare and the like.In recent years, professional and academic concern with problems of public policy implementation - translation of policy into actions - has increased, and this concern relates to wider anxieties about the effectiveness of public policy and government in general. At one level, concern with effectiveness forms part of wider ideological debates about the role of the state in society and about the 'governability' of an increasingly complex industrial society, in which, it is argued, interventions are likely to have unforeseen or counter-intentional results.Whilst public policy emanates from the 'public sector' - including both the institutions of central and local government and state created agencies such as water or health authorities, commissions and corporations - it may be implemented through and directed at a wide variety of individuals and organizations which may or may not be part of the state apparatus, and which may be to a greater or lesser degree independent of state influence or control. In the past, studies have been dominated by institutional, public administration or policy analysis perspectives and have tended to concentrate on the substance of policy, the process of its formulation and its effectiveness in terms of impact. Concern with effectiveness is now being extended to include a closer look at what actually happens to policy 'in the hands' of implementers, that is, the processes of implementation, the factors affecting those processes and their relationship to policy formulation and change.Our own interest and involvement in the subject area stems in part from this general environment of growing concern with different aspects of public policy 'effectiveness' and in part from our own experience and role as teachers and researchers in the field of policy studies. As ex-practitioners ourselves from central and local government, and latterly as teachers-of-practitioners in our work at the University of Bristol School for Advanced Urban Studies, we have shared awareness of the public criticism of 'bureaucratic ineffectiveness' often levelled at those in the public sector, and the concern, even frustration, felt by many at their inability to 'get things done'. What actually happens may appear a long way short of policy intentions, or innovative action seems to be thwarted by restrictive policy or practice imposed from above. At worst, the sheer multiplicity of agencies that have to be involved in the formulation and implementation of a particular strand of policy, the complicated interaction between policies, and the difficulty of identifying clear objectives and priorities for action against a background of changing political, social and economic circumstances combine to produce an environment of uncertainty, if not impotence, for the individual 'actor' in the process.These rather different perspectives have led us, along with several of our colleagues, into the study of implementation aimed at understanding the relationship between policy and action. Over the past few years, individuals at the School for Advanced Urban Studies have undertaken a number of studies of the process of implementation or impact of specific public policies. At present a team of researchers (including three of the contributors: Michael Hill, Susan Barrett and Tom Davies) is undertaking research supported by the Social Science Research Council on Implementation in the Central-Local Relationship. This body of work and the debate generated within the School have provided the background to some of the material included in this volume.Although we are close to the world of practice, we are aware of the power and dominance of practitioner ideologies and debates. Consequently, in this volume we have attempted to allow the contributors and ourselves to develop ideas that are distinct from those used in the practice of government. That is, we hope we have been able to get some distance on the world of practice and present an analysis from a somewhat more detached stance.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 378 citations exist upstream.