The ‘Detroit question’ and Parish Councils

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Ian Briggs

The agenda on public service integration continues apace: discrete organisations working together in partnership has been the ideal in the past, but we are now in a world where the boundaries between organisations are becoming blurred and important questions are being asked again around the overall structure of our public services.

We recently hosted an interesting roundtable for Police and Crime Commissioners here at INLOGOV where the debate somewhat expectantly turned to the potential advantages of gathering the so called ‘Blue Light’ services together. Indeed, there has been a lot of progress in this field: certain first responder paramedic services can and are delivered by fire fighters and there are other examples of this integration which make a great deal of sense. It makes sense economically and, importantly, from the public perspective it makes sense too. Little attention is paid by a citizen or service user as long as the need is met and the service adds value. So we can safely say that some useful, realistic and economically advantageous integration projects are now well underway.

However, there is one aspect of integration that is rarely discussed but appears to be gathering a bit more attention recently. It goes something like this…. “As a District Council we are a billing authority, we send out the council tax bills and residents can see proportionately where their council tax is being spent. They can see that a proportion is retained by us; they can see a fair bit goes to the county council, the Fire service and police and little bit at the end is called the precept for the Parish Council. When we look at the totality for the parish and town councils precept it adds up to a fair sum. Why is it that when we can hardly afford the electricity bill to keep the lights on in our district council, the parishes and town councils have a load of loot?”

The councillor in this conversation also goes on to say that they have invested a great deal of time and energy in reshaping services and entered into complex partnering arrangements to bring efficiency benefits for us and the county, but “we seem to have overlooked the role of parish and town councils”. Looking recently at one multi tier area in the West Midlands that is heavily and actively parished suggests that the total precept adds up to quite a few million pounds; a rough calculation also suggests that for most town and parish councils they have discretionary control over more than half of their budgets (according to CLG the total English council precept for town and parish councils is over £540m -2013/13).

Decisions on spend, often set against some reasonably realistic and thoughtful parish plans, do deliver real and appreciated benefits for local communities but those parish plans, whilst submitted for approval to the district council (the billing authority in question), are administratively accepted and gather dust just to be treated as another bit of ‘administrivia’.

Granted, some councils are working well with their parish and town councils. They go beyond mere consultation and actively engage them in priority setting and are working towards much stronger integrated working, but that is not the case in many instances. There must some mileage in extending this debate to have a near seamless integration of priorities and social outcomes that dig deep into the work that parish councils do. Why is it that when the parish council budget is set it often accounts for a myriad of small contracts that are judged upon their worthiness but are rarely bound into the higher order outcomes that higher tier councils are working towards? It is logical to think that where a parish council has responsibility for open spaces and its efficacy in the management of those places is judged upon how effectively the grass is cut that those same open spaces are a resource that can have a significant role in meeting outcomes around public health, wellbeing, youth activities and a whole host more that are sought in higher tier councils.

The problem here is twofold – firstly it is rare for local parish and town councils to be engaged with these issues and secondly it is equally rare for many higher tier councils to even try to do so. There are also the attendant issues of poor integration of expenditure and budgets.

Although I have tried to bring together neighbouring parishes to coordinate and share their basic contracts (as a kind of horizontal integration that brings an economy of scale) little has been achieved and there has been little progress in taking this debate upward too.  As we are becoming more outcomes focused it is somewhat surprising that more is not done to encourage an integrative approach to what parish councils are doing on the ground and what the higher tier councils are seeking to achieve in this respect.

There have been some recent initiatives that have sought to bring this about – Selby in North Yorkshire should be commended for their approach to grouping parish and town councils and one county in the West Midlands that we are aware of has undertaken some preliminary work to engage with parish ad town councils better. However, where there have been some attempts to bring about this vertical integration, some resistance can be found too. It centres on the lack of focus on larger more holistic outcomes to be found in some, though perhaps not all parish and town councils and the potential lack of administrative and client skills they can call upon. But there may also be a lack of will on behalf of higher tier councils to stimulate this debate – it can be a tall order to effectively engage with a varied and disparate group of organisations that quite rightly guard their independence and local connectivity and in some cases district councils can have upwards of hundreds of parishes to deal with – engaging with them can be resource intensive in the extreme.

So, as some councils are facing highly uncertain futures – there is some polemic in the media about a handful of councils pulling up the shutters soon – it might be time to open this debate up and look at where there could be useful approaches to vertical integration in local government. It might be the first step in avoiding a UK Detroit.

briggs

Ian Briggs is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Local Government Studies. He has research interests in the development and assessment of leadership, performance coaching, organisational development and change, and the establishment of shared service provision.

Examining citizen participation: theory and practice

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Laurens de Graaf

As a researcher of citizen participation I often discuss the functioning of local democracy with, among others, councillors, officers and citizens. These discussions are showing that knowledge of democratic theory in the field is not often very present.

Partly, this is understandable –if the field consisted of political scientists only, would democracy function at all? But it seems as if limited knowledge about democracy creates some practical problems. To put it more precisely, the perspective on democracy appears to depend on the slogan: ‘where you sit is where you stand’. Councillors see themselves as guardians of democracy, because they are (the only ones) elected, and are the representatives of the people. Officers don’t often understand the (seemingly) irrational decisions councillors make and see democracy often as frustrating for their policy process. Citizens are distant observers and only a few committed citizens are actually participating in democratic processes.

Councillors and officers have been aiming for (more) citizen participation since the 1990s. But what effect does citizen participation have on local democracy?

Citizen participation is vital to democracy

Citizen participation is usually seen as a vital aspect of democracy. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. Theories of participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and social capital assert that citizen involvement has positive effects on democracy. It contributes to the inclusion of individual citizens in the policy process, it encourages civic skills and civic virtues, it leads to rational decisions based on public reasoning, and it increases the legitimacy of the process and outcome. These aspects are summarized in the table below.

Aspects of democracy Clarification Theoretical Perspective
Inclusion Allow individual voices to be heard (openness; diversity of opinions) Social capital & Deliberative democracy
Civic skills and virtues Civic skills (debating public issues, running a meeting) and civic virtues (public engagement and responsibility, feeling a public citizen, active participation in public life, reciprocity) Participatory democracy & Social capital
Deliberation Rational decisions based on public reasoning (exchange of arguments and shifts of preferences) Deliberative democracy
Legitimacy Support for process and outcome Participatory democracy

Table: Aspects of citizen participation and democracy; a framework for analysis

What councillors and officers are telling me is that they are not fully aware of all these different aspects, but like the overview. It helps them to reflect on democracy from different angels.

Local participatory policymaking in the Netherlands

My article – co-authored by Ank Michels – examines the probability of these claims for local participatory policymaking projects in two municipalities in the Netherlands. However, I think that the claims can also be applied to local democracy in the UK and other countries. The article focuses on the relations between citizens and government from a citizens’ perspective.

The findings show that the role of citizens in participatory projects is limited, serving mainly to provide information on the basis of which the government can then make decisions. Nevertheless, the article argues that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on local democracy: not only do people consequently feel more responsibility for public matters, it increases public engagement, encourages people to listen to a diversity of opinions, and contributes to a higher degree of legitimacy of decisions. One negative effect is that not all relevant groups and interests are represented. The article concludes that for a healthy democracy at the local level, aspects of democratic citizenship are more important than having a direct say in decision-making.

Reflecting on the functioning of (your local) democracy can be a fruitful exercise once in a while. The framework of analysis that was presented here may help, among others, councillors, officers and citizens to understand democracy more broadly and empathise with (each) other’s perspectives and roles.

A full account of this research is available in my recent article with Ank Michels: ‘Examining Citizen Participation: Local Participatory Policy-making and Democracy’. Local Government Studies 36 (4), 477-491.

Laurens de Graaf is a lecturer at Tilburg School of Politics and Public Administration, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. In the last ten years he conducted theoretical and empirical research with regard to citizens participation and in a broader sense: the functioning of local democracy. He is often in the field moderating workshops and trainings for councillors, mayors, active citizens and (neighbourhood) professionals about their role and their potential added value to local democracy.

Reflecting on the doctoral take-over

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Stephen Jeffares

Over the last ten days the INLOGOV blog has reflected some of the great talent we currently have within our PhD cohort. INLOGOV has 28 students, a quarter of which are part time and working in public service. We like to think this gives a distinct flavour to our programme.

The blog over recent days profiled some of the great work among current students and reflections from previous INLOGOV graduates of our doctoral programme.

Becky outlined her current work exploring the role of evidence in decisions around High Speed 2, Abena’s blog compared how western and non-western states have differing approaches to public management, George described the relationship between financial crisis and citizen participation in Greece, and Thai student Pobsook offered her reflections on her first year of PhD study. Abena, George and Pobsook’s posts reflect the international dimension to our programme, with students from the USA, south east Asia, the middle east and continental Europe.

They also reflect our culture of sharing work in progress among peers. This culture is reflected in our monthly PhD showcase sessions, where researchers share their work with the department. We deliberatively hold the session in our open corridor space rather than a seminar room – although sometimes cramped and with a limited view of the projector screen, this offers an opportunity to get together to discuss ideas and eat cake.

Back to the blog. Tom’s post explored a growing theme in local government, the advance of digital technology and the preparedness of public services to make the most of these opportunities. INLOGOV’s blog and Twitter followership continues to grow, something we think is a reflection of the increased use of social media platforms among today’s policy actors. Pete reflected on blogging itself as a means for doctoral researchers to develop an academic profile, develop networks and refine their arguments.

Our former students have reflected a diverse range of post-PhD experiences in their blog posts. Four of the posts, from Tatum (now a Research Fellow in the University of Birmingham’s Business School), Katie (a Research Fellow here at INLOGOV), Thom (now at Oxford Brookes) and Mark Roberts (at De Montfort) are examples of how many of our doctoral researchers secure academic positions after leaving us. Mark Ewbank’s blog also demonstrated how many of our students carve out successful careers in public service after graduation.

For more information on applying to our doctoral programme please see our website or contact Stephen Jeffares.

jeffares-stephen

Stephen Jeffares is a Roberts Fellow in the College of Social Sciences based in INLOGOV, and is also INLOGOV’s Director of Doctoral Research.  His fellowship focuses on the role of ideas in the policy process and implications for methods.  He is a specialist in Q methodology and other innovative methods to inform policy analysis.

Finding an academic home

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Mark Roberts

I graduated from Birmingham in 2008 and initially found it difficult to leave INLOGOV, where I enjoyed my time completing my PhD. However I live near Leicester and, by chance, shortly after I left INLOGOV several friends and colleagues moved to the Local Government Research Unit at De Montfort University. Initially I took on a number of short term contracts as a visiting research fellow, mainly helping with field research on public participation and neighbourhood working. The turning point came when, encouraged by colleagues at DMU, I apply for a Research Fellowship with the Arts and Humanities Research Council which was focused on a Citizen Power project in Peterborough.

While I wasn’t successful in gaining the fellowship itself, I was offered an award from the AHRC for a research project on Understanding the Impacts of Citizen Participation in Peterborough. This award funded my work on a more stable basis for two years and, in addition to reports and journal papers, one of the outputs from that research is an RSA animation aimed at disseminating the main findings to a non-academic audience.

When I was not interviewing and observing in Peterborough, I was teaching and working on a book with Vivien Lowndes. We had a common interest in applying institutional theory to political analysis and she had a contract with Palgrave Macmillan to write a book on the subject. We put together some draft chapters pretty quickly and tested them out by going up to the Politics Department at the University of Sheffield, where Vivien gave some masterclasses to postgraduate students. The feedback we received from that and other reviewers was very positive and we ploughed on.

I should have learned from the PhD process, I guess, that the actual writing is only half the battle, and getting the thing ready for publication (references, indices, blurb, text for the cover) can take a long time. Anyway, the book was published on 31st May of this year in the Palgrave Macmillan Political Analysis series under the title ‘Why Institutions Matter: the New Institutionalism in Political Science‘, and has been a source of both surprise and amusement to my friends and family.

Perhaps the best advice I was given after graduating was from my PhD supervisor and was about finding ‘an academic home’. That can be quite difficult for many graduates who may have spent four, five or more years in the same academic environment. I have been lucky that DMU was on my doorstep and a number of colleagues moved there at the same time. From here I aim to keep the same balance going between teaching, research and writing, making sure I get out into the field as often as possible, and keep in touch with friends and colleagues from INLOGOV and elsewhere.

roberts

Mark Roberts is a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at De Montfort University, Leicester. His research interests include citizen participation, neighbourhood working, new institutional theory, interpretive analysis and the influence of religion and race in urban politics. Before completing his PhD at INLOGOV, Dr Roberts worked in local authority social work for twenty nine years, with his last post being Deputy Director of Social Services in Sandwell MBC in the West Midlands.

Different expectations and different contexts

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Thom Oliver

At first glance the shelves in my office look pretty incongruous, dust jacketed local government case studies from the 1960s lined up alongside books on gender quotas and corporate governance codes. That’s the real challenge I think post PhD, finding your space and constructing your narrative in a congested, time pressured and often opportunistic realm.

Having left INLOGOV following my PhD (which explored the representative role of councillors operating on appointed mandates) in 2011, I now find myself on a three year post doctoral fellowship in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics at Oxford Brookes Business School. Like many of my peers following the PhD I fully anticipated few opportunities for much autonomy in any of my first post PhD roles, perhaps a 12 month stint on someone else’s project or a 1 year fixed term teaching contract. Therefore I consider myself very fortunate to have found a position where I can endeavour to carve out a self defined niche. But therein lays the challenge, where to concentrate focus.

The initial answer is obvious, the clear expectation post submission is to publish in quality journals, taking into account the impending REF exercise, the changing context of publishing and journal access, and addressing the developing impact agenda (as discussed last week on this blog by Katherine Tonkiss). This post however considers some of the softer expectations, opportunities and challenges of the shift from PhD to Postdoc.

New environments and new challenges

The first challenge I think comes with adapting to a new work context, beyond moving from an individual to more collaborative way of working. The movement from a research intensive institute to a department with a clear teaching focus presents a significant challenge. The expectation comes with a need not just to do the research but to increase capacity and foster an environment within the department which draws others into an active research culture. As many of my peers at other institutions will attest very few departments can claim a coherent and collaborative interplay between teaching and research.

Building collaboration and capacity

In aiming towards a form of sustainable employment within research a clear bidding strategy has to go hand in hand with a publishing strategy. The first questions arise around what to bid for, what is achievable and what would offer a clear trajectory to a more substantial bid? Also in a new environment there is a challenge to build new collaborations to form a stronger platform from which to bid. In my case I have been very fortunate, my colleague and mentor Professor Laura Spira has been a helpful and supportive collaborator enabling us to quickly pick the lower hanging fruit of institutional seed corn funding and explore the options for a seminar series bid and more substantial amounts from Leverhulme and the British Academy. Throughout we have been able to develop a fuller understanding of the theoretical stances and methodological approaches of each other’s specialisms whilst benefiting from the contrast to our own disciplinary baggage. The value derived from openness to different literatures and ways of thinking can be immense.

Catching currents and developing contexts

There is also scope to benefit from developing policy context and agendas. The recent backdrop of localism and the mayoral model has also offered opportunities for development. Living in Bristol the unfolding drama of a successful referendum followed by the surprise election of an independent mayor in George Ferguson has given opportunities for bits of media work as well the capture of some interesting attitudinal data of both voters and councillors on the implications of the mayoral model. The opportunity to build a network of non-academic contacts within a local government context has also helped to translate conceptual ideas and test the viability of more applied research locally. Maybe a case of locality and good fortune but couple that with some deskwork, legwork and networking and perhaps there are the foundations of a feasible research project. It can be a lot of work over a short period of time but being on the cusp of a developing research agenda has not only delivered timely data but also allowed me to speak to new policy debates.

Building a new support network

From sharing an office with the now Drs Ewbank, Tonkiss and Matharu during my PhD to sitting in an office of my own, there was a strong need to find people to bounce ideas off for the sake of sanity, creativity and development. Whilst I have great contacts within my department at Brookes and back to INLOGOV, I have made a conscious effort to build contacts with academics both locally in Bristol and across a number of disciplines (Law, Political Science and Public Policy). This has been an element which has proved really important in helping build both my confidence and helping me develop my network further. I am very fortunate to count a number of non-Brookes colleagues as critical friends, whether I met them at conferences, at policy events, job interviews or just through a tentative email. From these connections I may hear about conferences, funding calls, potential jobs, as well as the potential to develop collaborative research proposals. As an early career researcher there is something hugely valuable about having an experienced friend to answer career advice questions or get some comments back on a paper. Of course it works both ways, for them too there is an opportunity to bounce an idea around or sketch out a research paper. The investment of time and opportunism in making contact has been immensely rewarded and to each of these friends I am hugely grateful.

Coming out of the PhD there is a big new challenging environment, in aiming to carve out my place in this environment the challenges laid out have been diverse, to adapt to new contexts and working environments, to build collaboration and capacity, and to adapt to address fast moving research agendas. Whilst it’s clear that to progress you need first authored publications and being principal investigator on bids there are many challenges and opportunities which can help you get there. My research now sits broadly under the theme of public governance, representation and accountability, my current funded research project is exploring the how public sector non executive directors consider their role, representation and accountability. A strong conceptual and methodological thread remains from my time at INLOGOV and it’s around this thread my research is developing. My development is as much due to others as to myself. I have learned that the benefit from continuing to expand your network is crucial and makes any future achievements both more manageable and more likely.

oliver

Dr Thom Oliver is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes Business School. He completed his PhD, exploring the representative role of councillors on appointed bodies, at INLOGOV in 2011. He currently lives in Bristol and has recently rejoined INLOGOV as an Associate. Follow his Twitter account here, and read his own blog here.

HS2: the importance of evidence

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Rebecca O’Neill

Large infrastructure planning projects are often met with much controversy and debate. This is partly due to the risks involved and the conflicting views amongst actors. One such project is the proposed high-speed railway to London from Birmingham, the North of England and potentially Scotland; better known as High Speed Two (HS2). After the project received an amber-red rating in May from the Major Projects Authority (MPA) annual report there is every reason for people to be concerned. An amber-red project is defined as follows:

‘Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas. Urgent action is needed to ensure these are addressed, and whether resolution is feasible’.

So the questions that must be asked are what evidence supports the project and how should we analyse the debate? The evidence in favour of the project is largely based on predictive models and statistical data. One would think that after the financial crisis of 2008, people would not be so quick to base decisions on rational predictive models. Or that after the cost overruns and benefit shortfalls of HS1 (the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) supporters of HS2 would be less optimistic in their forecasts. However, advocates of the project believe that the project is both viable and necessary to tackle over-capacity issues on the West Coast Main Line.

There are a number of ways of analysing the debate. One such way is through an evidence-based policy making lens. This approach argues that once a policy problem is identified then research evidence will fill the knowledge gap thus solving the problem. For advocates of evidence-based policy making, ‘the task of the researcher is to make accurate observations about objective reality, ensuring that error and bias are eliminated by isolating variables in order to be able to identify cause-effect relationships’. These experimental methods are usually in the form of statistical analysis and they rely heavily on quantitative data. So evidence must be about ‘facts’ that tend to prove or disprove a conclusion. Evidence-based policy making has underlying positivist assumptions that it is possible to have a value-free science. It assumes that there is an objective truth ‘out there’ and if researchers adopt a certain approach then they will find the answer to the wicked issues and social problems we are facing.

If we utilise the evidence-based policy making approach then I must come to these conclusions:

  • The actors within HS2 are rational actors who have systematically collected scientific, rigorous evidence to support their claims and their decisions are rational and value-free.
  • If there is a conflict of evidence then this is either because the actors have not behaved rationally, they have allowed emotions and values to shadow their decisions or the evidence has flaws in terms of quality and methodology.
  • Those opposed to the project have an argument based on ideologies and less systematic and rigorous evidence.

However, I propose (along with many others) that the policy process is messy, that actors are rarely rational, that evidence is not necessarily ‘out there’ waiting to be found and that assuming more information will provide policy makers with the solution is wrong. The policy process is better viewed as an arena in which actors present claims and attempt to persuade their audience that these claims are true through the presentation of evidence and persuasion. The claims made by actors within the process are based on a variety of different evidence ranging from personal opinion to rigorous, scientific evidence. A good claims-maker will have mastered the art of appealing to a range of audiences, shaping and presenting their evidence in a way that best suits their audience. The concept of evidence-based policy making does not acknowledge the role of humans in this sense.

In the case of HS2, claims were made about the West Coast main line (WCML) stating that it was almost at full capacity as well as claiming that the UK needed to modernise its railway infrastructure. They did not simply claim that it was the right thing to do; rather they captured existing discourses within society such as modernisation and economic growth. The claims-making framework enables us to explain why unfounded anecdotes can easily override rigorous scientific effort and investment. It also explains why some evidence is accepted over other evidence.

For a long time supporters of the project dismissed counter-claims and evidence arguing that the NIMBYs were being selfish, that the project was for the greater good and that they were preventing much needed modernisation. However, more and more people are questioning the claims being presented by HS2 Limited and their followers.  In practice, the philosophy of ‘what works’ often takes second place to, as Russell and Greenlagh describe, ‘experiential evidence, much of which was in the form of anecdotes or generalisations based on a person’s accumulated wisdom about the topic’. Claims-making theory, therefore, provides a robust theoretical framework for examining the process of how claims are made, received, denied through counter claims, and reshaped. It also illustrates how claims and those who make them interact to formulate public policy.

o'neill

Rebecca O’Neill is a doctoral student looking at the role of evidence within High Speed Two. She has an interest in the conceptualisation of evidence, evidence-based policy making, the claims-making framework and interpretive approaches to research.