Public Policy and Administration

This article is the result of research into public records in The National Archives; the Royal Institute of Public Administration archives in the University of Birmingham; the Joint University Council archives in the University of Warwick; and (with the kind assistance of Adrian Allan, Archivist, University of Liverpool) the papers of Professor Lord Simey of Toxteth. Its main purpose is to contribute to the history of the applied social sciences through tracing the background and development of Public Policy and Administration. Constraints of length and problems associated with the largely uncatalogued archives of the Joint University Council and the incomplete records of the Royal Institute of Public Administration prevent a full and comprehensive history of the topics covered, so it has to be selective (hence ‘an interpretation’), and the intention therefore has been to focus on the prehistory and history of influences contributing to the development of the Joint University Council, its Public Administration Committee and, especially, the journal Public Policy and Administration.

This article begins with contemporary concerns about the demise of public institutions and public values. New strategies of governance across Europe and beyond make any clear delineation of ‘the public’ and the public sphere highly problematic. The modernization of welfare states involves a shift of powers from state to market, but also a shift of responsibility from public to personal domains. The liberal values associated with the traditional public sphere seem illequipped to address questions of social diversity and deepening inequalities, or to respond to contemporary questions of culture, faith and identity. New spatial flows, bringing cross-national and globalized relationships, are dissolving any simple equivalence between nation, citizenship and the public sphere. How, then, might we better understand the terrain on which struggles around the future of publics and publicness are being played out?

This article asserts that the current ‘Double Devolution’ idea in the UK is part of a wider fashion in political architecture that generally sees the emergence of larger units. Simultaneously though there is a political need for gestures to smaller scale units and more deliberative procedures. The article argues that the Double Devolution concept simply ignores a rising volume of evidence that finds problems in operationalizing small-scale and deliberative ideas. Among other problems is the consequence that the resulting increased policy diversity is quickly labelled a ‘postcode lottery’. The article also reviews the deliberative literature to find serious questions raised about new biases that emerge in deliberative settings. Finally, the article adopts Hood’s work on cultural theory and public management to say that in fact evidence-based policy making may not be the norm - but policy selections reflect values and normative preferences.

This article examines three key, possible post-devolution trends relating to central-local relations in England, Scotland and Wales. First, the Scottish and Welsh cases indicate that devolution does not inevitably lead to regional centralism and that central-local relations at the regional or intermediate levels are less competitive and more collaborative where a power balance or symmetry exists between the intermediate and the local level. Second, post-devolution differences in how the public services are being restructured in England, Scotland and Wales suggest that the trend towards governance is not immutable but at least partly a matter of political choice. Third, even so the post-devolution policy similarities between the metropolitan centre and the two devolved territories remain pronounced with a pattern of continued policy tracking, through which the dominance of the metropolitan centre is maintained indirectly rather than directly.

The UK’s devolution reforms were built on long-standing practices of differentiated territorial administration in the non-English parts of the UK. With devolution those practices became subject to new democratic processes, transforming territorial administration into territorial politics. The reforms were introduced in a piecemeal basis, lacking an overall conception of the impact of devolution on the UK state, and lacking consideration of how the government of the non-devolved unit of England can, through its size and weight within the UK, impact on and constrain devolved government. The combination of piecemeal reform and the ‘English question’ raises a number of open questions about the coherence and stability of the devolution arrangements, especially at the point when governments run by different parties import partisan considerations into territorial politics.

This article raises questions about whether the system for ethical compliance in the public services of the UK is proportionate to the perceived problem of unethical behaviour. The article uses examples from local government, the civil service and Ministers of the Crown. More research needs to be undertaken on these interconnected topics, but problems identified here include: the possibility that the ethical compliance system for local councillors is overly burdensome, and potentially inimical to the democratic process; that changes in the management of the civil service and the increasing influence of special advisers may mean that the ethical compliance system for civil servants is not as robust as it might be; and that for Ministers of the Crown there is not an ethical compliance system in place at all.

This article addresses a perennial controversy in the study of public administration - should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? And, if so, how should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? It is claimed that the answers to these questions lie in the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and action, theory and practice. In consequence it is argued that it is the responsibility of public administration scholars not only to provide explanations and understandings of administrative and political subjects but also to defend bureaucracy and to seek progress through ‘enlightened’ prescription. With these arguments in mind, first a ‘critical approach’ to public administration for reconciling the world of thought and the world of action is presented in which the prescriptive enterprise is used to integrate theory and practice. Second, a set of principles for ‘enlightened’ prescription is formulated to ensure that the knowledge claims that emerge from this process remain as rigorously conceived as possible. And third, a methodology is developed through the use of a logical framework matrix to provide both a practical device for evaluating the utility of public administration research for public action and to draw attention to putative problems in research in terms of theorization, method, data analysis and synthesis - thus demonstrating the benefit of ‘enlightened’ prescription to both the study of public administration and its practice.