An academic story of contemporary policy and policymaking problems

Many policy concepts try to sum up the same story about modern governance: complex policy problems do not respect traditional government boundaries, and require collaborative responses across government and between governmental and non-governmental actors. We can break this narrative into four elements.

1. A common setting, involving inevitable policy complexity, the absence of a single centre of policymaking, and the absence of one-best-way to make policy: there is no simple way to come together to solve complex problems.
2. A range of relevant characters, including leaders of organisations or networks, entrepreneurs and brokers seeking ways to foster innovation and cooperation, and many others essential to routine policy delivery: while inspirational actors matter, policymaking is a chorus not a solo act.
3. The plot involves adversity and increased urgency, comparing the need for effective collaboration with the sense that practical and political reality does not match necessity: we are in a hole, need to act more effectively, and time is running out.
4. We require a realistic but positive moral, involvingthe pragmatic recognition of limited progress but hopeful vision of renewed models of collective action: things may seem tough now, but we have ways to make them better and can build on progress.

Such narratives combine a descriptive statement (here is the policy problem) with a prescriptive statement (we need collaborative and joined-up responses), a cautionary note (policy processes do not deliver what we require), and perhaps a rejection of despair in favour of learning lessons (forewarned is forearmed).

A simple narrative of complex problems

I base the following narrative on a synthesis of concepts and approaches to policy analysis and design, theories of policy processes, and approaches seeking pragmatic and feasible solutions to policy and policymaking problems.

There are no simple solutions to complex problems.

Policy analysis tools need to recognise the wickedness or complexity of policy problems. There is always contestation to define the size, urgency, and cause of policy problems and the role of the state in addressing them. Problems do not respect jurisdictional boundaries. Few problems are amenable to simple one-shot solutions. Terms such as systems thinking and new policy design focus on the interconnectedness of problems and multi-faceted policy mix.

Policymaking is a continuous process to manage problems.

Governments are rarely in the problem-solving business. They oversee continuous problem management by many actors across and beyond the public sector, including civil servants, public sector professions, and public, private, and third sector organisations delivering policy.

There is no single centre of policymaking.

Complex policy problems transcend traditional boundaries and responsibilities, such as across government departments, levels of government, or governmental and non-governmental action. Terms such as polycentric governance, multi-level governance, and multi-centric policymaking describe the responsibility for action held in many centres or venues for action. This distribution of responsibility results from a combination of choice, such as enshrined in a constitution, and necessity, when governments seek cooperation to deal with the practical limits to their power or resources (such as their bounded rationality).

There is a need for policy coherence, but no single model for collective action.

This spread of responsibilities to address problems leads to multiple responses that lack coherence or integration. There is a pressing need to coordinate responses, but no single model. The absence of one centre of authority – in one political system or many – rules out a simple top-down response. The presence of multiple more-or-less autonomous organisations requires more voluntary collective approaches. Concepts to describe aspects of such aims include collaborative governance, institutional collective action, mainstreaming, whole of government responses, joined-up government, and policy integration.

There is not one best way to lead or participate.

Policymaking at this scale involves many actors who contribute a range of skills, attributes, strategies, and mindsets to foster broad aims such as innovation, leadership, professionalism, and collective action. Terms such as systems leadership reflect the limited value of hierarchical leadership models. Terms such as entrepreneur highlight exceptional actors able to identify windows of opportunity for change or overcome common obstacles to progress, while terms such as professionalism and followership emphasis the value of different kinds of – often long-term – participation beyond the idea of instant heroic action.

There are many essential principles of effective government.

Many aims or principles could drive the search for more effective government, including:

• Accountable and responsible, to maintain a clear link between citizen wishes and government promises, such as via regular high stakes elections.
• Future oriented, to anticipate and address problems early rather than lurch from crisis to crisis.
• Preventive, to intervene early to ward of social or environmental problems rather than lurch between crises or respond to acute problems when it is too late.
• Decentralised, to avoid damaging attempts to hoard power rather than cooperate.
• Co-productive, to encourage high citizen and stakeholder participation and deliberation, to collaborate to inform or make policy.
• Integrated, to produce coherent policies that are mainstreamed across government departments, all levels of government, or across policymaking and delivery.
• Evidence-informed, to ensure that policymakers understand state-of-the-art knowledge when making choices.
• Equitable, just, fair, to ensure that all participants are included, policy processes or procedures are fair, and that the distribution of outcomes does not produce unfair inequalities (also known as recognitional, procedural, and distributional justice).

Each principle is essential but also vague and subject to contested interpretation (e.g. when defining fair procedures and outcomes). Further, it is not straightforward to design a policymaking approach that does justice to each principle. For example, a short-term electoral imperative in the name of accountability may fuel a level of political competition that undermines long-term and future-oriented collaboration or a meaningful focus on coherent and integrated approaches.

A government-led response is not always the government’s preference.

There is variation of state intervention by sector, political system, and over time. In some sectors a central government is at the heart of the action, such as when establishing the regulatory framework and funding for public service delivery or social security. In other sectors, the role of central government is essential but less clear, such as when supporting businesses and individuals to transition from high to low carbon energy systems. In some political systems, high state intervention is taken for granted, while in others it is contested or rejected. This contest may be won or lost over time, to produce periods of more or less state intervention.

What we require from policy and policymaking does not match practical or political reality.

Narratives of required action emphasise what we need to do to address problems, such as to foster policy coherence via collaboration and whole of government approaches. Theory informed narratives of policy processes emphasise the gap between this requirement and practical reality, and the inevitable role of politics in which contestation is often more likely than cooperation. Statements to sum up elements of this problem include:

• Policymaker attention lurches from issue to issue, often before addressing the problem in a meaningful way.
• Policymakers must act despite uncertainty about the problem and likely effect of action.
• Policy actors compete to define and address problems, and cooperation is never guaranteed.
• Policy actors pursue their beliefs and protect their positions, often at the expense of collaboration.
• The distribution of policymaking responsibilities in political systems often reflects demands for political or territorial autonomy rather than a technocratic search for optimal policymaking.
• The ‘usual ways of doing things’ undermines new approaches. Rules, norms, and practices in one venue may conflict with another.
• There are good reasons to specialise to deal with technical issues, or close off policy communities to foster small-scale cooperation. Such defendable actions produce silos that make sense in their own context but undermine cross-community action. What makes sense in relation to one problem or community makes no sense in another.
• Technically political solutions can be politically infeasible, and vice versa.

Overall, the message is that it would be a mistake to treat policy and policymaking requirements as technical problems amenable to technical solutions. There are technical issues to address, such as to define clearly what policy is and how it contributes to required outcomes, but they only make sense through the lens of cooperation and contestation since there is never one best way to define problems or collaborate to seek solutions.

See also:

There are loads of links to 500 or 1000 Words post in the text above, including Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: Multi-centric Policymaking (which summarises Making Policy in a Complex World). See the link to polycentric governance for more on Ostrom and the Bloomington School.

My plan is to take this basic narrative of complexity and work with colleagues to think it through in different contexts, focusing on how to shift from restating this problem to thinking more positively about solutions. For more on this endeavour, see for example: Positive Public Policy – A New Vision for UK Government, the nascent LPIP network, and co-produced work with NHS Confederation.

For further reading on positive public policy, see for example

• Douglas, S., Schillemans, T., ‘t Hart, P., Ansell, C., Bøgh Andersen, L., Flinders, M., Head, B., Moynihan, D., Nabatchi, T., O’Flynn, J. and Peters, B.G. (2021) ‘Rising to Ostrom’s challenge: an invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance and public service’, Policy Design and Practice, 4:4, 441-451 https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2021.1972517
• Mallory Compton and Paul ‘t Hart Great Policy Successes: How Governments Get It Right in a Big Way at Least Some of the Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Preview PDF

How Can the Scottish Parliament Be Improved as a Legislature?

This post summarises my article (in 2013) that reflected on the Scottish Parliament’s role and influence as a legislature after its first decade. After 25 years of devolution, how many of these points still ring true? The aim is to work with the Centre for Scottish Public Policy to prompt debate among key people in Scottish politics.

Twenty-five years of devolution gives us plenty of evidence to assess the role and influence of the Scottish Parliament. In this blog, I summarise five previous concerns to prompt discussion about their contemporary relevance.

1. The Scottish Parliament did not live up to ‘new politics’ expectations.

It was once common to describe the gap between pre-1999 hopes for the Scottish Parliament and reality. Those hopes began with the Scottish Constitutional Convention’s description of a new political culture. They continued when the Consultative Steering Group (set up to design the Scottish Parliament’s standing orders) highlighted power sharing ‘between the people of Scotland, the legislators’ and the Scottish Government, and proposed strong powers for parliamentary committees, including to monitor government departments, assess the quality of government engagement with stakeholders, scrutinise legislation, and initiate its own legislation. Yet, the CSG also expected the government to govern, and envisaged improvements to a Westminster-style process in which the government would propose most legislation and parliament would legitimise policy via enhanced scrutiny.

2. The Scottish Parliament does not scrutinise government legislation sufficiently.

From 1999-2007, the problem was that a coalition government oversaw a punishing legislative schedule, giving insufficient time to scrutinise legislation. From 2007-11 a minority government passed less legislation, but the new threat of parliamentary opposition translated into the non-introduction of some bills rather than more time for scrutiny. From 2011 we saw majority government business-as-usual, then minority governments with less reliance on cross-party cooperation.

Committees could also engage in scrutiny via the inquiry process: to assess current policy and encourage new legislation to fill gaps, or to conduct post-legislative scrutiny to evaluate policy following implementation. However, the big splash reports tend to stand out as exceptions to the rule, and Scottish governments tend to reply with a polite ‘thank you’ rather than a substantive commitment to respond.

3. The Scottish Parliament does not have a sufficiently large professionally trained staff

These problems relate partly to capacity, in which dozens of committee staff try to keep track of an increasingly complex statute book delivered by a public sector with half a million employees. To be effective, committees need to prioritise a small number of issues. Even then, they often struggle to get enough information about legislation, and its impact on policy and public sector practices, to make an informed judgement. Still, few demand a boost to the capacity of the Scottish Parliament as an organisation (rather than a venue for party competition).

4. The party whip undermines independent scrutiny, or parties do not engage with the legislative process

These problems relate mostly to the party-political nature of parliamentary proceedings. The Scottish Parliament is a slightly more consensual mini-Westminster. From 1999-2007 a majority Labour-Liberal Democrat government had minimal interest in working with an opposition SNP. From 2007-11, and 2016 onwards, the SNP had to work with other parties to get things done, but minority government did not spark a new consensual culture of government-opposition relations.

5. The Scottish Parliament would benefit from an upper chamber

Of course, there is no prospect of a second chamber. The new Scottish political system was modelled as an alternative to ‘old Westminster’, containing an unelected second chamber in dire need of reform. Rather, the focus in Scotland regarded the extent to which a well-designed unicameral process could make up for the absence of the second chamber’s function, largely by front-loading scrutiny and investing high powers in committees. If so, it makes sense to reflect continuously on the gaps between hopes for design and actual execution.

In all five cases, a key difference is the passage of time, to move away from the highly optimistic language of reformers in the 1990s, and the initial honeymoon period of devolution, towards more pragmatic assessments in relation to real world politics. For example, the Commission on Scottish Parliament reform in 2017 focused largely on tweaks to current processes rather than radical redesign, and Steven MacGregor’s award-winning PhD research makes a convincing case for the non-trivial influence of the Scottish Parliament on government legislation. If so, in the absence of a big constitutional event, like devolution in 1999 or independence some other time, the Parliament will largely continue in its current form. The unexciting but satisfactory conclusion is that people may be vaguely satisfied with the Scottish Parliament because it performs its expected role competently.

Will the new Human Rights Bill for Scotland bring change to frontline social work practice?

Below is a guest post by Catherine Harris, written to accompany her Master of Public Policy dissertation at the end of 2023 …

It would be reasonable to assume that we can all see the value in human rights. We all want our human rights to be respected and benefit from just knowing they are there. Day to day, if we are fortunate, we probably don’t have to think about them at all. However, our concern for human rights might come to the fore when we, or someone we love, are in a more vulnerable circumstance. For example, if we need support from the social care system.

A human rights approach to social care, is the way in which people’s rights are upheld. This may be particularly important to someone who requires support to meet their everyday needs, if they live with a disability, or are older for example. While people don’t have a right to social care specifically, an effective social care system allows people to access the support they need to live as independently as possible. In other words, the social care system is a way people’s human rights can be met.

Human rights and a human rights approach seem to be important then, especially if we want to protect the most vulnerable. Yet, the Conservative led UK Government are making some radical moves that imply our human rights are becoming less of a priority. Although it was scrapped in the summer of 2023, the UK Bill of Rights promised nothing good for the security of the rights of people living in the UK.

Likewise, the ongoing Rwanda Deal, which has already been deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court, is a strong indication that the UK Government are moving against the promotion of human rights. As well as the UK Government’s questionable views on human rights, we are collectively facing the combined impact of Brexit, Covid-19 and longstanding austerity measures. It is reassuring then, that the Scottish Government are considering the future of human rights in Scotland through the new Human Rights Bill for Scotland.

Regrettably, the following paper suggests this new Human Rights Bill won’t bring much change in reality. This study finds that the language used in the human rights legislation is too vague, so vague in fact that it lacks any literal obligation for people to do the tasks expected. As well as this, there are many other factors that affect the ability and inclination of frontline workers to follow the rules of law. These include significant limitations on funding and resources, which leads to stress and burnout of workers, but also leads to people not getting the support they need.

The existing process of challenging decisions in social care is both complicated and unlikely to result in success. This means that if you’re unhappy with the support you’re offered, or if you feel like you need support but don’t meet the criteria, there isn’t much you can do about it. Clearly it is important to be able to hold social workers accountable for their decisions, but it is also important to be able to hold local authorities and our central governments accountable too. After all, they are in control of the finance and resource decisions which are having the negative impact. Until these underlying issues around accountability, funding and resources are addressed, rearranging human rights legislation is unlikely to transform the experience of social workers, or people who use social care services.

… The MPP dissertation uses the Institutional Grammar approach to code key aspects of government policy. We hope to work together to turn it into a publishable article soon.