Public Policy and Politics

Transcription

1 Public Policy and Politics Series Editors: Colin Fudge and Robin Hambleton Public policy-making in Western democracies is confronted by new pressures. Central values relating to the role of the state, the role of markets and the role of citizenship are now all contested and the consensus built up around the Keynesian welfare state is under challenge. New social movements are entering the political arena; electronic technologies are transforming the nature of employment; changes in demographic structure are creating heightened demands for public services; unforeseen social and health problems are emerging; and, most disturbing, social and economic inequalities are increasing in many countries. How governments - at international, national and local levels - respond to this developing agenda is the central focus of the Public Policy and Politics series. Aimed at a student, professional, practitioner and academic readership, it aims to provide up-todate, comprehensive and authoritative analyses of public policymaking in practice. The series is international and interdisciplinary in scope and bridges theory and practice by relating the substance of policy to the politics of the policy-making process.

2 Public Policy and Politics Series Editors: Colin Fudge and Robin Hambleton PUBLISHED Kate Ascher, The Politics of Privatisation: Contracting Out Public Services Rob Atkinson and Graham Moon, Urban Policy in Britain: The City, the State and the Market Jacqueline Barron, Gerald Crawley and Tony Wood, Councillors in Crisis: The Public and Private Worlds of Local Councillors Danny Burns, Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett, The Politics of Decentralisation: Revitalizing Local Democracy Aram Eisenschitz and Jamie Gough, The Politics of Local Economic Policy: The Problems and Possibilities of Local Initiative Christopher Ham, Health Policy in Britain: The Politics and Organisation of the National Health Service (third edition) Ian Henry, The Politics of Leisure Policy Peter Malpass and Alan Murie, Housing Policy and Practice (fourth edition) Robin Means and Randall Smith, Community Care: Policy and Practice Gerry Stoker, The Politics of Local Government (2nd edition) FORTHCOMING Robin Hambleton, An Introduction to Local Policy-Making Clive Harris, Michael Keith and John Solomos, Racial Inequality and Public Policy Patsy Healey, Places We Could Make: The Future of Environmental Planning Kieron Walsh, Public Services and Market Mechanisms

3 The Politics of Decentralisation Revitalising Local Democracy Danny Burns Robin Hambleton Paul Hoggett M MACMILLAN

4 Danny Burns, Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1994 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG2l 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copy-edited and typeset by Povey-Edmondson Okehampton and Rochdale, England Series Standing Order (Public Policy and Politics) If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are published, you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the UK we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG2l 2XS, England

5 For our parents

6 Contents List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Guide to Reading the Book Xl Xll XIV PART I THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE 1 The Crisis in Local Government Introduction 3 3 Decentralisation versus markets 5 Local government and economic restructuring 7 The political space for local government 10 Big is beautiful - local government in the 1970s 13 The local government battles of the 1980s 16 Driving forces for change: exit, voice and selfimprovement 21 Conclusion 27 2 Rethinking Local Democracy 30 Introduction 30 Empowerment strategies 31 Developing the voice option 34 The four Cs: clients, customers, consumers, citizens 38 Treating people as clients 39 The customer revolution 41 Consumer power 43 Strengthening citizenship 46 Conclusion 50 3 The Character of Local Political Innovation 52 Introduction 52 Two inner-city areas - Islington and Tower Hamlets 53 The political origins of decentralisation in Islington 56 The decentralisation strategy in Islington 60 The political origins of decentralisation in Tower Hamlets 64 Vll

7 Vlll Contents The decentralisation strategy in Tower Hamlets Constructions of 'community' The nature of political innovation PART II DECENTRALISED MANAGEMENT 4 Neighbourhood Decentralisation and the New Public Management 81 Introduction 81 New forms of organisation and management 81 The new public management 83 Neighbourhood management 85 Localisation 89 Flexibility 94 Devolved management 101 Cultural change 104 Linking the components of decentralisation Shaking up the Bureaucracies 111 Introduction 111 The organisation and political structures in Islington and Tower Hamlets 112 Localisation - getting closer to the public 114 The impact of localisation on service priorities 121 Restructuring for flexibility 124 Devolved management 132 Central control and local autonomy 136 Devolved management and service efficiency 140 Paying for local democracy? 142 Cultural change 143 Conclusion 146 Decentralised Management: Lessons from Experience 149 PART III DECENTRALISED DEMOCRACY 6 Citizen Participation: Theory and Practice Introduction Participation, choice and control Spheres of citizen power A ladder of citizen empowerment

8 Contents ix Citizen non-participation Citizen participation Citizen control Rethinking the boundaries of citizen control 7 Enhancing Participatory Democracy: Islington Introduction The development of proposals for neighbourhood participation The neighbourhood forums: scope and purpose The neighbourhood forums: membership and organisation The composition of the forums The operation of the forums Forums and organisational responsiveness Forums and political education Forums and empowerment Conclusion 8 Extending Representative Democracy: Tower Hamlets Introduction Giving power back to local representatives The neighbourhood committees Participation: whose voices are heard? The politicisation of community Old wine in new bottles Liberalism and racism in Tower Hamlets Decentralised Democracy: Lessons from Experience PART IV BEYOND DECENTRALISATION 9 Fragmented Communities and the Challenge to Democracy Introduction Concepts of community Reflections 9n a public meeting Imagined communities Communities of interest The idea of civil society: a plea for realism The democracy project

9 x Contents The opportunistic state 246 A funny thing happened on the way to the forum Local Democracy beyond the Local State 252 Introduction 252 Rolling back the frontiers of local government 253 Re-empowering local government 256 Varieties of democracy 262 Consuming politics? 266 Empowering who? 269 Democracy without bureaucracy 270 A pluralistic public service 273 A new vision for the public sphere 277 The 'general good' 280 Bibliography 283 Index 296

10 List of Tables and Figures Tables 5.1 Borough-wide housing capital expenditure and allocation in Tower Hamlets, 1982/3-1990/ Rent arrears: Islington, Tower Hamlets, all London boroughs 'Central' staffing levels in Tower Hamlets Voter turnout in London Borough elections, Figures 1.1 Public service reform strategies Ways of strengthening voice in local government Relationships between people and the council The neighbourhoods in Islington and Tower Hamlets Typical structure of a neighbourhood office in Islington ( ) Typical complaints about public service bureaucracies Possible objectives of decentralisation Neighbourhood decentralisation: an ideal-type model Levels of devolved resource control Basic features of decentralisation in Islington and Tower Hamlets Typical structure of a neighbourhood office in Islington (1992) The neighbourhood office structure in Globe Town, Tower Hamlets Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation Spheres of citizen power A ladder of citizen empowerment Tower Hamlets: percentage increase in voter turnout by ward, Varieties of democracy 264 Xl

11 Acknowledgements A large number of people have helped us to develop the ideas set out in this book and to produce the finished volume. First, we would like to record our thanks to colleagues and friends at the School for Advanced Urban Studies, University of Bristol. We were all involved with the Decentralisation Research and Information Centre when it was based at the School in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Numerous staff worked in or with the Centre and we learnt a great deal from them. These included: Lorraine Cantle, Cynthia Galliers, Lucy Gaster, Syd Jeffers, Lyn Harrison, Murray Stewart and Marilyn Taylor. Our wider debt to the academic community both here in the United Kingdom and elsewhere is recorded in the Bibliography. Another large group of people who have contributed significantly to the development of the thinking in this book are the hundreds of councillors, officers and activists we have worked with in training, consultancy and research activities. The insights they have provided have been invaluable. Although this book draws on the research and consultancy we have been engaged in for over ten years, the detailed case study of developments in the London Boroughs of Islington and Tower Hamlets was made possible by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) covering a two-year period ( ). We enjoyed an enormous amount of help and support, not only from members and officers in the two authorities, but also from people living in our case-study neighbourhoods. Our findings are based on a range of research methods, including documentary research, some 300 interviews, and a small number of group interviews. We also attended numerous council meetings, committee meetings, party political meetings, chief officer meetings, neighbourhood management team meetings, service delivery team meetings, neighbourhood forums, neighbourhood forum subcommittees and meetings of tenants' associations. Among the many people who have helped, we would, however, like to single out a few because of the special support they have Xll

12 Acknowledgements Xlll given us: Liz du Parcq for her many detailed comments on the Islington case study; Terry Rich for his help throughout the research and for his work on the survey of neighourhood forums drawn on in Chapter 7; Adrian Franklin, who worked extensively with Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett during the second year of the ESRC research and who provided many of the ideas concerning the construction of community which are developed in Chapter 3; Frank Tolan, who worked with us during much of the first year of research and who was particularly helpful to us in developing frameworks for considering the impact of decentralisation on service delivery; and Colin Fudge and our publisher Steven Kennedy, whose feedback helped considerably as we put together the final drafts of this book. And finally thanks to Jenny Capstick and Margaret Criddle who provided secretarial support both during the research and the ensuing period when the book was written, and, in particular, special thanks to Lorraine Cantle for typing the final manuscript. DANNY BURNS ROBIN HAMBLETON PAUL HOGGETT

13 Guide to Reading the Book Local government in the United Kingdom is having to change and adapt as never before. The driving forces for change are many and varied - they include new public expectations about the role of local government in a changing society, a constant flow of interventions from central government restricting local initiative, and new ideas about the nature of good management in public service organisations. In this book we suggest that neighbourhood decentralisation - that is, decentralisation below the level of the local authority - offers a promising way forward for public service reform. A sound local government system needs to combine good management with democratic accountability. Decentralisation offers an attractive alternative to market models because it has the potential not only to provide responsive, high-quality services, but also a range of possibilities for strengthening citizen involvement in the governing process. The book is in four parts. Part I explains the context within which neighbourhood decentralisation has shifted from the periphery to the centre of debates about local government and local democracy. Part II concentrates on the management dimensions of decentralisation while Part III considers the way that decentralisation can be used to democratise public services. Part IV moves the debate beyond decentralisation to examine the notion of community and to put forward a range of suggestions for revitalising local democracy. Chapter 1 sketches the outlines of the current crisis in local government. It suggests that change in local government cannot be divorced from wider national and international socioeconomic forces which shape the context for local political action. Three major reform strategies for public services - the extension of markets, new managerialism and the extension of democracy - are considered. Chapter 2 stresses the importance of thinking more deeply about the nature of local democracy. It explores alternative ways of xiv

14 Guide to Reading the Book xv empowenng people in relation to the organisations that are intended to serve them. It suggests that, in a public service context, the 'exit' mechanism is, on the whole, flawed and that the alternative strategy of developing 'voice' deserves much more attention. The analysis of four key words used to describe the public - clients, customers, consumers and citizens - suggests that future strategies relating to the strengthening of local democracy should concentrate on the development of citizenship. Chapter 3 grounds the discussion by focusing on the nature of local political innovation in the inner London boroughs of Islington and Tower Hamlets. These two local authorities have gone further in developing multi-service neighbourhood offices than any other councils in the country. The chapter shows how political activists in the two boroughs were, notwithstanding the suffocating controls imposed by central government, able to use various forms of decentralisation to drive forward significant innovation at local level. Chapter 4 sets out a new framework for understanding decentralised management. It shows how moves towards neighbourhood decentralisation can be situated within broader shifts in the private and the public sectors towards new forms of organisation and management - a shift which seeks to create 'freedom within boundaries'. Following a discussion of the possible objectives of decentralisation an ideal-type model of neighbourhood decentralisation is put forward. This suggests that there are four interlocking dimensions of decentralisation: (i) localisation; (ii) flexibility; (iii) devolved management; and (iv) organisational culture change. These dimensions are discussed and illustrated with practical examples drawn mainly from UK local government. Chapter 5 uses the framework developed in Chapter 4 to conduct an evaluation of decentralised management in Islington and Tower Hamlets. The organisational structures for decentralisation in the two boroughs are described and then each of the four dimensions of decentralisation is discussed in turn. It is hoped that the framework and its application will be useful to local authorities and other organisations wanting to reflect on and develop their own approach to decentralised management. Chapter 6 examines the concept of citizen participation. It reviews existing concepts and puts forward a new ladder of citizen participation. This has twelve rungs, ranging from civic hype at the

15 xvi Guide to Reading the Book bottom to interdependent control at the top. The new framework identifies three main zones on the ladder: citizen non-participation; citizen participation; and citizen control, and illustrates the discussion with examples drawn mainly from UK local government. Chapter 7 appraises Islington's efforts to develop public participation in local government through a system of twenty-four neighbourhood forums. This imaginative reform has increased public involvement in the borough and helped local people identify shared concerns and priorities for action. Chapter 8 examines the system of neighbourhood committees in Tower Hamlets and shows how these have strengthened councillor power in the borough and almost certainly increased voter turnout in local elections. While Islington and Tower Hamlets are to be praised for the boldness of their initiatives, the limitations of both models are also considered. Chapter 9 revisits long-standing debates about the notion of 'community'. It distinguishes various concepts - communities of interest, imagined communities and communities of place - and suggests that the word 'community' is used far too loosely in ongoing policy debates. Using a cameo of a public meeting in east London the chapter shows how local communities are often fragmented and in conflict, and that this poses a major challenge to local political leadership. Chapter 10 sets out a new vision for local democracy in the UK - one in which local authorities have far more power and develop an outward-looking role designed to shape the local social, economic and cultural environment, as well as extending public accountability into a wide range of public and private institutions which have an impact on the lives of local people. The chapter outlines ways in which local democracy can be reinvigorated by developing the democratic capacity of civil society.