Joined up policy in practice? The coherence and impacts of the local government modernisation agenda

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a raft of new policies designed to transform the politics and performance of local authorities in the UK. Over the next three years, a specially commissioned themed section of Local Government Studies will explore the impact of these policies drawing on recent empirical studies by leading researchers in the field. This paper, the first in the series, sets the scene by tracing the evolution of key policies, analysing their objectives and assessing the extent to which they can, as central government has claimed, be seen as a coherent package of complementary policies. It concludes that whilst at first sight the links between policies within the Local Government Modernisation Agenda are not obvious, policies have become increasingly holistic. Local authority officers perceive them to be interacting in ways that contribute to the achievement of service improvement, more effective community leadership, increased stakeholder engagement, greater accountability and increased public confidence. However, the lack of ‘joined up’ working across Whitehall presents significant problems for councils and other agencies that are responsible for local service delivery and a continuing challenge for central government.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the two referees and to Clive Grace for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. We acknowledge with gratitude the contribution to the study of the large numbers of local authority officers who completed our survey and the six local authorities and their partners who agreed to participate as case studies. And we are indebted to our colleagues Tony Bovaird, Alex Chen and Tom Entwistle who made major contributions to the design of the research and the collection and analysis of the data on which this paper draws.

Notes

This paper draws on data collected for research which was funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The views expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent those of the Department.