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• Cross-cutting Issues Affecting Local Government - Full Report, 1999

Local government

Cross-cutting Issues Affecting Local Government - Full Report, 1999

This report draws on research on five issues: Community Safety, Disaffected Youth, Regeneration, Social Exclusion and Sustainable Development. Published 1999.

Note: The following publication was issued by our former department, DETR. All references in the text to DETR now refer to Communities and Local Government.

Executive Summary

Introduction

There is growing recognition that many of the challenges facing society require a joint response by central and local government, often involving many departments, agencies and local authority functions. But joint working has not proved easy, and policy implementation suffers as a result. This report draws on research on five issues: Community Safety, Disaffected Youth, Regeneration, Social Exclusion and Sustainable Development, and involved interviews in central government, a review of the literature, and case studies in six localities - Cheshire/Chester, Mendip/Somerset, Newcastle, Sheffield, Thurrock, and Tower Hamlets.

The literature relating to central local relations and to policy implementation provides an understanding of the processes involved. Understanding of the developing tensions within central-local relations, studies of new contractual and multi-agency delivery systems, and learning about organisational interests and internal circuits of power from organisational sociology all challenge a linear 'top down' model of policy implementation in relation to cross-cutting issues. Tensions within and between different 'players' leads to an implementation gap. To understand these tensions we need to look at the drivers for organisational behaviour.

A whole systems framework

A 'whole-system' approach derived from studies of organisational behaviour seeks to understand the behaviour of 'organisational players' in terms of the influences of drivers and counter-drivers within the 'whole system', which can interact to generate problematic patterns of behaviour. It demands recognition of the interaction of all key agencies at central and local government levels. The main features of the model are nine key 'system elements' - direction, consultation, structure, systems, organisation, culture, capacity motivation and evaluation. odpm_locgov_023832-2.gif

Research Findings

In none of the cross-cutting issues is there an unambiguously defined central government definition either of the 'problem' or the desired outcomes. There is little agreement about cause and effect and therefore about 'what works' - and, in particular, what preventative measures may be effective, or what the balance should be between alleviation of current symptoms and longer term measures.

At the local level, a wide range of innovative community involvement practice in consultation now exists and there are creative multi-lateral initiatives building sustained dialogue with communities, and engaging with previously 'unheard' groups, such as young people. Consultation by the centre has been widespread, but seen as too rushed, and there are a few listening and feedback loops allowing central or regional government to learn alongside local government.

Rigid structures - protected geographical, professional, or departmental boundaries - inhibit effective inter-organisational or inter-departmental working and make cross-cutting initiatives hard work. Departmental compartmentalisation remains strong in Whitehall, whilst inside local authorities strong departments claim most resources for mainstream and statutory responsibilities, driving cross-cutting issues to the margin. Government Offices for the Regions could offer a more integrated regional policy focus. 'Zones' offer potential for innovative integration, but clarification of the role and purpose of zone initiatives is essential if a 'zonitis' disease is to be avoided.

Systems dominate and new initiatives have often been defined in process terms, and valuable resources are often expended in setting up partnerships or project teams, in establishing working procedures, in writing bids or delivery plans. Where local capacity is weak, explicit central guidance assists these processes. But in local areas where experience of integrated working is growing and capacity is stronger, excessive system management is seen as being inflexible, unhelpful and inhibiting to joint working.

In terms of organisation at local level, new flatter management systems, horizontal working groups, and interagency projects have begun to cut across conventional structures in innovative ways. However, the pressure of mainstream departments means that responsibility and accountability for cross-cutting issues is often weaker than for conventional service delivery. Traditional bureaucratic practice, proliferation of meetings, duplication of work, maintains a hold especially at middle management level.

Policy delivery is heavily influenced by organisational culture which varies between: a compliance culture which treats new initiatives largely in terms of conforming with required procedures; a survival culture which treats new initiatives as 'noise in the system', and by indulging inertia and avoidance of taking responsibility, inducing failure to implement; 'Can-do' activism rejects constraints and obstacles and reflects a determination to make things happen (if sometimes without reflection about the real problems of implementation); whilst a culture of strategic implementation is grounded in shared thinking and understanding about the long term, joint problem ownership and sustained motivation.

New skills and capacities are essential - particularly strategic capacities, and skills in listening, negotiation, leadership through influence, partnership working, performance management and evaluation.

In terms of motivation, central government incentives and rewards tend to drive system compliance. Often completion of process (submission of delivery plan) dominates, with no additional reward or recognition for achieving real results. There are disincentives to radical thinking and action.

Evaluation remains fragile with more emphasis on monitoring or formula driven approaches to output assessment than long term outcome evaluation. Short termism remains dominant in monitoring, and evaluation for the long term (e.g. longitudinal tracking of populations, comparison of area baselines with long term impacts) is rare. Evaluation of preventive initiatives is inherently difficult methodologically, but outcome measurement is essential if cross-cutting initiatives are to be shown to be of value. The tension between the long time scale required for such initiatives to show an impact and short political time horizons is seen as the major impediment. There is insufficient rigorous analysis of the value for money of different approaches, and feedback mechanisms are weak. The lack of criteria for success means that initiatives proceed 'blind'. However, there are signs of innovative evaluation work at both local and national level.

Conclusions

A number of powerful drivers are creating conditions at local level where new and more effective responses to cross-cutting issues are possible - unitary status, new management paradigms, responsiveness to users and local communities, and recognition of a new local governance involving multi-stakeholder involvement and partnership. There is a real shift towards change, and we have found considerable positive action on cross-cutting issues at local level. There remain real difficulties, however, and even 'good practice' localities are struggling. Positive drivers towards integrated action at national and regional levels seem weaker. We found a wider range of negative drivers at regional and national level.

No single one of the nine factors can cause successful or unsuccessful implementation. If only one were to be changed, no appreciable difference would be made. Each is a contributing factor - what is important is the extent to which the several elements reinforce each other. Reinforcement can occur through a cycle of negative reinforcement or a cycle of positive reinforcement (see below), and our lessons for future action are therefore aimed at challenging or interrupting negative reinforcement, and encouraging positive reinforcement. Negative cycles need to be broken; the reinforcement of positive cycles supported.

The whole system framework is a useful diagnostic tool. The difficulties experienced in joint working to address the cross-cutting issues can be understood in terms of the often perverse interactions between elements in the system. It is important not simply to point out negative organisational or individual behaviours, but to understand the factors that contribute to these behaviours. National government and civil servants cannot see themselves as outside the system, as observers or monitors, since their actions crucially influence other players.

Breaking the cycle means working to share the definition of problems and outcomes, better learning and capacity building, clear accountability for goals and incentives for achieving them, greater local freedom to act and better evaluation of what works.

Lessons for the policy process

We believe that the policy process for cross-cutting issues would be improved if the following changes were to be made (a more detailed set of lessons for future policy management can be found later on in the document).

Direction

• Set time aside to agree definitions of problems, share analysis and build consistent social policy goals (locally and nationally).
• Establish practice exchange bringing together local, regional and central government - across professional boundaries - including multiple stakeholders and community representatives.
• Make clear which problems and outcomes are to be defined at national level - and where problems, strategies and outcomes should be defined locally, and align the processes and systems to make this possible.
• Key local stakeholders - central and local - should set time aside to explore and analyse local cross-cutting issues, and develop shared local outcome goals and strategies.
• Politicians and policy makers, centrally and locally, need to recognise the value of long term early preventive measures. The political system should reflect the contribution of politicians and civil servants to longer term achievements with ministers carrying responsibility for cross-cutting issues alongside their departmental responsibilities.

Consultation

• Create opportunities for central and regional government staff to take part in consultation and learning from local communities, the voluntary sector and business.
• Develop and support innovative approaches to community consultation, encouraging local authorities to experiment and match methodologies to local needs and capacities.

Structure

• Government Offices for the Regions should play a more proactive role in bringing local knowledge into the policy process and bridging between central and local government.
• Harmonise geographical boundaries; where this is not possible, give priority to making boundaries more permeable.
• Enable the creation of new organisational forms, 'virtual organisations', integrated delivery networks with integrated systems and resources.
• Clarify the purpose of 'zones' - and align systems around them; link zone based initiatives to surrounding areas through integration and practice exchange.

Systems

• Simplify bidding systems, creating fewer hoops, more integrated monitoring, and rigorous evaluation of results (nationally and locally).
• Enable longer term, more flexible budgeting, scope to reconfigure resources, without losing tight accountability (and locally apply the same principles to non-statutory support).
• Create scope for greater experiment and innovation.
• Widen the scope for local authorities to bid for resources - to include licensing and accreditation; apply 'bright beacon' status to cross-cutting performance.

Organisation

• Encourage new political and managerial arrangements at local level - reinforced by new ways of working, accountability, management and staff support.
• Draw on learning about what makes partnerships work - building shared objectives and setting up joint training, co-location, partnering contracts etc.

Culture

• Develop greater awareness of organisational culture, using cultural diagnosis and audit to examine barriers to change and plan cultural change.
• Use performance management, appraisal, reward systems etc. to challenge system survival and system compliance behaviours.

Capacity

• Invest in capacity at all levels, including strategic capacity and new skills. Local politicians, as well as managers, need opportunities to learn.
• Encourage investment in preventive measures; set up a local venture capital fund available for long term preventative measures and for experimentation on cross-cutting issues.
• Establish a 'licensing' or 'accrediting' system which could offer individual local authorities additional powers (or probably more important, freedom from specific constraints); develop 'bright beacon' status for cross-cutting good practice.
• Disseminate good practice across professional boundaries - giving opportunities for active feedback and exploration of applicability where possible.

Motivation

• Design incentive and reward systems to reinforce effective implementation.
• Focus performance management on outcomes rather than process.
• Celebrate success; reward innovation and learning, and encouraging sensible risk taking.
• Develop local skills in risk appraisal and management.

Evaluation

• Work to improve evaluation systems, and to establish outcome measures, tackling the methodological problems identified.
• Encourage local partnerships to use pragmatic (as good as practicable) evaluation, with imperfect outcome measures rather than rely on system output measures; support local evaluation approaches.
• Engage residents/users in establishing outcome indicators and assessing the impact of interventions on their lives.

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Aims and approach

One of the long-standing observations about public policy is its failure to address issues which cut across organisational boundaries. Such policy failure has been described in terms of the failure to develop 'joined-up thinking'; programmes are described as being stored in 'silos'; departmentalism and professionalism have reinforced cultures of introspection; central-local government relations resound with 'dissonance'.

A key theme of the Government's approach in the last year has been to address the perceived absence of policy integration, and to develop policies and practices which both encourage integration and cross departmental working, and support concepts of governance - the involvement of many stakeholders from different sectors in the processes of governing (as opposed to reliance on the formal machinery of central and local government).

Early in 1998 the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) commissioned a research project from the University of the West of England (UWE) and the Office for Public Management (OPM) on the ways in which local government was affected by such cross-cutting issues, and how authorities were addressing the challenge of managing change in ways of working within and between organisations in order to address such issues.

Four issues were selected for study - sustainable development, community safety, disaffected youth, and social exclusion. In addition, given the importance of regeneration as a model for integrated working in practice, this fifth issue was added. However the focus of the research has been primarily on policy process rather than content; our concerns have been about how policy is made and delivered, not about what policies actually are. Although our research has extended into central government and other organisations with a national perspective, our primary focus has been on what is happening at local level and how this is affected by what happens in the centre.

We have looked at what is happening in six very different localities ¹ through the eyes of many different stakeholders, and a variety of organisations at central and local levels. Details of the research approach are included in Appendix 3. Inevitably we have found a great richness of experience and diversity of perception, and the report reflects the differing and sometimes conflicting views we heard as well as the many common themes. It is a feature of inter-organisational working that failure is often perceived as being 'the other person's fault'. Since players in the system are driven by their perceptions, these perceptions matter if we are seeking to understand behaviours and bring about change. ²

Change has been continuous over the past two decades, and shows no sign of abating. The public sector, under the previous government was subject to a rising tide of changes to introduce competition, develop purchaser/provider splits, transfer some functions to agencies or to the private sector, to introduce private sector management practice and to focus attention on cost reduction. There is widespread acceptance that this focused attention on efficiency rather than effectiveness. Local government faced the introduction of CCT, several changes in funding systems and consequential reductions in funding. In many county areas local government reorganisation has involved changes to two tier government and the emergence of unitary authorities.

Over the past year local government has had to respond to a succession of new policy initiatives, and a far-reaching agenda for local government reform. There is a new climate of collaboration between central and local government. Local government is keen to grasp the opportunities offered, and there are encouraging developments, but it is too early to come to definite conclusions about 'what works' in process, as with policy. But since it is the interaction of all these changes that is creating both opportunities and problems, it is important to study what is happening now rather than waiting for stability.

1.2 The Issues ³

1.2.1 Community Safety

The currently recognised term: community safety did not exist fifteen years ago. Before then 'crime prevention' was about reducing opportunities to commit crime mostly by fortifying or disabling property. Even crime prevention as a concept only became established through the situational research and guidance issued in the 1980s. Previously it had been assumed that potential criminals would be deterred by the full force of the criminal justice system. It became apparent, however, during the 1960s and 1970s, that police, courts and prisons (the main components of the criminal justice system) were having negligible impact on the huge rise in crime over that period. It was only when situational crime prevention had failed to deliver all it promised in the mid 1980s that there emerged the understanding that, as crime has so many causes and consequences, only a complex overlapping series of interventions, at the macro and micro levels, would have much effect. Thus the concept of community safety was born; a concept that also recognises the locational dimension of crime (all offences occur in some 'place/ community'). Importantly community safety recognises that there is more to the quality of life than the mere prevention of crime (even assuming that is entirely possible) - we need also to reduce fear and to support victims. However, one of the consequences of this move to a broader understanding of what constitutes a safe community, is the recognition and requirement that a far wider range of actors, than just the criminal justice professionals, need to engage with the problem. Thus community safety became a 'cross-cutting issue' that did not fit neatly within traditional boundaries of expertise and responsibility. As the Morgan Report succinctly put it: "The reality is that crime prevention is a peripheral concern for all the agencies, and a truly core activity for none of them, even those agencies which explicitly include crime prevention within their objectives, such as the police and the probation service".

1.2.2 Disaffected Youth

It is unclear whether disaffected youth have problems, or are problems. Over the years, the policy pendulum has swung from one perspective to the other, and the many agencies involved operate within fundamentally different and often conflicting paradigms.

Juvenile crime, anti-social behaviour, truancy, the disengagement of young people from democratic processes - all are seen by adult society as a threat to societal stability and order. But there is also growing recognition of the fact that in the face of global economic forces young people are increasingly marginalised in the labour market, vulnerable in the housing market, and weakly supported by benefit systems. When support from family, school, peer group, and community breaks down, this creates vulnerability and the start of cumulative disconnection from established institutions. However, it is a mistake to infer disaffection from behaviour, or to assume that disaffected young people are always fundamentally different from other young people.

The concept of 'disaffected youth' has tended to be defined by agencies working either to help young people or to deal with the consequences of their behaviour. Together with the very diverse characteristics of young people and their problems, this has contributed to a fragmented view of the issues and to lack of co-ordination in approaches. There is not and never has been a coherent response to the problems of 'disaffected youth'. Different professionals have addressed different manifestations of the problem: child abuse and family breakdown; unemployment; educational under-achievement; drugs; street homelessness; crime and anti-social behaviour. Conflicts between agencies responsible for dealing with the problems of and the problems caused by young people have inhibited cohesive action addressed at tackling root causes rather than alleviating symptoms of disaffection. Currently new programmes (e.g. New Start) together with a range of initiatives relating to youth justice, social care, education, training, housing, health and substance abuse reflect attempts to develop a more integrated approach.

1.2.3 Regeneration

Regeneration policies and programmes have evolved from the 'traditional' Urban Programme of the late 1960s and 1970s through the Inner Cities programme into a wider regeneration programme currently open to all localities, urban and rural, large and small. The focus and content of regeneration work has moved from the predominantly property and development orientation of the 1980s to the more rounded socio-economic focus of the mid 1990s. Much of the literature traces the fragmentation of institutional form and the proliferation of new single purpose agencies in the 'Thatcher years' and the emergence of a more integrated but essentially competitive and contractual regime of the 1990s.

Funding for regeneration (the Single Regeneration Budget) has in practice resourced much of what has been done in relation to Exclusion, Safety, Youth and Sustainability. Regeneration working has fostered new approaches in a number of localities unfamiliar with integrated programmes or with partnership. It has begun, however, to raise questions about the costs as well as the benefits of partnership as well as about the familiar topics such as the merits of an area based approach, the relationship with 'main' programmes, the relative merits of main programmes or special initiatives, and whether to concentrate on a small number of most disadvantaged areas. The outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review identified £800m. of spending on the New Commitment to Communities, as well as a reshaping of SRB to focus four fifths of the resources on the most deprived areas with the remainder tackling deprivation outside these areas.

1.2.4 Social Exclusion

The roots of the social exclusion debate are found in the European social policy and in the anti-poverty literature. Exclusion differs from poverty in recognising access and inaccessibility as key explanations for social disadvantage, and by identifying the systemic factors which, separately or in combination, drive marginal individuals or groups into 'exclusion'. Excluded groups are trapped by structural circumstances, and systematic reinforcement of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment is widespread - often over generations. There is, for example, a strong link between poverty, housing tenure and social exclusion as housing circumstances reflect exclusion but also reinforce and perpetuate it. Traditional structures of socialisation - family, school, work, church - no longer fulfil their accustomed function. Economic exclusion (labour market disadvantage) is reinforced by isolation from support networks (of family or welfare state), with educational and health services offered at low levels of service and/or high cost. Socio-economic exclusion is reinforced by political and sometimes legally enforced exclusion. Marginal populations may have no formal political visibility, whilst exclusion can also be formalised through the absence of rights (e.g. to welfare).

Social Exclusion has only recently entered the language of policy in the UK and is reflected in the work of the Social Exclusion Unit, where attention has initially been focused on three specific aspects - truancy and school exclusions, rough sleepers, and addressing the problems of the worst housing estates.

1.2.5 Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is one of the most widely expressed aspirations of current public policy throughout the EU and within the UK. The concept entered the international political agenda following the Brundtland Report, and has its roots in recognition of the limited carrying capacity of the natural environment, and of the inter-relatedness, on a global scale, of the problems associated with the depletion and non-renewal of resources. It attempts to draw together the paradigms of environmental science, focusing upon measurement and prediction, and those of management and social science, since it is self-evident that environmental problems can have only socio-political and socio-economic solutions. The original definition included equity and futurity as pre-requisites for the conservation and protection of resources, and the concept has now variously been extended to include aspects of community, cultural, institutional and economic well-being.

The goal of 'sustainability' is recognised as an essential ingredient across a whole range of economic and social disciplines and programmes. 'Sustainable Growth and Employment' is a key chapter in the Comprehensive Spending Review; the new duty on local councils to promote the well-being of their areas will 'put sustainable development at the heart of council decision making'. However, the breadth and all-embracing nature of the concept when defined holistically in social and economic terms creates huge practical difficulties for both policy generation and implementation. This section of the report concentrates primarily on the environmental issues since sustainability also lies at the heart of community safety and regeneration policies. Establishing cause, effect and significance, both immediate and more especially longer-term, of the many environmental consequences of human activity is in itself hugely problematic. Applying internationally agreed precautionary principles is hindered by the problems of definition, measurement, attribution of value and appropriate indicators. Conceptual difficulties are compounded by a lack of understanding and agreement as to the extent to which different elements of the capital of 'sustainability' may be substitutable, i.e. whether an increase in human knowledge can compensate for resource losses.

There is also tension between, on the one hand, the dominant UK policy paradigm which sees responsibility resting essentially in enlightened individual and community responsibility at the local level, with the state role that of facilitator; and on the other hand, the view that a top-down, internationally managed framework driving business and capital into more environmentally and socially beneficial forms of production is essential. Perhaps even more importantly, there is the inherent dichotomy in westernised economies between the traditional policies and practices of economic growth, which stress competitiveness and exploitation of 'free goods', and environmental and social well-being. The extent to which change is demanded at the core of central policy-making if development in the UK is to become sustainable is clear from the breadth and scope of the activities of the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development, and the current UK government consultation paper 'Opportunities for Change'.

1.2.6 Interaction between the issues

Although there are variations between them, the five issues chosen all interact closely one with another. In particular, social exclusion, disaffected youth, and community safety have much in common, and many of the cross-cutting, inter-organisational aspirations for young people, for safer neighbourhoods, or for social inclusion, are in practice reflected in regeneration initiatives. Sustainable development, although differing in a number of respects, raises many of the same issues - for example, about inter-organisational behaviour and community involvement. Setting boundaries to these issues in the real world is difficult and often unproductive; so it has been for the research and in consequence we have organised the bulk of the material around cross-cutting themes rather than around the five issues individually or around the six localities.

1.3 Structure of the report

Section 2 of the report draws on the literature of policy studies, organisational sociology, and political science to inform our thinking about organisational change, and presents a 'whole systems framework' around which the remainder of the report is structured. Using this framework, Section 3 presents the main empirical material drawn from the case studies and our interviews in central government, whilst Section 4 draws conclusions and Section 5 identifies some implications for the process of policy formulation and implementation.

Chapter 2: A whole systems framework

In the previous section we argued that the complex nature of cross-cutting issues demands a new approach to policy development and implementation, and that the current local government environment creates the opportunity for such change. In this section we refer briefly to the literature relating to the policy process ⁴ , and outline the whole-systems framework which we have used to analyse this process in our research.

2.1 From policy into action

The policy/implementation relationship is complex and intransigent. The literature points unambiguously to the fact that the policy/implementation chain rarely conforms to the idealised top-down linear model, and in practice there is often an 'implementation gap' in which policy does not get translated into action in the way policy makers intended. The relationship between policy and action is best understood in the light of three strands of literature - the literature of central-local state relations, the literature of implementation and the literature of organisational (and inter-organisational) political sociology.

2.1.1 Central-local state relations

One of the obvious problems has been that central policy is often implemented through local government, which has some autonomy. Much of the literature on central-local relations in the last fifteen years has been directed to discussion of the implications of Thatcherism for the centralisation of State functions and for the dilution of local autonomy and democracy in the face of the quangos of the 1980s and the 'new' public management of the first half of the 1990s. This literature has emphasised the extent to which the capacity of local government was weakened by the loss of statutory powers and duties and by a reduction in financial autonomy. The shift of functions to a range of non-local governmental bodies shifted the local balance of power in terms of implementation, although this was matched by an increasing role for the centre in terms of planning and control. Integrated Regional Offices were seen as enhancing both Town Hall and Whitehall. The Government's White Paper 'Modern Local Government' moves to a reversal of these tendencies and towards the rehabilitation of local democracy, but many of the features which have characterised change in the last twenty years will remain and local governance is moving forward rather than returning to the past.

A related, and in some ways contradictory, theme has been that of the hollowing out of the nation state. Faced with the growing influence of Brussels, the shift to agencies of much central government executive activity, and the decentralising tendencies evidenced by regionalisation and latterly a renewed local democracy, central government is increasingly focussing on 'core executive' functions. The centre does not directly run so much, but concentrates instead on maximising policy influence, and particularly influence over budgets, through what has been termed 'bureau shaping'. As the centre loses its functions, if not its budgetary control, so it becomes more reliant on other organisations for implementation (agencies, local authorities, partnerships etc.). So while local government has lost some autonomy, central government has lost some control. The field has become more unmanageable and less susceptible to consistent management from either centre or periphery. Thus local government has lost much of its capacity to deliver, while the centre has lost much if its capacity to control. In this environment the old control and compliance model does not work.

2.1.2 Implementation

At the same time, new models of implementation are emerging, and there is greater diversity of delivery systems. In recent decades there has been reliance on the market (with increasing market regulation) combined with more long standing professional and procedural inspection. Establishment of ad hoc organisational forms (often quangos) characterised the 1980s but latterly there has been a shift to competitive bidding combined with contractualisation and contract compliance. An active local partnership has been a condition of participation in SRB regeneration activity. Partnership was (in the late 1970s) a vertical central-local coalition with central government directly involved. Now partnership is a horizontal local/local coalition with central government as controller and contractor rather than partner.

Implementation, however, is not simply a matter of control of agencies with greater or lesser autonomy. There is a large literature which argues that the 'implementation gap' emerges for a host of reasons. For some the gap occurs because the top down flow from policy is imperfect - poor communication, inadequate resource allocation, poor policy specification. For others the implementation gap occurs because there is a separate implementation culture which derives from the bottom-up. This is a function of the inevitable freedom of action and scope for discretion which lies with those who implement and who are beyond the reach of the centre. Thus implementation structures, street level bureaucracy, and the discretion open to front line staff, may all distort policy intention. Some argue indeed that policy is merely the product of action feeding upwards and that insofar as this stems from a responsive, community oriented culture it is a positive feature of the policy process. Given that the capacity of government (central and local) is limited by the attitudes and behaviour of front-line staff, the literature of the sociology of organisations - and of organisational development - is of wider relevance to the debate.

2.1.3 Organisational politics

Lastly there is a related literature deriving from political science and political sociology which emphasises power in organisations and looks to structure rather than agency as the determinant of organisational behaviour and hence successful implementation. Organisations are endowed with the power of their key interests (professional, political, administrative, occasionally users) and the delivery of policy is a function of the power struggles which flow through the 'circuits of power'. There are useful links both with the literature of decision and non-decision making, and with studies of bargaining and negotiation. This in turn links to the literature on differential power within partnership structures, and the implications of the distribution of power for commitment to and action for implementation.

2.2 The whole systems approach

Findings from the literature thus challenge a simple linear approach to policy implementation - which assumes a process of central policy design, followed by the application of an implementation system, the establishment of mechanisms to ensure system compliance, and the subsequent monitoring (and enforcement where necessary) of compliance. An emphasis upon system design and compliance is predicated on the assumption that objectives are clear and unambiguous, and that desired outcomes, together with the mechanisms to achieve these outcomes, are certain and are known to and accepted by all the parties to implementation. If this is not the case, system compliance cannot be assured. Lack of clarity about both objectives and desired outcomes, together with the complexity of cross-cutting issues and their variable incidence and form, suggests that success in achieving outcomes requires clarification of the problems being addressed before the event, with solutions being developed and negotiated locally, and tailored to meet the local configuration of actors and their needs and capacities. This is the approach now being tested in many of the government's current initiatives.

Figure 1

 

Within complex, multi-organisational delivery systems, government policy is not the sole driver of change, and the behaviour and actions of regulators, monitors, civil servants and others in private and not for profit sectors directly impact on the policy/delivery system. Thus the delivery of cross-cutting solutions must recognise that all organisations are active players, that all environmental drivers need to be taken into account, and that in order to respond appropriately, all organisations - central and local government, public, private, and not-for-profit, and community sectors - need to recognise the interconnectedness of the issues.

It has been observed that multi-dimensional problems often receive single dimensional interventions. The simple hypotheses of our research work were first, that multi-dimensional problems require multi-dimensional interventions, and second, that in order to incorporate the multi-dimensional approach into public policy a clearer organising framework of ideas was necessary. The language of integration, cross-cutting, and multi-stakeholder involvement is now commonplace. But there remains a large gap between joined-up talking and joined-up working.

2.2.1 Systems thinking

Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and a large and amorphous set of methods developed over the past fifty years to clarify the interrelationships between the different elements in a complex situation, and to identify ways of bringing about desired change. With its origins in cybernetics and ecology, systems thinking is now widely applied in the study of human systems and in the management of organisations.

Systems thinking is based on the premise that complex systems need to be understood in terms of the interactions between parts of the system, and between the system and its environment. These interactions involve feedback loops, whereby elements in the system 'feed' influence and information to each other over time; this feedback may produce self-reinforcing patterns of growth or decline, or a tendency towards equilibrium.

In the context of this research, the 'system' can be thought of as the totality of the organisations of central and local government, and other players involved in formulating and implementing policy. Citizens may be thought of either as part of the system - or as part of the environment.

Organisational players are presumed to behave rationally in response to the drivers and counter-drivers they face. These drivers will include 'soft' elements such as internal politics as well as 'hard' ones such as financial flows. Players respond in the light of their perceptions rather than any objectively defined 'reality', and rationality is bounded in that players generally have incomplete information.

We have used this framework to analyse the policy development and implementation process and to identify ways in which this might be improved. It can equally be used to analyse the cross-cutting issues themselves; indeed, such a perspective is explicit in the government's approach to these issues. In this context, systems thinking is a helpful tool in analysing patterns of causality and thinking about the consequences of possible policy interventions.

2.2.2 Elements in the system

In order to organise the research and to unravel the complexity we have broken the 'whole system' into nine components (see Figure 2 opposite).

Direction: the definition of problems, the analysis of underlying mechanisms of cause and effect, the aims and objectives of policy, and the interpretation and communication of policy meanings by different actors

Consultation: the process by which stakeholders become involved in the policy process, including consultation between central and local government, and user and citizen engagement

Structure: the intra and inter-organisational structures together with the political, administrative, and professional arrangements which provide the opportunities for, or set limits to, the scope for joint working

Systems: the financial, budgetary, management, information, monitoring, and performance systems through which governance is administered

Organisation: the processes which determine the use of human resources in and between organisations, the allocation of work, and the distribution of organisational power

Culture: the values, language, and meanings which underpin attitudes and behaviour within and between organisations

Capacity: the skills (strategic, operational, analytical, and interpersonal), and the resources (financial, human, physical and technological) which support action

Motivation: the reward systems, incentives, sanctions, and points of reference which lead and drive organisational behaviour

Evaluation: the process of assessing processes, outputs and outcomes in order to learn about 'what works', to inform future policy and influence organisational response.

Effective policy implementation requires effectiveness within each component of the system and effective links between them. Our findings indicate that not all of the links between the various elements of the system of governance connect perfectly - many of the feedback flows are weak, or operate perversely. Failure in any single linkage is likely to cause blockage along other lines, to slow the whole system down, and to produce unexpected side effects. The essence of 'whole systems' working is to anticipate the points of system breakdown, to minimise the blockages, to open up the channels of exchange and communication, and to identify the levers and drivers which can reinforce a positive cycle. We return to this in the final section of the report, but the aim of the fieldwork was to use the model to analyse the policy development and implementation system, in order to identify the reasons for dissonance.

Chapter 3: The research findings

This section of the report describes the findings from the research, developed in part from the literature but in larger part from fieldwork in central government and in the six localities.

We have organised our findings under the nine headings of the system elements set out in Chapter 2. Inevitably - since our primary concern is the interaction between elements in the system - many things do not fit neatly under one of the headings and there are overlaps.

3.1 Direction

Cross-cutting issues are characterised by a long history of inconclusive policy debate and research. There is as yet little agreement on 'the problem'. Inter-Departmental rivalry in central government sometimes results in mixed messages reaching local areas, while local players are insufficiently involved in the policy debate. This is causing dissonance between different interpretations of policy, and lack of clarity over the desired outcomes. Whilst this leaves space for local interpretation to suit local circumstances, many local players would value greater clarity.

3.1.1 Lack of agreement on the problem

In none of the cross-cutting issues we examined does there seem to be a sufficient explanation of the cause and effect of the problem, and no unambiguous central government definition either of the 'problem' or the desired outcomes. The consequence is that there is insufficient direction to policy development, and no clear framework for policy implementation. Some definitions are limited to identification of one or more specific operational interpretations of the issue. Social exclusion has been so far interpreted in terms of specific problematic groups - rough sleepers and truants/excluded pupils. Other issues are given different meanings by different departments - as with sustainable development or disaffected youth (preferred by some as disengaged youth). Community safety is often used interchangeably with crime prevention, and social exclusion with poverty. The basic terms - safety, exclusion, sustainability - have been insufficiently thought through.

Differences between Departments This may be because there are genuine and important differences in values and goals between Departments. For example, in relation to youth, the Department of Health (which as 'guardian' of the Children Act which puts child welfare first) has a very different perspective from the Home Office (whose primary goals relate to justice and public safety). Similarly, sustainable development appears to be interpreted by the Treasury in terms of environmental economics, and by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as the environmental performance of business.

A different aspect of failure in issue definition occurs where Departments adopt an issue and 'badge' activities with it. It was clear from our interviews (and confirmed in the Comprehensive Spending Review) that exclusion is being widely adopted by Departments as a theme of policy development in reflection of ministerial priorities. It was less clear that Departments had thought through what exclusion actually means. The CSR therefore has a number of references to 'poverty and social exclusion', to 'the socially excluded and economically disadvantaged', to 'the poorest and most vulnerable', to 'access and social inclusion', as well as to 'exclusion in poor areas', and to 'the poorest communities'. Such adoption of issues and the badging of policies and programmes gives the impression of integrated government but in practice simply avoids collective commitment.

Sometimes, on the other hand, definition is specifically avoided by Departments, perhaps so that conflicts of interest in policy agendas may be disguised. For example, there might be implications for the DTI 'competitiveness' agenda if the environmental effects of certain kinds of economic growth were accounted for fully. In policy contexts such as these it is unrealistic to expect the differences to be resolved locally if they cannot be resolved nationally - 'government cannot expect local agencies to work collaboratively if in the centre they are fighting turf wars'. Ambiguity in the centre translates into confusion on the ground.

Integrating the evidence base This is not to say that there has not been valuable research and thinking around the issues - the DETR research on family, demography and exclusion, for example, other DETR work on environmental capital and the limits to environmental capacity, and the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) research on youth disaffection. The first two reports of the Social Exclusion Unit are widely respected. But our work suggested that this research has not been widely shared, and that the issues have not been subject to integrated conceptual and empirical analysis within Whitehall or between central and local government. Where analysis has been undertaken it has not been distilled into generally understood or accepted definitions. Departments work on the issues as if they want to find an interpretation which suits their own needs. More interdepartmental access to, and use of, research of common relevance to different departments might be made.

In other instances the speed of policy change is inhibiting integration of research. For example, in the case of New Start, a valuable research phase is built into the programme at the outset, but implementation started immediately after the end of the research with little time for reflection on, or interpretation of, the local research for the programme. The consequence is the lack of a firm shared basis upon which to understand what works and why, and hence the lack of a platform on which long term intervention might be predicated.

Engaging the localities The mechanisms for allowing localities to engage with the centre in debate about the nature of problems or the design of solutions are less than effective; neither, despite the rhetoric, is there general acceptance in the centre that such an input would be of value. Thus the Social Exclusion Unit is perceived to be making visits to find out about good practice rather than to discuss or formulate interpretations of the key issues, whilst another department relied for examples of good practice on 'people from the field who bothered to tell us'. One interviewee used the term 'policy tourism' to refer to the outreach activity of central departments. Central departments on the other hand perceive local government as engaging in special pleading for more resources.

3.1.2 Inter-Departmental rivalry

We came across a number of instances where rivalry between Departments is inhibiting the development of policy on cross-cutting issues. What is less clear is the extent to which this is driven by ministers, or their civil servants.

It appears that being seen to make an impact at an early stage with policy development is important to a new political leadership. ministers, we were told, are keen to contribute to a high profile initiative or even to highjack a cross-cutting initiative for their own purposes. Some ministers are Departmentally-minded and eager to keep policy initiatives clearly within their own Departmental remit. Some themes are seen as top of the agenda and hence attract support (e.g. social exclusion); others do not (sustainable development). There is a tendency to focus on the short term and on the need for quick wins - despite the fact that cross-cutting issues are by their nature not amenable to quick solutions.

On the other hand much of the drive for cross-Departmental working is coming from senior ministers, and some civil servants are finding it difficult to adjust to this new way of working. There is a reluctance to take on any work that is not seen as 'core' to one's own Department; cross-cutting issues are often seen as marginal to mainstream policy areas. Where inter-Departmental working is effective, it is often made to work by good personal contacts or the commitment of a few individuals to overcome obstacles rather than effective systemic processes.

3.1.3 Inadequate local policy debate

At the local level local there is some evidence of attempts to interpret cross-cutting issues in locality specific terms. For example, Thurrock has defined social exclusion more widely to include people with learning disabilities, and sees involving local people as giving legitimacy to shape the agenda in line with local needs.

Cheshire has set up a multi-professional Social Exclusion Task Group which has developed a 'local' definition. Social Exclusion for Cheshire County Council is the multiple and changing factors resulting in people being excluded from the normal and everyday choices, exchanges, practices and rights, of modern society. It affects individuals and groups and emphasises the weaknesses in the social infrastructure and the risk of allowing a two-tier society to become established by default. The Group has established a programme of work which focuses on the experience of exclusion in a number of localities and draws together County Council working with the actions of other agencies.

There are other examples of cross agency working to begin to explore needs and agree desired outcomes - for example, the Essex Community Safety Forum, Newcastle Healthy Cities Partnership, the Somerset Health Promotion Strategic Planning Team, the business education partnership in Sheffield, and the development of health and education Action Zones bids in that city. Some authorities are following recent DETR commissioned advice on the development of corporate strategies for tackling disadvantage (building inclusive regeneration onto a longer history of anti-poverty-working). The approach taken by the Government in New Deal, of setting the broad framework and policy goals centrally while leaving a lot of freedom to address locally defined problems in locally determined ways, is welcomed.

However, in our case studies we found that, in general, local stakeholders spend little time engaging in debate about the nature, form, cause and effect of, or potential initiatives towards, cross-cutting issues. In part, this is because localities want to see how serious the government is about an issue before they commit resources - until which point they will only pay lip service to the issue, and get ready for the guidelines for bidding. They believe it to be unproductive to discuss the conceptual nature of the issues, and the local expectation is that a complicated system of bidding will soon follow and, until the rules are clear, clarifying the issues with central government is a waste of time. Guidance often comes too late, and can then be irrelevant or even counter-productive if local players have already formulated their own approaches. This is particularly the case where a new zone initiative is anticipated.

Many local councillors and officers are struggling to understand and respond to the new agenda. But the habits and attitudes formed over many years when relations between local authorities and central government were strained will take time to change, and local stakeholders receive relatively little support in this from central government or Government Offices (of the Regions), or through political channels.

3.1.4 The speed of change

The speed of change is causing its own problems. Consultation papers, we were told, come out months late but the deadline for local response is not relaxed. Policy is being developed as it is implemented, which causes confusion and huge tensions within the system. 'Frightening deadlines' (for example for bidding for the New Deal contracts) make partnership working difficult. While local players in both the statutory and voluntary sectors are keen to be involved, many are now suffering 'initiative fatigue' as a consequence of the speed and volume of new initiatives, and this also inhibits effective engagement.

3.1.5 Policy dissonance

When analysis is not shared and there is no agreement on desired outcomes, there is no framework for identifying 'what works', or what the balance should be between alleviation of current symptoms and longer term measures. This brings lack of direction to local implementation.

The absence of definition allows the development of dissonance between different interpretations of policy and different ideas about the purpose and form of new initiatives. Tensions emerge where stated goals (e.g. better environmental performance of business) are not accompanied by the legislative, fiscal or other measures which the local level thinks are needed for progress towards these goals. Tensions also emerge about time-scales, about the balance between prevention and treatment, about strategy and focus, about long term investment versus fire-fighting, and about substantive content.

Above all tensions arise between traditional (or redefined) service area targets (e.g. educational performance) and special cross-cutting goals (integration of excluded youth), a tension evident both at central policy level and at the more operational local level. It was put to us that the current fashion for cross-cutting issues might divert attention from the very real justifications for single-cut (or 'silo' based) policies. It is necessary therefore to strike a balance between cross-cutting and other issues to ensure the preservation of some of the advantages of traditional approaches. Single cut and cross-cutting policies are not necessarily in opposition, and in practice, if managed properly, can and should be complementary.

In some cross-cutting policy areas these tensions are resolved by slipping responsibility for setting policy direction onto other organisations almost by default. For example, the Environment Agency, with its regional structure, finds itself acting as the government advisor on many aspects of environment and sustainable development policy when its core remit is in fact the implementation of environmental legislation.

At the local level, the focusing of resources on specific areas (geographical or sectoral) at the expense of others - can raise political issues with elected members (and sometimes officers) unwilling to distort local priorities to find leverage for central resources. Education and Social Service functions still carry enormous weight, and new unitary authorities as well as more established authorities find that cross-cutting issues remain marginal to main service provision, and receive less attention as well as few resources.

3.1.6 A framework for local discretion

The lack of clarity about how far local authorities are expected to take the initiative and how far they must do as they are told, in the context of a culture where many are afraid to step out of line, inhibits action. As one local authority officer put it 'We could have got on with it, but we were waiting for information from on high. Now we are starting to realise it's not going to come'.

Localities are in practice puzzled. Under the new government greater interaction between the centre and local actors is welcome. New approaches to consultation are appreciated. If central government does not always seem to speak with one voice that is recognised as the price that must be paid for early involvement and consultation. But localities would welcome clearer guidance about precisely what is expected from local government in response to the government's new approaches.

Localities are not looking necessarily for detailed prescriptions - rather for broad but unambiguous guidance on policy goals which leaves space for locally determined outcomes and actions; this requires both local capacity to set outcome goals (more detailed guidance may be required for localities where this is lacking), and national recognition that this is appropriate - with clear boundaries to local discretion.

3.2 Consultation

Meaningful consultation with stakeholders is a key aspect of organisational learning, one of two mechanisms ( the other being evaluation) whereby policy can be made responsive to the external environment. We have distinguished between consultation by central government with local areas, and community and user engagement at local level. Both are part of an emerging concept of governance, in which the formal mechanisms of government are increasingly seen to be inadequate as a means of voicing and reconciling the diverse interests of different sections of the community, and where a wide range of listening and consultative activity can help to build consensus for action.

3.2.1 Consultation between central and local government

The Government is perceived as much more willing to listen than its predecessors and local players are very pleased at this. However, because the government came to power with a clear agenda on which they had already consulted while in opposition, the normal extensive consultation process has been truncated. This has put great pressure on both civil servants and those in the field. The speed at which current consultations are being carried out between central and local government has diluted - but not destroyed - the belief locally that this government is genuinely committed to listening. In addition, the very large numbers of responses gathered to some broad consultation exercises (a month before the deadline for consultation of Sustainable Development, 3000 responses had been returned) makes the consultation process a burdensome and time consuming one. Local players commented on how difficult it is to keep pace with policy developments - having to trawl ministerial speeches to find out about thinking is not seen as effective communication. Consultation at an early stage is welcomed, but can give the impression that 'the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing'. But perhaps most importantly, local players do not feel that consultation is genuine, they see no real dialogue - 'communication feels one way'.

There is of course extensive consultation with the LGA, and joint working groups - for example to capture learning from the New Deal. A number of departments are engaged in making visits to local areas to discuss with practitioners what can be done. Experimentation with new ways of involving practitioners in the development of policy also includes Task Forces, but though valuable in injecting practical expertise into policy at a formative stage, there is a danger that they are seen as a substitute for proper consultation outside Whitehall.

3.2.2 Community engagement

Local organisations and partnerships are beginning to listen to external voices, to engage more actively in dialogues with their local communities, to learn about peoples' experiences, perceptions and expectations. A range of innovative approaches are being used to collect community views (such as new forms of council meeting, citizens' panels, citizens' juries, and visioning events), and recent research for DETR pulls together much of current good practice. Rather than engaging in consultation and then moving off to act unilaterally, the best organisations are seeking to work in a more multilateral way with a wide range of stakeholders. Joint understandings and agreements are being sought about what will work across many policy areas. Crucial community and voluntary sector interests are slowly being engaged, as are ordinary local people. Business partners are willing if often puzzled participants in consultations and partnerships.

Thurrock Tomorrow, a 'whole systems' event held during the preparation for unitary status, enabled the community to help shape the vision for the new district. Newcastle recently held 'The Big Event: Making the West End the Best End'. This was a two day meeting hosted by the council, the health authority, the police, the university and others, inviting local people and businesses to plan the future for the area. The recommendations will form the basis of a 15 year plan for the area. Thurrock's Youth Forum was set up by youth workers, parents, police and young people to give young people a voice in decisions that affect them, as well as providing hands-on help or fund-raising for projects that will make a difference to life in the community; adults now take the back seat and the regular forum meetings are led by the young people themselves. Tower Hamlets is undertaking a project amongst some of the marginalised sections of the local community engaging them in creating a vision for the future of the borough. This project aims to involve these groups in a sustainable dialogue with the council in the years ahead. Sustainable Somerset comprising local authorities, the Health Authority, business networks, community and interest groups meets every three months to build on the outcomes of a series of roundtable events. Cheshire has undertaken extensive Quality of Life surveys which inform its approach to a range of issues and have given focus to 'New Cheshire'.

There is now a clearer requirement to consult as part of a number of bidding systems. SRB Schemes are gradually improving local practice, as is Local Agenda 21 working and much local Community Safety activity, while the Modern Local Government proposals will extend this principle authority wide to new community leadership duties.

Consultation is increasingly widespread but it is not easy. Local people are often suspicious; in the past they were promised much and it was never delivered, and trust needs to be built up between them and local authorities. In some areas, such as Newcastle's West End, there is consultation overload - 'people are sick of being researched because nothing ever happens'. It is important therefore to be honest about what can and cannot be achieved. Most of these cross-cutting issues are aimed at involving residents - many of whom have had unhappy service experiences in relation to, for example, council tax, housing repairs, or schools or businesses which have experienced some form of restraint or regulation on their activity. Through many eyes - business as well as residents - the council is seen as an enforcing rather than enabling body.

Consultation also requires changes in attitudes amongst elected members in particular, the more traditional of whom think 'we know what the public wants'. Some are honest enough to admit 'the problem with involving the community is that they often come up with things the council will not want to do, so there is a tendency not to consult'.

Although much progress is being made locally, listening and feedback systems rarely involve central or regional government - a crucial break in the communication chain. Nor has central government consultation hitherto made much use of innovative methods, though they have recently piloted the citizens' jury model.

3.2.3 An open system?

There is a need to open up the policy process at both central and local levels, to allow a more meaningful dialogue which can influence thinking at an early enough stage. Once key decisions are taken, formulaic consultation may serve simply to produce cynicism amongst those consulted. Local government is learning that it is not enough to ask stakeholders their opinions - they must be helped to reach a more informed judgement. This may require a sustained dialogue and joint working. Effort is repaid in better solutions, collectively owned. Central government could well heed the same lesson.

3.3 Structure

Protected boundaries - professional, departmental, geographical - inhibit effective inter-organisational and inter-departmental dialogue and action, and make cross-cutting initiatives hard work. Such structures are powerful shapers of behaviour, reinforced as they are by other aspects of the whole system. Although there is a widespread acceptance that partnership working is necessary, the shared understanding on which this must be founded takes time and energy to build and organisational protectiveness often gets in the way.

3.3.1 Structural barriers to joint action

Departmentalism Departmental compartmentalisation remains strong in Whitehall, and is reflected in dissonance in policy, funding and performance management systems. Inside local authorities strong departments claim most resources for mainstream and statutory responsibilities and cross-cutting issues are driven to the margin. Rather than addressing cross-cutting issues by bending main programmes, the tendency is to see them as 'extras', of secondary importance. Output-based service oriented performance management systems and line accountabilities encourage a narrow focus on service delivery within existing structures.

Departments at both central and local level are jealous of their policy territory and of their budgets. If cross-cutting working presents a threat to resources, a lack of commitment to joined up working emerges. If, however, new initiatives lack a resource base or a lever over resources they are harder to implement.

Regional structures Regional Development Agencies and a new regionalism may involve restatement of the territorial logic of some functions. Localism may be lost or displaced in new regional structures. For some localities the new regionalism poses a challenge. For instance, Thurrock (a Thames gateway authority and part of SERPLAN, yet in the Eastern Region), Cheshire (a bridge between North Wales and Merseyside), and rural Somerset (fearful of being squeezed by the urban pressures of Plymouth and Bristol), need to renegotiate their place in the territorial hierarchy. The multiplicity of central government's regional boundaries (MAFF, DETR, Environment Agency) complicate the regional picture further, whilst area rationalisation in some services (e.g. magistrates' courts proposals for parts of the South West) may not match the pattern of other existing provision.

Government Offices - and in the future RDAs - offer the opportunity for creating an effective interface between the centre and localities which could address a number of problems, and there are useful examples of GO innovative involvement in cross-cutting issues - the Government Office for the South West formation of a Sustainability Roundtable and Social Exclusion Advisory Group and the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber involvement with community safety, for example. GOs' effectiveness is, however, limited because they only cover some central government functions, and officials tend to see their identity in terms of their home department rather than the region. The GO role - referred to by interviewees as 'sleeping partner', 'helpful not useful' - is perceived by many local players to make little contribution to policy development or delivery on cross-cutting issues, appears not to be integrated, and conveys an impression of project management and control. Whilst SRB is seen as a general success (leaving aside the need to bid) it has been accompanied by the expansion of heavy compliance culture in GOs and central government. The view that GOs observe rather than act is fuelled by their role in project auditing (e.g. accreditation of local on-the-job training projects within the New Deal Environmental Task Force). The problem of identifying a new GO role - inevitably difficult at the time when RDAs are being established - is exacerbated by what are perceived by local authorities to be constant changes of staff, changes which are thought to run counter to the building of relationships in the locality whilst reinforcing relationships within the Civil Service and between GOs.

Counties and districts Two-tier county/district relations remain fragile. Post-reorganisation relations are thought by some (e.g. in Somerset and Essex) to inhibit integrated working. Cross-cutting issues often highlight two-tier tensions since most such issues remain discretionary for local government, and are thus within the remit of both tiers with neither obviously in the lead. Although with respect to some functions the two tiers have sought to establish joint working groups or fora, there remains duplication and confusion. This is exacerbated when the two tiers of local authority are each trying to work in partnership with another agency (TEC or Health Authority) whose territory straddles the two, and which may find itself pulled in different directions. On the other hand, new unitary authorities such as Thurrock are grasping the opportunity to present a more integrated response to issues that formerly straddled the district/county divide, and here local government reorganisation has been a significant enabler for initiatives such as New Deal.

As an example, in the realm of community safety work in Cheshire, the key agents who ought to be working in partnership are split between the Districts and the County. Under the new Crime and Disorder Act the District Councils will be required to deliver community safety, leaving the County with a vague 'umbrella' role. Yet two of the key delivery agents, Education and Social Services, are embedded in the County administration. There appeared to be little structural bridging between the County and District levels. Thurrock and Essex County Council have different approaches to community safety, which puts the county-wide police force in a difficult position - can they apply different policies in different parts of what is, for them, a single territory? Similarly there will be different Youth Offender Teams linking in to the same court, which again may lead to discrepancies in policy. Tower Hamlets has two police divisions within its area, which can lead to problems in co-ordinating borough-wide policies. Often the Council has to have separate meetings with the two divisions.

Co-terminosity Where organisations or zones have different boundaries this often causes problems. Effective cross-cutting service planning and delivery demands integrated record keeping, establishment of one stop service points, a single focus for interdepartmental officer working and/or elected member political responsibilities, and an easily comprehensible framework for local people to understand what is going on in their area. Co-terminosity supports and simplifies all these integrative measures; varying boundaries confuse. The absence of co-terminosity is perceived as a major problem, with Local Government, the Health Service, Police, TECs and Business Links, the Environment Agency, Probation, Courts, and voluntary organisations often not sharing the same boundaries. Recent boundary reviews (local government) were said 'to do violence to the process of governance' with some of the new area based initiatives seen as capricious ('You might as well drop food parcels') in over-riding pre-existing local arrangements.

There are, however, a number of positive moves to address this issue. In Sheffield the Health Authority and the City Council are actively working on integrating locality health planning with local government area working, whilst Cheshire County Constabulary has agreed to increase and re-draw its Divisions (currently five) to fit the boundaries of Cheshire's six district councils. At the same time in Cheshire, however, the Health Authority is drawing new primary care areas which do not conform to local government areas but are designed around the catchment areas of hospitals.

Several local authorities are exploring the possibility of creating distinct new organisational structures for delivering services related to cross cutting issues to replace what they see as wasteful and complex inter-agency working. Examples such as the Northamptonshire Diversion Unit already exist, and many regeneration partnerships begin to fulfil that role. In Newcastle, several officers talked about the need to create new structures outside conventional organisations.

Special zones The development of 'zone' initiatives is often welcomed locally, and promises to stimulate greater partnership working and a focused attack on intractable problems. But it can create major problems at the local level, reinforcing territorial jealousies and competitiveness. Issues include; the choice of zone, the structures required for zone bids, the application of authority-wide non-spatial policies to zones, the differing preferences of government departments for size of zone (Regeneration, Health and Education areas are all of differing size), the apparent neglect of causal factors outside the zone, competition within localities for zone status and competition between zones.

The status of special zones is a major political issue for localities, especially, we were told, where zones have been created or approved by 'outsiders' with little knowledge of alliances of local communities or interests. There is little consensus as yet on whether the many zones are 'models' which in due course are intended for replication elsewhere and possibly across the whole authority, or whether they are targeted special initiatives with extra resources (at least of time and attention if not cash) which are not intended for replication.

The designation of such special zones of varying size and function creates a fragmented patchwork of intensive activity, often overlaid on a pre-existing or emergent authority-wide pattern of area-based or locality working. In some places, Health or Education Action Zones have been successfully integrated within existing area working (including that of SRB), but in many areas the superimposition of new area-based experimental initiatives raises difficulties in both policy and practice. DETR is to digitise the boundaries of current 'zone' initiatives to enable the pattern of geographical links to be examined, but it is clear that 'zonitis' is perceived by many as a particularly complex and complicating way of introducing innovation and integration.

3.3.2 Partnership working

There is widespread welcome for, and acceptance of, the principle and practice of partnership working, and much good practice. But people are still feeling their way, and although much is known about what is required to make a partnership work, departmental vested interests, cultures and systems still often get in the way.

There are numerous examples (many supported by the SRB Challenge Fund) of successful inter-organisational practice, both for the delivery of mainstream services and inter-organisational working for targeted programmes and projects. Locally there are examples of city wide partnerships as fora for multi-sector working on cross-cutting issues or as umbrellas for mini partnerships (for example Sheffield City Liaison Group, Chester Action Partnership). The local arms of central government are beginning to get involved - for example, New Deal has stimulated the development of new partnerships, involving a wide range of local agencies working with the Employment Service. Equally, there are widespread examples of community involvement - Thurrock's Broadway estate, all four of Sheffield's SRB schemes, Cheshire's Community Action Area programme, and Newcastle's West End are only the tip of an iceberg.

In Cheshire and the Wirral, the DfEE New Start programme is delivered through a number of local partnerships led by different local partners, all pursuing the general Cheshire New Start aims but developing individual schemes and projects based on local research and with regard to local circumstances. The Thurrock Enterprise Partnership (chaired by the council and involving the adult education service, youth service, local colleges, CVS, TEC, careers service, Probation Service, and Prince's Youth Business Trust as well as ES) gained the gateway contract and has had practical benefits in delivering a seamless service. There have been joint visits to employers by ES personal advisors and gateway workers, and a joint initiative in setting up an Employer Task Force to promote New Deal with local employers and to provide a support mechanism for employers once New Deal gets underway.

Tower Hamlets has been proactive on the question of youth crime. In 1997, they put together a Youth Crime Group involving a wide range of partners including the police and probation service. The three bodies are currently working on developing a safe system for the exchange of information. In response to the Crime and Disorder Bill this body will form a Youth Offender Team, which, with two full-time youth workers, will be steered by the Chief Executive and a group of corporate directors to ensure success. Newcastle's Reviving the Heart of the West End is typical of a number of SRB Schemes. The area on which the project is centred saw a steep rise in crime, poverty, school exclusions, and other aspects of deprivation through the early 1990s, culminating in inner-city riots. The initial response from many public service bodies was to withdraw from the area and pretend it was 'not our problem'. This initiative represented the first concerted effort to reconnect with the area. Partners include the city council, The Newcastle Initiative (which is mainly private sector) and various community and residents associations. Instead of the previous top-down approach this project aims to rebuild local people's trust and confidence in bodies, such as the council, and to involve them in a meaningful way in the revitalisation of the area.

There remain examples of poor practice in partnership, with difficulties about membership, status, agendas, resources etc. These become more serious when the statutory demands upon organisations for partnership working are unequal (for example, TECs have by statute to deliver through partnership with bodies such as Local Authorities and Chambers of Commerce upon whom there are different demands). Additionally, public /private sector partnerships may be inherently difficult because of the lack of a policy framework within which joint goals become meaningful, in particular, the very limited demands upon private companies to engage with the environmental and social agenda. Equally, there are some signs of stress in local partnership as the emergence of RDAs on the one hand and a growing emphasis on small area working on the other pulls some local actors in opposing directions and stretches resources beyond capacity.

There are numerous lessons to be learned about good partnership practice (who should be included, agenda setting, synergy, consensus, types of partnership, the need to invest in skills, shared understanding and culture change, the need to align decision making, planning and budgeting cycles and so link initiatives into the substance of the parent organisation). Most crucially, partnerships only really work where they produce benefits for all partners. There are differing roles for partnerships - facilitation of vision, planning and co-ordination, task delivery and others, and there is now recognition that it is appropriate to negotiate terms of engagement before entering new partnerships. It is important to separate out strategic and operational working, and so ensure appropriate and balanced representation in terms of seniority; otherwise 'achievements in partnership drop down to the lowest common denominator'. The common causes of failure are also well understood, most notably the lack of a powerful shared agenda, and the absence of penalties for failure - especially where the partnership is focused on marginal activities and where there are powerful penalties in the partners' mainstream activities.

But experience in health and social services, where there is a long history of partnership working, indicates that it is not sufficient to know what has to be done to work in partnership. Fundamental changes in attitudes, management processes and systems are also required, and much organisational and professional baggage has to be left behind. SRB has proved to be an important catalyst for partnership working and with over 700 SRB schemes in operation there has been significant learning in areas (such as Chester) hitherto less familiar with partnership cultures. SRB has also been an important vehicle for involving the community in partnership.

3.3.3 From joined up talking to joined up action?

Local partnerships are beginning to achieve results, having invested heavily in establishing relationships, building trust and making new joint structures work. But although there is a commitment to collaboration, co-operation and co-ordination, for some, the full integration of activity is a step too far. Often, collaboration may work well at the level of individual projects, but making the transition to joint strategy and co-ordinated programmes requires much wider commitment within the organisations concerned, and real sacrifices of autonomy. Without a shared analysis of the problem and shared vision of the desired outcomes, progress is likely to be slow. Integrated working is still in its infancy, and too often, while lip service is paid to integration, implementation remains fragmented.

3.4 Systems

The dominant feature of central-local relations in the past decade has been competition and contractualisation. New initiatives have often been - and as yet still are - often defined in process terms, and valuable resources are expended in; setting up partnerships or project teams, in establishing working procedures, in writing bids or delivery plans. In many localities, heavy system management is seen as being inflexible, unhelpful and inhibiting to joint working. Grant regimes and national monitoring systems are cumbersome, time consuming and artificial.

3.4.1 Inflexibility stifles innovation

There are widespread local complaints about excessive attention to the detail of procedural systems and about the tendency for the centre to descend into procedure rather than policy. This is seen by some local authorities to indicate a lack of trust by central government. Thus a major inhibition on innovation is the emergence of the system (rather than policy outcome) as the driver of implementation. Compliance with centrally driven administrative systems tends to drain local implementers of the energy and motivation to implement with flair or imagination. Pilots, Experiments, Action Zones, Pathfinders are all hedged around with procedural detail on bidding, appraisal, monitoring and delivery, rather than encouraging innovation. It is feared that 'zonitis' will reinforce process rather than action.

Especially with cross-cutting issues - which require more imaginative solutions - the need is for more flexible implementation rules recognising local needs and local solutions, and offering the ability to switch money around, or carry it forward from one period to another. The CSR makes helpful proposals on capital. But, in practice, the systems for pilot programmes seem more onerous than those for established programmes (SRB is the frequently quoted example, having been the new system with money attached). Systemic rigidities get in the way of using resources imaginatively. For example, European Social Fund funding rules have hampered attempts to use New Deal and ESF money to fund initiatives aimed at working with families in which inter-generational unemployment has been a problem; in this instance, central and local government are working together to find ways round the difficulty. Some arms of delivery of central government policy which are outside the structure of local government (e.g. MAFF regional offices and TECs), have also established heavily bureaucratic systems which impose consistency within their own system, but which appear to run directly contrary to the systems of others and to reinforce fragmentation rather than integration.

The need for clear accountability (particularly financial) together with the necessity for ministers to have detailed information when they appear before a public accounts committee, can be argued to explain and justify extensive administration and systemic 'silos'. Audit trails are easier to follow when they are in straight vertical directions. But a commitment to cross-cutting work does not necessarily imply lower standards of accountability, and accountable systems which guarantee proper records can be designed for joint working. Within SRB working, the accountable body mechanism works well and it is not financial reporting which generates the major complaints about heavy administration. In any case, the argument that heavy administration inhibits innovation applies equally to main-line programmes. Perhaps more difficult to resolve is the real tension between ministers being able to demonstrate that money has been spent in line with national sectoral policy intentions, and the desirability of being able to put together resources flexibly at local level in line with local needs and priorities.

3.4.2 The burden of compliance

Local implementers struggle with different systems for different grant regimes (appraisal requirements, monitoring, consultation and so on) - each with its own 'bells to be rung'. They ask why one approval cannot do for several programmes and demand a more integrated approach from GOs. Generation of leverage and matching funding is time-consuming and tiresome, and particularly onerous where projects are funded from different sources each requiring information in a different format. Partner organisations are dragged into the bureaucracy; partnership board members forced into detailed administration.

The feeling expressed by one interviewee that annual funding (annual approval without carry over) is 'a tyranny' was widely echoed with complaints about the weight of regular performance management systems (quarterly monitoring, delivery plan targets). SRB was quoted as 'a good idea gone wrong' reflecting a belief (again widespread) that too much time is spent on administration.

With practice, a large scheme or initiative can manage the bureaucracy quite easily. Experience combined with economies of scale can generate capacity in relation to effort, funding, and administration.

In Sheffield it was suggested that concentration in one area of the city over a period of years, together with a large SRB scheme, had begun to create a local climate in which bidding competition and contract management had become more familiar and manageable if not more welcome. Local capacity building had supported the development of a 'go for it' culture which minimised the difficulties and maximised the possibilities from a range of bidding opportunities

Many localities now have a bids unit or an external funding Committee/unit in order to co-ordinate and manage the bidding culture, echoing the establishment in other authorities of a city wide partnership or group which draws together the various strands necessary to co-ordinate complex bidding and administrative tasks. The New Commitment to Regeneration also implies greater certainty in funding streams and offers the potential for reducing duplication in administrative oversight.

Whether or not the effort involved in competitive bidding systems is at least partially justified because it results in a more efficient allocation of scarce resources is a question beyond the scope of this research. But there would clearly be resource savings if funding systems could be made simpler, more flexible and more integrated, and unnecessary duplication removed. Flexibility to vire between budget areas, carry over from one year to another, less emphasis on the detailed accounting for leverage, and greater flexibility in the valuation of in-kind time, are all examples of areas where minor simplification of procedures would lighten the burden of compliance.

3.4.3 Competition and fragmentation

Arbitrary funding may be very divisive at the local level to the point where it can be said to 'poison local relationships'. In Somerset, for example, there have been up to eight schools at any one time bidding for lottery funding for sports facilities, not all of which can be supported by the County Council with matching funding, infrastructure development and management time, and none of which may be schools defined in the central strategy as being in greatest need. In Newcastle, the bidding system brought to the surface tensions between different parts of the city, and resulted in time-wasting and competing bids for SRB funding within the city. Elsewhere, the bidding process discourages localities from entering into the process of experimental initiatives. 'Challenge' initiatives are perceived to be hurdles rather than a stimulus to innovation.

More importantly, fragmented funding regimes encourage the tendency for new initiatives to become programmes of projects rather than a policy, and make an integrated response more difficult. These problems are exacerbated when different partners operate under very different regimes, with different degrees of local autonomy.

In Tower Hamlets, the local authority wished to install CCTV cameras to reduce crime and attract business into the area, and were willing to pay the local police to watch these. They were told that the local police cannot retain any money given to them - it goes straight to Scotland Yard.

3.4.4 Systems compliance

Old habits die hard. For many years central government has forced centrally driven policies onto an unwilling local government; to do this they have used prescriptive procedures and detailed performance reporting systems. Local authorities have responded by complying as far as they must, and in many cases evading when they can - which has reinforced the perception in the centre that tightly managed systems of enforcement are required. Compliance in central-local relationships is mirrored within local authorities, where organisational systems are often inflexible and weighed down by managerial and professional baggage. Where local capacity is weak, explicit central guidance is helpful. However, in those local areas where experience of integrated working is growing and capacity is stronger, excessive system management is seen as being inflexible, unhelpful and inhibiting to joint working.

The Government has demonstrated a willingness to change this approach, to allow local authorities scope to determine the best way of achieving the required outcomes. But both the centre and localities are struggling to rise to the challenge of one the on hand letting go, and on the other using the opportunity to shape things rather than complaining about the effort this inevitably takes. The lack of a shared vision of desired outcomes makes this more difficult for both.

3.5 Organisation

The need to respond to cross-cutting issues is driving new ways of working within and between organisations. Change is more apparent at local level than in the centre, but at both levels there are powerful barriers to be overcome.

3.5.1 New ways of working

At local level, new flatter management systems, horizontal working groups, and inter-agency projects have begun to cut across conventional structures in innovative ways. New approaches to corporate working are being introduced, which offer scope for strong leadership for change from the top. Leading politicians and senior officers are playing a key role in reshaping both internal organisation and the structures for addressing external relations.

Many authorities are introducing Executive Directorates, with a smaller executive team of Directors covering large areas of linked service delivery. One such portfolio may well involve a number of cross-cutting issues (e.g. the community development portfolio in Cheshire or area planning in Newcastle); alternatively, a bundle of cross-cutting issues or themes (such as 'partnerships' or regeneration) may be held within the Chief Executive's area of responsibility (as in Sheffield, Tower Hamlets and Thurrock). Often Executive Directors hold corporate responsibility (for an area, for a partnership, for a theme such as Best Value or performance or environment).

In Thurrock, new unitary status has been the catalyst for a more corporate and strategic approach. Thurrock's new structure is aimed at fostering the integration of services, developing strategic capacity whilst maintaining an operational focus, and enhancing the authority's ability to respond to the local community and work in partnership with others. Services have been grouped into three broad directorates - personal services, environmental services, and central services; a policy and partnerships unit works directly to the Chief Executive. Corporate issues are dealt with separately from service delivery issues, with separate budgets, separate fundholders and specific control; this is intended to ensure that proper consideration and progression of strategic issues does not suffer because of pressing problems of service delivery. Executive directors are responsible for translating political ambitions into policies and plans, focusing on external relationships, ensuring the corporate adoption of key policies, and facilitating service integration; service heads hold operational accountability. Third tier managers have been given lead responsibility for projects to develop the corporate direction on both management processes and policies on cross-cutting issues, to try and build ownership and encourage people to move out of their organisational 'silos'.

The Thurrock example is fairly typical. Cheshire County Council, Chester City Council and Sheffield City Council have all introduced new structures on similar lines. But all are at an early stage of implementation, and it is hard to say how such structural changes - designed to increase effectiveness and allow for more corporate cross-cutting working - will work in the long run.

Structural changes alone do not bring about new ways of working. They must be complemented by clarity about required outputs and outcomes, and clear accountabilities for results reflecting corporate priorities. This needs to be cascaded down through the organisation, to avoid a disjunction between senior responsibilities (cross-cutting) and the objectives set for middle and junior managers (in many cases service-specific).

3.5.2 New democratic structures

Changes are also being introduced in democratic structures. Streamlining of officer structures is often mirrored in a reduction in the number of committees (from fifteen or twenty to as few as half a dozen) with integrated areas of policy responsibility. New member/officer relations are emerging in Boards (responsible for executive functions), in Panels (with scrutiny functions for a particular theme or area of work), and in Area Committees (where the impact of service integration on the ground can be most keenly felt and addressed).

Thurrock has introduced a Policy Board of senior officers and key members to formulate policies, develop strategy, oversee performance and ensure accountability. Each of Thurrock's key committees also has appropriate representation and involvement from sectors of the community - for example, residents and tenants groups and school governors. In addition, advisory commissions have been set up on health, youth, and civic pride - issues identified as priorities by the community during the run-up to unitary status; these are the vehicle for securing wider involvement of the community.

Authorities in our research case studies recognised that cross-departmental integration can be particularly effective at the very local, community level. A community orientation fits well with the principles of Best Value, provides an enhanced role for many members and officers who feel sidelined by the streamlining of Committees and strategic policy groups, and allows for more involvement of the public in contributing to service delivery and assessment. Sheffield, Cheshire, Newcastle and Mendip have all pursued the 'localisation' approach, in different ways.

Some authorities have introduced new user or resident groupings on specific issues. Sheffield has actively promoted the formation of local Community Safety Groups which consist of local residents, elected members, city council fieldworkers, and representatives of other agencies working in the locality; these groups are encouraged to formulate plans for improving community safety and to generate resources for implementation. Others are seeking new ways of balancing policy objectives - for example, Mendip District Council has modernised working practices through the application of Local Agenda 21 principles of balancing economic, social and environmental objectives, participation and inclusion in all aspects of policy formulation and service delivery. New uses are being made of formal occasions. For example, Sheffield now uses Council meetings as a forum for debate involving councillors, external agencies and the public with a visiting speaker or expert spending three hours on key issues confronting the city; traditional formal Council business is handled elsewhere.

Sheffield has developed a city wide area basis for working, involving area member panels, area officers, and the preparation and analysis of information on an area basis. Local forums have been established, co-terminosity with health is being pursued, and an 'area' culture is being developed. Not all areas have the same needs, are of the same size, or receive the same treatment. Sheffield, however, believes it is important not to identify only a few areas but to cover the city with an area system as a key element of corporate working and for the pursuit of integration of service delivery. In Cheshire, Area Committees (co-terminous with districts) have been established to reflect the corporate philosophy of 'New Cheshire'. A new Community Development Department provides 'local support' to members and officers at the area level, area profiling is being explored by the strong R and I Unit now located in Community Development, and Cheshire is seeking to reb