Here are some notes for my talk to the Scottish Government on Thursday as part of its ‘inaugural ‘evidence in policy week’. The advertised abstract is as follows:
A key aim in government is to produce ‘evidence based’ (or ‘informed’) policy and policymaking, but it is easier said than done. It involves two key choices about (1) what evidence counts and how you should gather it, and (2) the extent to which central governments should encourage subnational policymakers to act on that evidence. Ideally, the principles we use to decide on the best evidence should be consistent with the governance principles we adopt to use evidence to make policy, but what happens when they seem to collide? Cairney provides three main ways in which to combine evidence and governance-based principles to help clarify those choices.
I plan to use the same basic structure of the talks I gave to the OSF (New York) and EUI-EP (Florence) in which I argue that every aspect of ‘evidence based policy making’ is riddled with the necessity to make political choices (even when we define EBPM):
I’ll then ‘zoom in’ on points 4 and 5 regarding the relationship between EBPM and governance principles. They are going to videotape the whole discussion to use for internal discussions, but I can post the initial talk here when it becomes available. Please don’t expect a TED talk (especially the E part of TED).
EBPM and good governance principles
The Scottish Government has a reputation for taking certain governance principles seriously, to promote high stakeholder ‘ownership’ and ‘localism’ on policy, and produce the image of a:
Consensual consultation style in which it works closely with interest groups, public bodies, local government organisations, voluntary sector and professional bodies, and unions when making policy.
Trust-based implementation style indicating a relative ability or willingness to devolve the delivery of policy to public bodies, including local authorities, in a meaningful way
Many aspects of this image were cultivated by former Permanent Secretaries: Sir John Elvidge described a ‘Scottish Model’ focused on joined-up government and outcomes-based approaches to policymaking and delivery, and Sir Peter Housden labelled the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) as an alternative to the UK’s command-and-control model of government, focusing on the ‘co-production’ of policy with local communities and citizens.
The ‘Scottish Approach’ has implications for evidence based policy making
Note the major implication for our definition of EBPM. One possible definition, derived from ‘evidence based medicine’, refers to a hierarchy of evidence in which randomised control trials and their systematic review are at the top, while expertise, professional experience and service user feedback are close to the bottom. An uncompromising use of RCTs in policy requires that we maintain a uniform model, with the same basic intervention adopted and rolled out within many areas. The focus is on identifying an intervention’s ‘active ingredient’, applying the correct dosage, and evaluating its success continuously.
This approach seems to challenge the commitment to localism and ‘co-production’.
At the other end of the spectrum is a storytelling approach to the use of evidence in policy. In this case, we begin with key governance principles – such as valuing the ‘assets’ of individuals and communities – and inviting people to help make and deliver policy. Practitioners and service users share stories of their experiences and invite others to learn from them. There is no model of delivery and no ‘active ingredient’.
This approach seems to challenge the commitment to ‘evidence based policy’
The Goldilocks approach to evidence based policy making: the improvement method
We can understand the Scottish Government’s often-preferred method in that context. It has made a commitment to:
‘Service performance and improvement underpinned by data, evidence and the application of improvement methodologies’
So, policymakers use many sources of evidence to identify promising, make broad recommendations to practitioners about the outcomes they seek, and they train practitioners in the improvement method (a form of continuous learning summed up by a ‘Plan-Do-Study-Act’ cycle).
This approach appears to offer the best of both worlds; just the right mix of central direction and local discretion, with the promise of combining well-established evidence from sources including RCTs with evidence from local experimentation and experience.
Four unresolved issues in decentralised evidence-based policy making
Not surprisingly, our story does not end there. I think there are four unresolved issues in this process:
The Scottish Government often indicates a preference for improvement methods but actually supports all three of the methods I describe. This might reflect an explicit decision to ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ or the inability to establish a favoured approach.
There is not a single way of understanding ‘improvement methodology’. I describe something akin to a localist model here, but other people describe a far more research-led and centrally coordinated process.
Anecdotally, I hear regularly that key stakeholders do not like the improvement method. One could interpret this as a temporary problem, before people really get it and it starts to work, or a fundamental difference between some people in government and many of the local stakeholders so important to the ‘Scottish approach’.
4. The spectre of democratic accountability and the politics of EBPM
The fourth unresolved issue is the biggest: it’s difficult to know how this approach connects with the most important reference in Scottish politics: the need to maintain Westminster-style democratic accountability, through periodic elections and more regular reports by ministers to the Scottish Parliament. This requires a strong sense of central government and ministerial control – if you know who is in charge, you know who to hold to account or reward or punish in the next election.
In principle, the ‘Scottish approach’ provides a way to bring together key aims into a single narrative. An open and accessible consultation style maximises the gathering of information and advice and fosters group ownership. A national strategic framework, with cross-cutting aims, reduces departmental silos and balances an image of democratic accountability with the pursuit of administrative devolution, through partnership agreements with local authorities, the formation of community planning partnerships, and the encouragement of community and user-driven design of public services. The formation of relationships with public bodies and other organisations delivering services, based on trust, fosters the production of common aims across the public sector, and reduces the need for top-down policymaking. An outcomes-focus provides space for evidence-based and continuous learning about what works.
In practice, a government often needs to appear to take quick and decisive action from the centre, demonstrate policy progress and its role in that progress, and intervene when things go wrong. So, alongside localism it maintains a legislative, financial, and performance management framework which limits localism.
How far do you go to ensure EBPM?
So, when I describe the ‘5 things to do’, usually the fifth element is about how far scientists may want to go, to insist on one model of EBPM when it has the potential to contradict important governance principles relating to consultation and localism. For a central government, the question is starker:
Do you have much choice about your model of EBPM when the democratic imperative is so striking?
I’ll leave it there on a cliff hanger, since these are largely questions to prompt discussion in specific workshops. If you can’t attend, there is further reading on the EBPM and EVIDENCE tabs on this blog, and specific papers on the Scottish dimension
The Scottish Government’s former Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Housden (2013) labelled the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) as an alternative to the UK model of government. He described in broad terms the rejection of command-and-control policymaking and many elements of New Public Management driven delivery. Central to this approach is the potentially distinctive way in which it uses evidence to inform policy and policymaking and, therefore, a distinctive approach to leadership and public service delivery. Yet, there are three different models of evidence-driven policy delivery within the Scottish Government, and they compete with the centralist model, associated with democratic accountability, that must endure despite a Scottish Government commitment to its replacement. In this paper, I describe these models, identify their different implications for leadership and public service delivery, and highlight the enduring tensions in public service delivery when governments must pursue very different and potentially contradictory aims. Overall, the SATP may represent a shift from the UK model, but it is not a radical one.
Three things to remember when you are trying to close the ‘evidence-policy gap’
Last week, a new major report on The Science of Using Science: Researching the Use of Research Evidence in Decision-Making suggested that there is very limited evidence of ‘what works’ to turn scientific evidence into policy. There are many publications out there on how to influence policy, but few are proven to work.
This is because scientists think about how to produce the best possible evidence rather than how different policymakers use evidence differently in complex policymaking systems (what the report describes as the ‘capability, motivation, and opportunity’ to use evidence). For example, scientists identify, from their perspective, a cultural gap between them and policymakers. This story tells us that we need to overcome differences in the languages used to communicate findings, the timescales to produce recommendations, and the incentives to engage.
This scientist perspective tends to assume that there is one arena in which policymakers and scientists might engage. Yet, the action takes place in many venues at many levels involving many types of policymaker. So, if we view the process from many different perspectives we see new ways in which to understand the use of evidence.
Examples from the delivery of health and social care interventions show us why we need to understand policymaker perspectives. We identify three main issues to bear in mind.
First, we must choose what counts as ‘the evidence’. In some academic disciplines there is a strong belief that some kinds of evidence are better than others: the best evidence is gathered using randomised control trials and accumulated in systematic reviews. In others, these ideas have limited appeal or are rejected outright, in favour of (say) practitioner experience and service user-based feedback as the knowledge on which to base policies. Most importantly, policymakers may not care about these debates; they tend to beg, borrow, or steal information from readily available sources.
Second, we must choose the lengths to which we are prepared to go ensure that scientific evidence is the primary influence on policy delivery. When we open up the ‘black box’ of policymaking we find a tendency of central governments to juggle many models of government – sometimes directing policy from the centre but often delegating delivery to public, third, and private sector bodies. Those bodies can retain some degree of autonomy during service delivery, often based on governance principles such as ‘localism’ and the need to include service users in the design of public services.
This presents a major dilemma for scientists because policy solutions based on RCTs are likely to come with conditions that limit local discretion. For example, a condition of the UK government’s license of the ‘family nurse partnership’ is that there is ‘fidelity’ to the model, to ensure the correct ‘dosage’ and that an RCT can establish its effect. It contrasts with approaches that focus on governance principles, such as ‘my home life’, in which evidence – as practitioner stories – may or may not be used by new audiences. Policymakers may not care about the profound differences underpinning these approaches, preferring to use a variety of models in different settings rather than use scientific principles to choose between them.
Third, scientists must recognise that these choices are not ours to make. We have our own ideas about the balance between maintaining evidential hierarchies and governance principles, but have no ability to impose these choices on policymakers.
This point has profound consequences for the ways in which we engage in strategies to create impact. A research design to combine scientific evidence and governance seems like a good idea that few pragmatic scientists would oppose. However, this decision does not come close to settling the matter becausethese compromises look very different when designed by scientists or policymakers.
Take for example the case of ‘improvement science’ in which local practitioners are trained to use evidence to experiment with local pilots and learn and adapt to their experiences. Improvement science-inspired approaches have become very common in health sciences, but in many examples the research agenda is set by research leads and it focuses on how to optimise delivery of evidence-based practice.
Consequently, improvement science appears to offer pragmatic solutions to the gap between divergent approaches, but only because they mean different things to different people. Its adoption is only one step towards negotiating the trade-offs between RCT-driven and story-telling approaches.
These examples help explain why we know so little about how to influence policy. They take us beyond the bland statement – there is a gap between evidence and policy – trotted out whenever scientists try and maximise their own impact. The alternative is to try to understand the policy process, and the likely demand for and uptake of evidence, before working out how to produce evidence that would fit into the process. This different mind-set requires a far more sophisticated knowledge of the policy process than we see in most studies of the evidence-policy gap. Before trying to influence policymaking, we should try to understand it.
Further reading
The initial further reading uses this table to explore three ways in which policymakers, scientists, and other groups have tried to resolve the problems we discuss:
This academic journal article (in Evidence and Policy) highlights the dilemmas faced by policymakers when they have to make two choices at once, to decide: (1) what is the best evidence, and (2) how strongly they should insist that local policymakers use it. It uses the case study of the ‘Scottish Approach’ to show that it often seems to favour one approach (‘approach 3’) but actually maintains three approaches. What interests me is the extent to which each approach contradicts the other. We might then consider the cause: is it an explicit decision to ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ or an unintended outcome of complex government?
Well, it’s really a set of messages, geared towards slightly different audiences, and summed up by this table:
This academic journal article (in Evidence and Policy) highlights the dilemmas faced by policymakers when they have to make two choices at once, to decide: (1) what is the best evidence, and (2) how strongly they should insist that local policymakers use it. It uses the case study of the ‘Scottish Approach’ to show that it often seems to favour one approach (‘approach 3’) but actually maintains three approaches. What interests me is the extent to which each approach contradicts the other. We might then consider the cause: is it an explicit decision to ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ or an unintended outcome of complex government?
Prevention represents the most important social policy agenda in modern history, but governments do not know how to take it forward. In the name of prevention, the UK and Scottish Governments propose to radically change policy and policymaking across the whole of government. Their simple description of ‘prevention policy’ is: a major shift in resources, from the delivery of reactive public services to solve acute problems, to the prevention of those problems before they occur. The results they promise are transformative, to address three crises in politics: a major reduction in socioeconomic equalities by focusing on their ‘root causes’; a solution to unsustainable public spending which is pushing public services to breaking point; and, new forms of localised policymaking, built on community and service user engagement, to restore trust in politics.
Yet, they may never fulfil their aims. We do not identify the usual implementation or expectations gap, in which policymakers only fulfil some of their objectives. Rather, there is great potential for governments to pursue contradictory policies at the complete expense of their prevention agendas. Their most important domestic policy agenda may never get off the ground.
Why do governments fail to deliver on such a massive scale?
We go beyond the usual cynical answer at the heart of low trust in politics and politicians: ‘politicians always make promises they know they won’t keep’. This assertion can only take us so far, partly because governments tend to articulate pledges to allow them to demonstrate success in government, and most governments fulfil a high proportion of pre-election pledges (Bara, 2005). They rarely propose specific policies that they know are too difficult to achieve. This is what makes the pursuit of prevention policies puzzling: why would they make a specific and enthusiastic commitment to an almost impossible policy agenda?
Our simple answer is that, when they make a sincere commitment to prevention, they do not know what it means or appreciate scale of their task. They soon find a set of policymaking constraints that will always be present. When they ‘operationalise prevention, they face several fundamental problems in policymaking, including: the identification of ‘wicked’ problems which are difficult to define and seem impossible to solve; inescapable choices on how far they should go to redistribute resources and intervene in people’s lives; major competition from more salient policy aims regarding the maintenance of existing public services; and, a democratic system which limits their ability to reform the ways in which they make policy. These problems may never be overcome. Or, more importantly, policymakers may soon think that their task is impossible. Therefore, there is high potential for an initial period of enthusiasm and activity to be replaced by disenchantment and inactivity, and for this cycle to be repeated without resolution.
This is an introduction to the Open Access journal article – “The ‘Scottish approach’ to policy and policymaking: what issues are territorial and what are universal?” by Paul Cairney, Siabhainn Russell, and Emily St Denny, in Policy and Politics.
The ‘Scottish approach’ refers to the Scottish Government’s reputation for pursuing a consultative and cooperative style when it makes and implements policy in devolved areas (including health, education, local government and justice). It works with voluntary groups, unions, professional bodies, the private sector and local and health authorities to gather information and foster support for its policy aims. This approach extends to policy delivery, with the Scottish Government willing to produce a broad national strategy and series of priorities – underpinned by the ‘National Performance Framework’ – and trust bodies such as local authorities to meet its aims. In turn, local authorities work with a wide range of bodies in the public, voluntary and private sector – in ‘Community Planning Partnerships’ – to produce shared aims relevant to their local areas. ‘Single Outcome Agreements’ mark a symbolic shift away from ‘topdown’ implementation, in which local authorities and other bodies are punished if they do not meet short-term targets, towards the production of longer-term shared aims and cooperation.
Yet, however distinctive a government’s approach may be, its actions are constrained by factors faced by all governments. For example, when we elect governments, or choose a completely new kind of government, we expect ministers to solve problems for us. Yet, they can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of the things for which they are responsible. No individual, or small group of people at the heart of government, has the ability to understand or control the complex government of which it is in charge.
In Scotland, one of those key issues is about how to organise, deliver and reform public services. It demonstrates two main problems that you find in any study of government and policymaking. First, there is an inescapable trade-off between a desire to harmonise national policies and to encourage local discretion. Policymakers and policy participants understand this problem in different ways; some bemoan the ‘fragmentation’ of public services and the potential for a ‘postcode lottery’, while others identify more positive notions of flexible government, the potential for innovation, and the value of ‘community-led’ policies or individualised, ‘co-produced’, services.
Second, policymakers have a limited amount of control over this trade-off. They do not simply choose a level of fragmentation. Instead, they face the same problems as any government: the ability to pay attention to only a small proportion of issues, or to a small proportion of public service activity; the tendency for problems to be processed in government ‘silos’ (by one part of government, not communicating well with others); the potential for policymakers, in different departments or levels of government, to understand and address the policy problem in very different ways; and, ‘complexity’, which suggests that policy outcomes often ‘emerge’ from local action in the absence of central control.
These problems can only be addressed in a limited way by government strategies based on: the use of accountability and performance measures; the encouragement of learning and cooperation between public bodies; and, the development of a professional culture in which many people are committed to the same policy approach.
In our new article, my colleagues Emily St Denny, Siabhainn Russell and I look at how the Scottish Government addresses these ‘universal’ problems. We describe the ‘Scottish approach’ and wonder if it could help address problems associated with ‘silos’, ‘ambiguity’ and local discretion, if policy is ‘co-produced’ and ‘owned’ by national and local bodies. Or, if the ‘Scottish Approach’ implies a decision to encourage discretion, the production of a meaningful degree of local policymaking, and perhaps even the acceptance that some policies may ‘emerge’ in the absence of central direction and traditional accountability measures, it may create problems of its own.
To show how complicated government is, we select problems and strategies that seem more likely to exacerbate these ‘universal’ problems more than others. We outline two policy areas, on prevention and transition, which cut across many government departments, involve many levels of government (local, Scottish, UK, and perhaps EU) and types of government (including education, social work, health and police authorities), and seem particularly difficult to define and manage. In both cases, the problem is not one of partisan disagreement. In fact, there is a widespread commitment to both issues, and to achieve a ‘decisive shift to prevention’ in particular. Rather, the problem is often one of ambiguity – for example, people are not quite sure what prevention means in practice, when applied to different kinds of policy problem – or ‘fragmentation’, when a range of public bodies have to work together to produce more specific aims and objectives.
These ‘universal’ points are important when we consider Scottish policymaking in the context of constitutional change: a shift of policymaking responsibility from the UK to Scotland may reduce one aspect of complex government – such as the link between the social security system (currently reserved to the UK) and public services – but many would still remain. In cases such as prevention, further devolution could have an impact on budget and policy priorities. It would not, however, solve the problem of how to define and address a cross-cutting and ambiguous problem.
The first obvious myth about Scotland is that it is a land of milk and honey inhabited by a left-wing population that demands equality at all costs – or, even, that its financial advantage combines with consistently social democratic policies to reduce socio-economic inequalities to a level far below the rest of the UK.
In fact, Scotland’s social attitudes are more subtly left-wing, its devolved policies often diverge more in headline than substance, and – crucially – its record on inequalities does not match the rhetoric, of a social democratic Scotland, that we heard so often during the referendum campaign. For example, the Christie Commission, which set the Scottish Government’s new inequality agenda in 2011, stated that:
on most key measures social and economic inequalities have remained unchanged or become more pronounced … This country is a paradoxical tapestry of rich resources, inventive humanity, gross inequalities, and persistent levels of poor health and deprivation … In education, the gap between the bottom 20 per cent and the average in learning outcomes has not changed at all since devolution. At the same time, the gap in healthy life expectancy between the 20 per cent most deprived and the 20 per cent least deprived areas has increased from 8 to 13.5 years and the percentage of life lived with poor health has increased from 12 to 15 per cent since devolution. The link between deprivation and the likelihood of being a victim of crime has also become stronger.
This set of problems receives only sporadic political attention, but there is some potential for a lack of progress on inequalities to frame the next Scottish Parliament election (if the constitutional question does not continue to dominate).
For example, high levels of inequality in school educational attainment, linked to income and poverty, and discussed at length by Dani Garavelli, have prompted Mandy Rhodes to argue that ‘Scotland’s record on closing the attainment gap is all but failing’, others to argue that ‘Scotland’s educational apartheid’ is ‘is Scotland’s greatest national disgrace’ (Alex Massie) that ‘shames the nation’ (Kevin McKenna), and John McDermott (backed by evidence from Lucy Hunter Blackburn) to argue that these inequalities are reinforced by Scotland’s free University tuition policy. The middle classes are more likely to do better at school, go to University, and leave with no debt than their working class peers. In other words, the claim is that the Scottish Government is either failing to solve the problem of inequality or making it worse – a charge that would be dynamite if the constitution did not dominate political attention so consistently for so long.*
Yet, this conclusion has produced a second, equally problematic, myth: our obsession with Scottish independence has set back the inequalities agenda for years. This story has two main elements. First, the SNP government has taken its eye off the ball because it has been able to entertain its independence obsession, at the cost of paying attention to substantive social policy, without having to worry about the effect of its governing record on its popularity: inequality has worsened but its position remains strong while it can blame Westminster for any problem. Second, there is a simple solution to educational and other inequalities in Scotland – we just need to be driven by the evidence of success (for example, in other countries) and find the political will and leadership necessary to make tough decisions and stick to them.
Both of these points can be dismissed easily. First, maybe we don’t pay much attention to relevant policies, but the Scottish Government and Parliament do. In fact, there is unusually high agreement between parties on the need for the ‘decisive shift to prevention’ prompted by the Christie Commission, accepted wholeheartedly in government, and overseen by the Finance Committee. Further, when people do pay attention – when there is party political electoral competition and public attention to policy – it undermines long term policy strategies. Bursts of attention to political issues tend to produce rushed solutions to the wrong problem – more money goes to acute hospital care to reduce waiting times or to local authorities to boost teacher numbers and reduce class sizes, taking money away from the policies designed to reduce inequalities in the long term.
Second, the key problem that we need to face, if we want to go beyond simply shaming the nation’s or the government’s record, is that we don’t know what the evidence is and what policy should be. No politician or political commentator likes to admit that they can see a huge problem but don’t have a clue about how to solve it – yet, that is the problem we face. The simple solutions of media commentators are untested and their success rests largely on assertion rather than evidence. Or, when experts are called upon to settle the matter, you find that equally eminent scholars support contradictory solutions.
My new research with Emily St Denny shows just how far this problem goes. Even if there is cross-party agreement on the need to act, no one quite knows how to do it: how to define ‘prevention’ policies, gather evidence of ‘best practice’ (from home and abroad), turn the evidence into policies that can be ‘scaled up’ across the country, and demonstrate successfor long term projects in a way that helps them compete for funding with high profile and popular quick fixes. What seems like an academic discussion about the nature of evidence and the mechanics of policy delivery is actually an issue at the core of the inequality debate. We show how foolish it would be to assume that the problem can be solved by attention and political will.
The latest version of this paper is here: Cairney 2015 EBPM and best practice 22.4.15 . It underpins a talk I gave to the Scottish Government today, and an academic-practitioner workshop tomorrow, bringing together the Government, Parliament, academics, and policy practitioners, to discuss how to move on from the broad commitment to reduce inequalities to actual projects with demonstrable success.
*This is also an issue that @chrisdeerin has been discussing for some time, partly to bash the Nats and partly to advocate learning from projects such as the ‘London Challenge‘. This is a broader topic – policy learning and transfer – that needs additional discussion. I discuss it (albeit tangentially) in some separate posts – such as on theory – and in a previous paper looking at the transfer of prevention policies.
In policy studies, we talk about the rare occasions when some problems or policy solutions ‘take off’ suddenly or when an ‘idea’s time seems to come’. Indeed, one aim of Kingdon’s ‘multiple streams analysis’ is to show us that ideas come and go, only to be adopted if the time is right: when attention to a problem is high, a well-thought-out idea exists, and policymakers have the motive and opportunity to adopt it. Only then will policy change in a meaningful way.
If only life were so simple. Instead, look again at that word ‘idea’. It means at least two things: a specific policy solution to a clearly defined problem, or a potentially useful but vague way of thinking about a complex and perhaps intractable (or, at least, ‘wicked’) problem. If it is the latter, the ‘window of opportunity’ may not produce the sort of policy change we might expect. Instead, we may see a groundswell of attention to, and support for, a policy solution that is very difficult to ‘operationalise’. We may find that everyone agrees on the broad solution, but no-one agrees on the detail, and we spend years making very little progress.
This is the danger with several potential solutions which highlight the possibility of addressing: the fall-out from austerity and reduced budgets; the need to reduce demand for acute public services by addressing socio-economic problems at an early stage; the need to ‘join up’ a range of government responsibilities; and, a desire to move away from unhelpful short term targets towards more long term and meaningful measures of policy success. Several solutions are currently in good currency, including: the social investment model, the wellbeing agenda, prevention (or preventative spending) and early intervention.
In each case, there may be a window of opportunity to promote such solutions, but the following obstacles arise:
Each example represents an idea, or way of thinking about things like public expenditure, that could either underpin new ways of thinking within government, become faddish before being rejected, or provide a gloss to justify decisions already made.
If the former, it could take decades for this way of thinking to become ‘institutionalised’, turned into ‘standard operating procedures’ and detailed rules to coordinate action across the public sector (suggesting that it requires meaningful, sustained cross-party support).
During this time, governments will still face hard choices about which areas are worthy of the most investment. In each case, the aim is vague, the evidence is often weak, it is difficult to compare the return from investments in different public services, and the process has a tendency to revert to a political exercise to determine priorities. In the face of uncertainty, policymakers may revert to tried and trusted rules to make decisions, and reject the more risky, new approach, with uncertain measures and outcomes.
The budget process is, in many ways, separate from a focus on social investment, activity and outcomes – largely because it remains an exercise to guarantee spending on established services and departments, or to reduce spending on some services at the margins.
There is a level of unpredictability in politics that makes such long term investment problematic – particularly when investment in one area, with quiet winners, comes at the expense of another service, with vocal losers (as demonstrated by any move to close a local hospital, rural school or university department). A tension between long term central planning and short term electoral issues often produces incremental and non-strategic changes, in which services receive ‘disinvestment’ and are allowed to wither.
To some extent, these issues may be addressed well during regular interactions between governments and their ‘social partners’, such as when governments, business and unions get together to produce something akin to a framework in which other policy decisions are made. In that sense, group-government relations represent a form of ‘institutional memory’. Governments and politicians come and go, but group-government relations represent a sense of continuity. This could be the main way to keep social investment on government agendas, as a salient topic or, perhaps more powerfully, as a way of thinking that is taken for granted and questioned rarely, even when new parties enter office.
Yet, there are problems with this ‘corporatist’ aim if it refers to government-wide group-government relations, since policy networks tend to develop on a ‘sectoral and subsectoral’ scale. Governments tend to deal with complex government by breaking it down into manageable chunks. Consequently, for example, medical and teaching unions could engage as one of many trades unions in concert with business, but they tend to speak mostly to education and health departments, in areas with minimal union-business links. Further, such groups tend to be more concerned with the targets and priorities identified at sectoral levels. They may like the idea of soft targets and long term, more meaningful, outcome measures, but have to address short term targets; they may pay attention to cross-sectoral aims when they can, but focus most of their attention on particular fields and priorities specific to their work.
The Scottish Government case
The issues I described are not unique to one government. Yet, some governments also face distinctive problems. For example, in Scotland, as part of the UK, there are specific issues around the links between policy instruments, shared responsibility, and joined up thinking:
The Scottish Government remains part of a UK process in which monetary and fiscal policies are determined largely by the Treasury, with the Scottish Government’s primary role to spend and invest.
Its position raises awkward questions about the consistency of policies, when spending decisions based on a ‘universalism’ narrative cannot be linked directly to the idea that redistribution should be achieved through taxation. The Scottish Government may be overseeing a spending regime that favours the wealthy and middle classes (universal free services with no means testing) as long as taxation is not sufficiently redistributive.
These issues have not become acute since devolution, partly because the Scottish Government budget has been high, and the independence agenda has postponed some difficult debates on new budget priorities. However, they are likely to become more pressing as budgets fall and organisations compete for scarcer resources.
Current issues: more powers, more accountability?
These issues are important right now, because the Smith Commission is currently considering the devolution of further powers to the Scottish Parliament/ Government:
A focus on policies such as ‘prevention’ should prompt us to consider how to align priorities and powers. The parallel is with economic policy, in which a key concern relates to the alignment of fiscal powers with monetary union. With prevention, we should ask what’ more powers’ would be used for. For example, would the Scottish Government seek to address health and education inequalities by addressing income inequalities? If so, what powers could be devolved to address this issue without undermining that broader question of macroeconomic coherence?
A focus on shared powers raises new issues about accountability. As things stand, accountability is already a problem in relation to outcomes based measures and the devolution of policies to local public bodies. In a ‘Westminster’ style system, we are used to the idea of government accountability to the public via ministers accounting to Parliament, or directly via elections. Yet, if the responsibility for outcomes is further devolved, and outcomes measures span multiple elections, how can we hold governments to account in a meaningful way? Or, as importantly, if elected policymakers still feel bound by these short-term accountability mechanisms, how can we possibly expect them to commit to policies with short term costs, with pay-offs that may only begin to show fruit after they have retired from office?
These issues are further exacerbated by a shared powers model, in which we don’t know where UK government responsibility ends and Scottish Government responsibility begins.
This sort of discussion may prompt us to re-examine the idea of a ‘window of opportunity’ for change, at least when we are discussing vague solutions to complex problems. A window may produce a broad change in policymaker commitment to a policy solution, but that event may only represent the beginning of a long, drawn out process of policy change. We often talk about ‘policy entrepreneurs’ lying in wait to present their pet solutions when the time is right – but, in this case, ‘solution’ may be a rather misleading description of a broad agenda, in which everyone can agree on the aims, but not the objectives.
This is the 3000 word experimental-album post, and there is also a shorter radio-edit single for the LSE blog. I discussed these issues at my inaugural lectureand the audio is available here:
There was a no vote in the Scottish independence referendum. Almost immediately, David Cameron announced that Lord Smith of Kelvin would take charge of the process to turn broad UK party promises on further devolution into a more detailed plan. I discuss the main issues regarding that plan here, but in this post I want to focus more on the bigger picture, to link the discussion of Scottish devolution to academic work on the ‘universal’ challenges that all governments face:
Does anyone understand the policy process in Scotland?
Can anyone control or influence that process?
If not, can we hold them to account?
To what extent does the Scottish Government face the same challenges as any other?
Do Scottish political institutions have the capacity to address them in a distinctive way?
My aim is not to deny that Scottish politics is distinctive, but to argue that its political system, and policy process, shares the same ‘complex government’ features as any country. This may provide a useful sense of perspective after a long period of excitement about one aspect of British politics – which has produced the idea that (a) people know how the Scottish policy process would work after a yes or no vote, and (b) that major constitutional change produces a major change in policy and policymaking. I don’t think that either of those beliefs is true.
I also use the ‘will life go on?’ question, partly to be sarcastic, and partly to show that government and society have an auto-pilot function: while we have been obsessed with the referendum, 500,000 public employees in Scotland have continued delivering public policies out of the public spotlight, and citizens have continued to interact with public services.
In short, my aim is to show you the links between two separate-looking concerns:
The study of public policy, which shows that countries like Scotland face the same basic problems as any other, regardless of the constitutional settlement.
Does anyone understand the policy process in Scotland and the UK?
You might get the impression from the debate on the referendum that one side knows how Scottish policymaking works; that if you vote yes or no, you guarantee a particular outcome or, at least, guard against a bad outcome. Yet, the policy process is too complex to for anyone understand fully – from the citizen, dipping in and out of political debate, to the policymaker trying to make a difference, and the academics, still confused after decades of study.
Instead, politicians and campaigners find ways to simplify the process enough to understand and explain, while academics like me develop a language to show why we couldn’t possibly understand the process. We focus on five elements which, on their own, show the complexity of policymaking and, combined, make us thoroughly confused:
‘Bounded rationality’ suggests that policymakers do not have the time, resources and cognitive ability to consider all information, possibilities, solutions, or consequences of their actions. Instead, they use informational shortcuts or heuristics to produce good-enough decisions. They may be ‘goal-oriented’, but also use emotional, intuitive and often unreliable ‘heuristics’ to make decisions quickly. Their attention may lurch dramatically from one issue to another, and they may draw on quick, emotional judgements to treat different social groups as deserving of government benefits or sanctions.
Institutions are the rules, norms, and practices that influence political behaviour. Some are visible and widely understood – such as constitutions – and others are informal, often only understood by a small number of people. These are the rules that organisations develop to run a complex world into something understandable and manageable. Yet, different rules develop in many parts of government, or government ‘silos’, often with little reference to each other. This can produce: unpredictable outcomes when people follow often contradictory rules when they interact; a multiplicity of accountability and performance management processes which do not ‘join up’; and, a convoluted statute book, made more complex by the interaction between laws and regulations designed for devolved, UK and EU matters.
Policy networks show us how policymakers deal with their ability to pay attention to only a fraction of the things for which they are responsible. We begin with the huge reach and responsibilities of governments, producing the potential for ministerial ‘overload’. Governments divide responsibilities into broad sectors and specialist subsectors, and senior policymakers delegate responsibility to civil servants. ‘Policy community’ describes the relationships that often develop between the actors responsible for policy decisions and the participants, such as interest groups (and businesses, public sector organisations, and other types of government body), with which they engage. For example, civil servants seek information from groups. Or, they seek legitimacy for their policies through group ‘ownership’. Groups use their resources – based on what they provide (expertise, advice, research) and/ or who they represent (a large membership; an important profession; a high status donor or corporation) – to secure regular access to government. In some cases, the relationships between policymakers and participants endure, they ‘co-produce’ policy, and we use the term ‘governance’ to describe a messy world in which it is difficult to attribute outcomes simply to the decisions of governments. Multi-level governance describes this messy process involving the blurry boundaries between policy produced by elected policymakers and civil servants, and the influence of a wide range of governmental, non-governmental and quasi-non-governmental bodies.
Ideas are beliefs or ways of thinking. Some ways of thinking are accepted to such an extent that they are taken for granted or rarely challenged (we often call them ‘paradigms’). Others regard new ways of thinking, or new solutions to problems, and the persuasion necessary to prompt other actors to rethink their beliefs. The policy process involves actors competing to raise attention to problems and propose their favoured solutions. Not everyone has the same opportunity. Some can exploit a dominant understanding of the policy problem, while others have to work harder to challenge existing beliefs. A focus on ideas is a focus on power: to persuade the public, media and/ or government that there is a reason to make policy; and, to keep some issues on the agenda at the expense of others.
Context describes a policymaker’s environment. It includes the policy conditions that policymakers take into account when identifying problems, such as a political system’s geography, demographic profile, economy, and mass behaviour. It can refer to a sense of policymaker ‘inheritance’ – of laws, rules, and programs – when they enter office. Or, we may identify events, either routine, such as elections, or unanticipated, including social or natural crises or major scientific breakthroughs and technological change. In each case, we consider if a policymaker’s environment is in her control and how it influences her decisions. In some cases, the role of context seems irresistible – examples include major demographic change, the role of technology in driving healthcare demand, climate change, extreme events, and ‘globalisation’. Yet, governments have shown that they can ignore such issues for long periods of time.
Can anyone control or influence that process? If not, can we hold them to account?
Each of these five elements could contribute to a sense of complexity. When combined, they suggest that the world of policymaking is too complex to predict or fully understand. They expose slogans such as ‘joined up’ or ‘holistic’ government as attempts to give the appearance of order to policymaking when we know that policymakers can only pay attention to a small portion of the issues for which they are responsible.
The idea of ‘complex government’ can be used to reject the idea – associated with the ‘Westminster model’ – that power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people in central government. Instead, governments develop strategies to deal with the fact that their powers are rather limited in practice.
Consequently, there is a profoundly important tension between the reality of complex government and the assertion of government control and accountability. Policymakers have to justify their activities with regard to the idea of accountability to the public via ministers and Parliament. We expect ministers to deliver on their promises, and few are brave enough to admit their limitations.
Complex government also prompts us to consider how we can hold policymakers to account if the vast majority of the population does not understand how the policy process works; if policy outcomes seem to emerge in unpredictable or uncontrollable ways, or the allegation of complexity is used to undermine popular participation or obscure accountability. The aim of political reformers, to go beyond representative government and produce more participatory forms of democracy, may solve a general sense of detachment by the political class, and aid the transparency of some aspects of policymaking, but it will not solve this bigger problem.
To what extent does the Scottish Government face the same challenges as any other?
Right now, the Scottish Government faces the same task as a large number of countries:
In the aftermath of economic crisis, and reduced budgets, it has to consider how to deliver similar levels of public services – including health, education, emergency services, and housing – at lower cost.
It needs to find a balance, to address an inescapable trade-off between a degree of uniformity of national policies and local discretion. People understand this problem in different ways; some bemoan the ‘fragmentation’ of public services and the potential for a ‘postcode lottery’, while others identify more positive notions of flexible government, the potential for innovation, and the value of ‘community-led’ policies or individualised, ‘co-produced’, services.
It needs to find a way to ‘join up’ its public services – to make, for example, health speak to education, social work and policing.
As in many countries, one potential solution to all four problems is the idea of ‘prevention’ or ‘early intervention’. Preventative spending’ and ‘prevention’ are terms used by many governments, and in many policy studies, to describe a broad aim to reduce public service costs (and ‘demand’) by addressing policy problems at an early stage. The argument is that too much government spending is devoted to services to address severe social problems at a late stage. The aim is for governments to address a wide range of longstanding problems – including crime and anti-social behaviour, ill health and unhealthy behaviour, low educational attainment, and unemployment (and newer problems relating to climate change and anti-environmental behaviour) – by addressing them at source, before they become too severe and relatively expensive.
Yet, as in all countries, it cannot simply make this happen, for three main reasons:
Inequalities are often described as ‘wicked’ problems because they seem intractable – because governments do not appear to have the means, or perhaps the ability and willingness, to solve them. For example, health inequalities could be caused largely by income inequality, which the Scottish Government would struggle to address, and the UK Government may be unwilling to address radically. Or, we have a mix of solutions, from the often-innocuous (more spending on pre-school education), to the sensitive (restricting the use of alcohol and tobacco) and the downright controversial (preventing crime before it happens).
We are back to the idea of complex government – to address social and economic problems at this scale requires something akin to complete central government control over policies and outcomes. Instead, governments try to find ways to cooperate with a wide range of actors to secure some of their aims while dealing with the unintended consequences of their policies.
So, policymakers have a limited amount of control over this process and they face the same problems as any government: the ability to pay attention to only a small proportion of issues, or to a small proportion of public service activity; the tendency for problems to be processed in government ‘silos’ (by one part of government, not communicating well with others); the potential for policymakers, in different departments or levels of government, to understand and address the policy problem in very different ways; and, ‘complexity’, which suggests that policy outcomes often ‘emerge’ from local action in the absence of central control.
These problems can only be addressed in a limited way by government strategies based on: the use of accountability and performance measures; the encouragement of learning and cooperation between public bodies; and, the development of a professional culture in which many people are committed to the same policy approach.
Do Scottish political institutions have the capacity to address them in a distinctive way?
The Scottish Government addresses this problem in two potentially-distinctive ways:
Policymaking culture. Many studies explore the idea of a ‘Scottish policy style’, which refers to the ways in which the Scottish Government makes policy following consultation and negotiation with pressure participants such as interest groups, local government organisations and unions
Administrative organisation. Many studies explore a distinctive ‘governance’ style, or a relative ability or willingness to devolve the delivery of policy to other organisations in a meaningful way. It sets a broad national strategy, the National Performance Framework, invites local bodies to produce policies consistent with it, and measures performance using broad, long term outcomes. For example, it now encourages local authorities to cooperate with a range of other bodies in the public sector (including health, enterprise, police, fire and transport), private and ‘third’ sector (mostly voluntary or charitable organisations) via established ‘Community Planning Partnerships’ (CPPs), to produce a ‘strategic vision’ for each local area.
In both cases, we usually find that the comparator is ‘Westminster’. Scotland can do things differently (at least when funding is not a problem) because it is smaller, which allows its government to develop closer relationships with key actors, and develop relatively high levels of trust in other bodies to deliver public services.
So, yes, in the context of all that I have said about governments facing the same challenges, and addressing them in similar ways, the Scottish Government has some distinctive policymaking elements.
What about the Scottish Parliament and other bodies?
Yet, consider the effect of this distinctiveness on the rest of the political system. My description of the policy process should already give the sense that it is driven primarily by government, and that parliament and ‘the people’ don’t play much of a role. What if policymaking follows its current trajectory, with more powers devolved to local authorities and a range of bodies involved in CPPs?
This development has great potential to undermine traditional forms of parliamentary scrutiny. The Scottish Parliament already lacks the ability to gather information independently – it tends to rely on bodies such as the Scottish Government to provide that information. It does not get enough information from the Scottish Government about what is going on locally. Scotland lacks the top-down performance management system that we associate with the UK Government, and a greater focus on long term outcomes removes an important and regular source of information on public sector performance. Local and health authorities also push back against calls for detailed information. More devolution to local authorities would exacerbate this tension between local and national accountability.
A second consequence of devolving more power locally is interest groups must reorganise, to shift from lobbying one national government to 32 local governments. Such a shift would produce new winners and losers. The well-resourced professional groups can adapt their multi-level lobbying strategies, while the groups working on a small budget, only able to lobby the Scottish Government, will struggle.
These trends may prompt a new agenda on local participatory capacity, to take on the functions performed less by these national organisations. For example, the ERS Scotland’s suggestion is that more local devolution could produce a more active local population. Even so, we still need to know more about how and why people organise. For example, local communities may organise in an ad hoc way to address major issues in their area as they arise; to engage in a small part of the policy process at a particular time. They do not have the resources to engage in a more meaningful way, compared to a Parliament and collection of established groups which maintain a constant presence and develop knowledge of the details of policies over time.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that, if we focus on the wider policymaking and political process, we should get a stronger sense that a Yes vote or major further devolution would not produce radical change. The idea of giving a Scottish Government the powers to make radical changes to inequalities, public services, and outcomes, should take second stage to the idea that all governments are constrained by a lack of resources to make a quick and fundamental difference to the economy and society. No-one really understands the policy process, and no-one is in the position to control it. Rather, people pay attention to a small number of issues, and work with a large number of other people to negotiate some changes in some areas. This process involves major trade-offs, and the knowledge that attention to a small number of priorities means ignoring the rest.
So, too, should we be sceptical about the idea of a new era of popular participation, sweeping the nation and changing the way we do politics in Scotland. Even the Scottish Parliament struggles to know what happens in the Scottish Government and beyond. Even well-resourced interest groups struggle to keep track of an increasingly devolved system. So, what chance would citizens have if they did not devote their whole lives to politics? We should encourage popular participation, as the right thing to do, but without creating false expectations about the results.
Today, I did an interview on the Scottish independence referendum for Canada AM. Things to note: (1) upward facing camera (Facetime on my phone) to accentuate my double chin; (2) teeth; (3) my hair looks like it will set off the smoke alarm.
Referendums on constitutional change in Scotland produce ‘windows of opportunity’ to discuss the future of Scottish politics and policymaking. For example, the Scottish Constitutional Convention – an organization comprising political parties, interest groups, civic and religious leaders – formed in 1989 to promote the principle, and operation, of devolved government. It set much of the agenda during the devolution debates in the 1990s, promoting ‘new politics’, or widespread reform based on a rejection of political practices in ‘old Westminster’. Some of the SCC’s broad aims were met, including a mixed-member proportional system designed to reduce the chance of single party majorities, and encourage some bargaining between parties.
However, the Scottish political system is still part of the ‘Westminster family’, producing a Scottish Government which processes the vast majority of policy, a Scottish Parliament that is generally peripheral to that day-to-day policy process, and a public with limited opportunities for direct influence. As in most countries, most policy is processed in ‘policy communities’ or ‘subsystems’, which bring together civil servants, interest groups, and representatives of an extensive public sector landscape, including local, health, police, fire service and other service-specific bodies. This generally takes place out of the public spotlight and often with minimal parliamentary involvement. Indeed, few non-specialists could describe how these bodies interact and where key decisions on Scottish policy are being made.
Further, the Scottish public sector landscape is changing. The Scottish Government has, since 2007, produced a National Performance Framework and rejected the idea that it can, or should, micromanage public sector bodies using performance measures combined with short term targets. Instead, it encourages them to cooperate to produce long term outcomes consistent with the Framework, through vehicles such as Community Planning Partnerships. Further, following its commitment to a ‘decisive shift to prevention’, it has begun to encourage reforms designed to harness greater community and service-user design of public services.
This is important background which should inform the current independence debate, most of which focuses on external relations and neglects Scotland’s internal dynamics. The independence agenda gives us a chance to evaluate the devolution experience so far, and consider what might change if there is independence or further devolution. As far as possible, we should focus on the Scottish political system as a whole, including the relationship between the Scottish Parliament, public participation, the Scottish Government, and a wide range of public sector bodies, most of which are unelected.
Consider, for example, if the system follows its current trajectory, towards a greater reliance on local governance. This development has great potential to undermine traditional forms of parliamentary scrutiny. The Scottish Parliament already lacks the ability to gather information independently – it tends to rely on bodies such as the Scottish Government to provide that information. It does not get enough information from the Scottish Government about what is going on locally. Scotland lacks the top-down performance management system that we associate with the UK Government, and a greater focus on long term outcomes removes an important and regular source of information on public sector performance. Local and health authorities also push back against calls for detailed information. More devolution to local authorities would exacerbate this tension between local and national accountability.
Local decision-making also has the potential to change the ‘subsystem’ landscape. Currently, most Scottish policy is processed by civil servants who consult regularly with pressure participants. Most ‘lobbying’ to the Scottish Government is done by (a) other parts or types of Government and (b) professional and interest groups. Civil servants rely on groups for information and advice, and they often form long term, efficient and productive relationships based on trust and regular exchange. When policy is made at the Scottish level, those groups organise at the Scottish level. The Scottish Government is a key hub for policy relationships; it coordinates networks, referees disputes, and gathers information and advice at a central level.
One consequence of devolving more power locally is that these groups must reorganise, to shift from lobbying one national government to 32 local governments. Such a shift would produce new winners and losers. The well-resourced professional groups can adapt their multi-level lobbying strategies, while the groups working on a small budget, only able to lobby the Scottish Government, will struggle.
Such developments may prompt discussions about three types of reform. The first relates to a greater need to develop local participatory capacity, to take on the functions performed less by these national organisations. For example, the ERS Scotland’s suggestion is that more local devolution could produce a more active local population. Even so, we still need to know more about how and why people organise. For example, local communities may organise in an ad hoc way to address major issues in their area as they arise; to engage in a small part of the policy process at a particular time. They do not have the resources to engage in a more meaningful way, compared to a Parliament and collection of established groups which maintain a constant presence and develop knowledge of the details of policies over time.
The second relates to governance reforms which focus primarily on the relationship between elected local authorities, a wide range of unelected public bodies, and service users. There is some potential to establish a form of legitimacy through local elections but, as things stand, local authorities are expected to work in partnership with unelected bodies – not hold them to account. There is also some scope to develop a form of user-driven public service accountability, but separate from the electoral process and with an uncertain focus on how that process fits into the wider picture.
The third relates to parliamentary reform. So far, the Scottish Parliament has not responded significantly to governance trends and a shift to outcomes focused policymaking. Its main role is to scrutinise draft Scottish Government legislation as it is introduced. Its committees devote two to three months per year to the scrutiny of the annual budget bill. In general, this scrutiny has a very narrow focus, with a limited emphasis on pre- or post-legislative scrutiny, and its value is unclear. It has the potential to change its role. It can shift its activities towards a focus on Scottish Government policy in broader terms, through the work of inquiries in general and its finance and audit functions in particular.
Yet, while there are many issues still to be resolved, they are unlikely to be addressed before the referendum in September. Proposals for political reform only make sporadic appearances on the referendum agenda, and developments in governance tend to take place beyond the public spotlight. Scotland has its own political system, but it is one which is developing in a piecemeal way. A Yes vote in September may mark a radical shift in constitutional politics, but not in the way Scotland does politics.
The Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change does not simply examine the potential for a major event, Scottish independence, to have a major impact on Scottish politics. It also focuses on policymaking, which often exhibits stability and continuity despite major events. For example, the idea of evidence based policymaking (EBPM) represents a broad aim that the Scottish Government would pursue regardless of its constitutional status. The Scottish Government is also likely to continue its focus on a ‘decisive shift to prevention’ – to pursue ‘early interventions’ in people’s lives and address potential social problems before they produce high demand for acute, responsive public services – because the broad idea generates wide party political and public sector support.
Policymaking is about turning these broad aims into specific policies. In our paper, we set out a framework to think this process through, from identifying an aim, to using evidence to inform the selection of projects to fund and support. Some specific policies may differ under a devolved or independent Scotland, but the thought process stays the same.
First, we set out our aims. A clear definition of prevention and a set of detailed aims aids engagement with the public and the government’s policymaking partners. It helps produce a common set of expectations. It helps maximise the ability of a government to identify the most relevant evidence, when it seeks to learn from pilot projects and international experience.
This is difficult to do with ‘prevention’, which can mean anything from inoculating a whole population against a virus, to providing ‘crisis intervention’ to a small group. It can mean providing education and support or regulating behaviour. It is about identifying the root causes of problems, which is easier for many diseases than ‘wicked’ social problems. It is about how ‘decisive’ you want to be in a short space of time, and how you want to balance aims, such as between reducing inequalities or costs (at least when you can’t do both).
The Scottish Government addresses this problem through the National Performance Framework, which provides broad strategic objectives combined with a set of measures to gauge the success of prevention (and other) policies. It then invites local authorities, in partnership with public bodies, the voluntary and private sector, and service users – through Community Planning Partnerships – to produce Single Outcome Agreements which describe how these objectives will be met in each local area (there are 32).
In this sense, the Scottish Government has two broad aims: to pursue prevention projects and to make policy in a particular way, summed up in terms like ‘co-production’. Prevention policy results from Scottish Government direction, coupled with local plans produced in partnership with a range of participants. These aims can reinforce each other, when cooperation produces a high commitment to co-produced objectives, and/or undermine each other, when a proliferation of plans produces a wide range of meanings of prevention.
Second, we seek evidence to help clarify our aims and inform our decisions. Evidence can be drawn from past experience, pilot projects in our own country or policies pursued in others. The Scottish Government has an interesting double-role: to identify what evidence is relevant, based on its own aims; and, to translate evidence into lessons that are relevant to other participants.A commitment to co-production creates a commitment to understand what drives local policymakers and what information is relevant to them, given the constraints they face (including budget and time) and what drives them to act. It also prompts us to focus as much on the evidence of successful delivery arrangements as successful policy interventions. This is a fundamental issue when we seek to learn lessons from other projects: are we learning about the policy solution or the way in which the solution is understood and used, more or less competently, in particular areas?
Third, we use our judgement. The identification of ‘success’ is a political judgement based on our aims and beliefs. Many projects quickly develop good reputations based on these, rather than ‘scientific’, criteria. We outline a framework to ensure that a sufficient amount of relevant evidence is gathered before a project is deemed successful. However, many projects may not live up to this minimum standard, particularly if we want to learn quickly to address pressing problems. Consequently, evidence-gathering is no substitute for political choice based on limited evidence – and that choice may vary markedly across 32 local areas. This is evidence-based policymaking for the real world.
The Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence, Scotland’s Future, reignited arguments about the adequacy of the devolved settlement. While the Scottish Government argues that it could pursue a wide range of new policies under independence, its critics argue that many of the proposed changes – including an expansion of childcare and a devolved response to the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ – could be done by a devolved government. The debate exposes uncertainty regarding the limits to devolved powers, particularly when the Scottish Government is addressing ‘cross-cutting’ policy issues which often have reserved and devolved elements.
‘Prevention’ policy is a key example. ‘Prevention’ and ‘preventative spending’ are very broad terms to describe ‘early interventions’ in people’s lives, to address potential social problems before they produce high demand for acute, responsive public services. Examples range from disease inoculation, to public health interventions to change unhealthy behaviour, investment in early years education and welfare, measures to reduce crime reoffending, and measures designed to reduce inequalities associated with deprivation and unemployment. Scotland’s Future also places particular emphasis on the production of prevention policies in local areas by a range of public bodies consulting with non-governmental organisations and the public:
‘Scotland has already adopted a distinctive approach in our public services, focused on improving outcomes and building the assets and resilience of people and communities, through prevention and early intervention. It values collaboration by those involved – by people and communities, Third Sector, public providers and businesses. Our approach crucially recognises the importance of designing services with, and for, the people they are there to serve, and of building on our strengths’ (p359).
In 2011, the Scottish Government’s response to the Christie Commission’s report on prevention demonstrated that a great deal can be done by a devolved government. It listed a range of (over 50) interventions and 2011-16 priorities, including a focus on early years (and poverty) investment, class sizes and curriculum reform, employment training, tobacco, drug and alcohol control, ‘inequalities-targeted health checks’, alternatives to short-term custodial sentences, affordable housing, energy assistance and community-based carbon emissions reduction projects. It also announced three new funds, representing £500m ‘investment in preventative spending’ in older people’s services, early years, and reducing reoffending.
In that context, why might the Scottish Government benefit from further devolution or independence? First, the UK Government decides the size of the Scottish Government’s budget and its borrowing capacity. A Scottish Government in control of its own budget could decide to shift resources from some areas to invest in prevention initiatives (some may have high start-up costs, to be recouped over the long term).
Second, the UK Government controls taxation and social security policy, and its reforms have the potential to disrupt ‘joined up’ public service activity in Scotland. For example, housing policy involves a combination of benefits and services and, for example, the Scottish Government has devoted much political energy to reject the ‘bedroom tax’. Previously, the most frequently discussed example was ‘free personal care’ for older people – one part of which involved the Scottish Government paying local authorities to provide personal care at home, which removed the recipients’ entitlement to a UK benefit, Attendance Allowance. The Scottish Government requested that the savings to HM Treasury be passed back to Scotland, but the request was denied by the Treasury and the matter was never resolved fully. In such cases, the Scottish Government may argue that it has less incentive to produce a ‘joined up’ approach, since its spending and delivery may be undermined by UK rules.
The Scottish Government also argues that some post-independence policies will become self-supporting through greater economic activity. For example, it wants to fund its major investment in childcare by borrowing to invest in facilities and training, then recouping the money in more taxes and fewer benefits as more people go to work.
In some cases, further devolution may be enough to make an impact. For example, the Christie Commission (pp p57-8) called for the devolution of ‘employability’ policy:
‘In the course of our meetings across Scotland it has become clear that the interface between reserved and devolved policies on employability (i.e. job search and support services) has compromised the achievement of positive outcomes. Particular concerns were expressed about a ‘one-size fits all’ approach on the part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Jobcentre Plus; about the ways in which programmes are contracted out from Whitehall; and about the extent to which DWP and Jobcentre Plus services are coordinated with devolved public services at the local level. We recommend the full devolution of competence for job search and support to the Scottish Parliament to achieve the integration of service provision in the area of employability’.
Scotland’s Future (p108) also talks about the use of ‘employment services … built on the principle of “early intervention” … to prevent individuals from becoming long-term unemployed with all of the associated problems for individuals and for society’.
In other cases, the Scottish Government argument may be that everything is connected; one cannot fully act in one area without the freedom to act in another. For example, to address health, ‘we also need responsibility for our society’s wellbeing and welfare. The solution to ill-health is not in the hands of the NHS alone – it depends on breaking the cycle of poverty, educational underattainment, worklessness, poor mental wellbeing, and, through these, preventable ill-health’ (p136). Similarly, it argues that it cannot ensure joined-up government without being responsible for all government, and so it seeks to ‘streamline the cluttered UK public sector landscape by incorporating the functions of a number of UK public bodies into existing Scottish bodies’ (p361).
The Scottish Government is clearly making a constitutional argument in relation to its policy aims and its policymaking responsibilities. Put simply, the argument is that it can make better policy in a more effective way than its UK counterpart. This is not just about policy choices, but also about how policy is made and delivered even when those choices are not terribly different. This is an argument that deserves debate, since it goes to the heart of all modern discussions of multi-level policymaking and the implications of policy coordination across many levels and types of government.
Any debate about the future of Scottish policy is incomplete without a focus on its policy-making. Governments don’t just make policy choices in isolation. We expect them to be ‘consultative’ and ‘cooperative’ when they make and implement policy. This emphasis on a more open and cooperative ‘policy style’ was a feature of ‘new politics’ discussions in the run up to devolution, led by bodies such as the Scottish Constitutional Convention and Consultative Steering Group. New Scottish institutions were to become a hub for new forms of participation, basing policy choices on meaningful consultation with a wide range of people and groups, and rejecting exclusive consultation with the ‘usual suspects’. This attitude would extend to policy delivery. Rather than imposing policy from the ‘top down’, they would form meaningful partnerships with bodies such as local authorities. Advocates for ‘new Scottish politics’ often contrasted this style with ‘old Westminster’ and the UK Government’s (misleading) reputation for rejecting consultation with interest groups and imposing policy from the ‘top down’.
The evidence suggests that the Scottish Government generally lives up to this ‘new politics’ aim. It works with voluntary groups, unions, professional bodies and local and health authorities to produce policy aims. Its cooperative approach allows it to gather information and foster group support for policy. This approach extends to implementation, with the Scottish Government often willing to produce broad strategies and trust bodies such as local authorities to meet its aims. For example, it now negotiates Single Outcome Agreements with local authorities, which focus on progress towards long term improvements in the quality of life in local communities. In turn, local authorities work with a wide range of bodies in the public, voluntary and private sector to produce shared aims relevant to their local areas. SOAs mark a symbolic shift away from top-down policymaking, in which local authorities and other bodies are punished if they do not meet short term targets, towards the production of shared aims and cooperation.
In this context, our first aim is to examine the extent to which this consultative and cooperative policy style is a feature of government in smaller countries. The evidence so far suggests that, in Scotland, senior policymakers are more able than their UK counterparts to (a) form personal relationships with key members of interest groups and public service delivery bodies, and (b) make links across government departments. They can use their networks to coordinate policy and produce shared aims across government. This ability may result from the size of government and the size of ministerial responsibilities. Under Scottish independence, the latter would expand into new areas such as economic policy and its coordination task would be more complicated, but its ability to maintain networks within a relatively small population could remain.
Our second aim is measure the effect of this distinctive policy style on policy outcomes. So far, since devolution, there is more evidence of distinctive policy choices in Scotland than distinctive policy outcomes. It is difficult to identify the success of Scottish policies which have diverged from the rest of the UK. It is also difficult to say, unequivocally, that those outcomes would not have happened without devolution. This difficulty is compounded by the political nature of policy evaluation – political parties, in particular, engage in constant debate about the success or failure of government policy. This tension is heightened during the independence debate, which brings in new arguments linking success and failure to the current devolution settlement. In particular, policy failure or slow progress is accompanied by arguments about the futility of further devolution versus arguments that devolution has not gone far enough (see for example, the latest evidence on Scottish education policy).
We explore these issues by examining ‘prevention’ policy. The broad aim of government is to reduce the ‘demand’ for public services by addressing policy problems at an early stage; too much government spending is devoted to services to address severe social problems at a late stage. The aim is for governments to address a wide range of problems – related to crime and anti-social behaviour, ill health and unhealthy behaviour, low educational attainment, and unemployment – by addressing them at source, before they become too severe and relatively expensive. We explore the extent to which this broad aim can be tackled well by a Scottish Government committed to consultation and cooperation across government, to produce long term and shared goals. We then consider the potential effect of more devolution, or independence, which would extend Scottish Government responsibilities in relevant fields such as social security and welfare policy, and reduce overlaps by placing responsibility in one national government.
The Scottish independence debate may, at times, seem parochial, but its reach is global. We often seem to focus on narrow Scottish issues but the big questions travel well: what should be the size of a nation state? Should large countries have central, regional and local governments? If so, how should we share those responsibilities and coordinate policymaking between levels of government? Which policy areas should be centralized and which devolved? Should regions have taxation and spending powers?
I was struck by this global interest when invited to speak about regionalism in the UK, and Scottish devolution in particular, to a Japanese audience (in meetings with policymakers, parliamentary researchers and the general public) at the National Diet Library last month. This type of exchange shows you how the big questions matter, because a large part of the Scottish experience does not apply to Japan at all: proponents of ‘doshu-sei’ want to use it to foster economic policymaking powers in regions and to help reduce the national debt by slimming down central government. There is almost no equivalent in Japan to something that we generally take for granted in the UK – the groundswell of popular support for a degree of Scottish self-government. Instead, the lessons are about regional policymaking:
Scotland has shown that regional governments can make policy differently and introduce different policies. They can foster meaningful networks between governments, business, professional and voluntary groups, and they can use those networks to gather knowledge to inform the production of policies more suited to a specific region.
The Scottish experience shows that central and regional governments can work well together. Although the UK and Scottish governments do not learn from each other very much, they have a remarkably smooth relationship. Adding a new layer of government does not cause a confusing or crowded policymaking environment.
The UK is also a potential source for broad inspiration. In Japan, the devolution of powers from central government has been piecemeal and difficult for the public to see. Some observers from Japan saw UK devolution as a major high profile event (even though we often call it a ‘process’) and see Scotland in particular as a hub for regional policy and economic innovation. This experience may be used to sell regionalism in Japan as a necessarily ‘bold’ step, to engage the public imagination and address political crisis.
So, the next time you see what looks to be a parochial and inward looking argument in Scotland, remember that the world is watching too. What we often take for granted and treat as humdrum may be viewed very differently elsewhere.
This is where the role of the ESRC Future of the UK and Scotland programme is crucial. External observers need a way to condense a huge amount of information and experience into a set of ‘take-home’ messages. We have shown that research is as much about external engagement as knowledge gathering – and that, even at this early stage, we are well placed to provide it.
‘Preventative spending’ and ‘prevention’ describe a broad aim to reduce public service costs (and ‘demand’) by addressing policy problems at an early stage; too much government spending is devoted to services to address severe social problems at a late stage. The aim is for governments to address a wide range of problems – related to crime and anti-social behaviour, ill health and unhealthy behaviour, low educational attainment, unemployment (and, most recently, anti-environmental behaviour) – by addressing them at source, before they become too severe and relatively expensive. This aim may be timeless, and relate to previous policies directed at identifying the root causes of social problems – such as poverty, social exclusion, and poor accommodation. It has also received more recent attention during an ‘age of austerity’ in which governments seek to reduce spending and/ or redirect spending to other areas (to address key demographic shifts such as an ageing population, which affect service demand in other areas).
Prevention has some potential to generate widespread consensus – to bring together groups on the ‘left’, seeking to reduce poverty, and groups on the ‘right’, seeking to reduce economic inactivity and the costs of public services. It can also be linked to other ‘valence’ issues, such as (a) the need for ‘joined up’ or ‘holistic’ government in which we foster cooperation between, and secure a common aim for, departments, public bodies and stakeholders at several levels of government; and, (b) a shift from short, often misleading, targets as proxies for policy aims, to more meaningful long term outcomes.
Our aim is to examine how that agenda (a) plays out in Scotland, which has developed its own ‘policy style’; and (b) how it overlaps with current debates on constitutional change. Compared to the other ESRC Scotland projects, our topic is less sensitive to a changing constitution – the preventative spending agenda has already begun. However, it is not immune to that wider debate: more devolution, or independence, would extend Scottish Government responsibilities in relevant fields such as social security and welfare policy; and, the case can be made for independence to foster joined up government (or, reduce overlaps in government responsibilities for cross-cutting issues).
A Scottish Government Approach to ‘Universal’ Issues?
Any country’s prevention agenda would face common obstacles:
Defining and ‘Owning’ the Problem. Prevention is a vague term associated with many different aims (such as to reduce service costs or increase quality of life in a population). It is difficult to know what prevention policy would look like and how to measure its success in a meaningful way (particularly since government policy may be one of multiple causes of shifts in outcomes such as inequality). Its ability to gather wide support is a double-edged sword, since it brings together people with very different aims (and some groups will have unrealistic aims). One could have ostensibly the same policy for decades, but pursued with different choices, about the level and type of intervention, and about the main driver (such as reducing inequality or long term costs). This vagueness makes it difficult to secure stakeholder ‘ownership’ – or their support may only be for particular aspects of policy.
Shifting the Balance of Power. Prevention may require a challenge to existing services, and produce opposition from groups with reasonable concerns. It may require some governments to give up their powers unilaterally, such as local authorities when they accept binding shared aims with unelected bodies, or central governments devolving powers in a meaningful way.
Short term Costs versus Long Term Gains – undermines Long Term Commitment? A shift in resources may be designed to produce better outcomes over decades, which may be difficult to measure, at the risk of highly visible costs in the short term. These costs may be financial (invest for the long term in the same way you would invest in capital) and/ or political (when existing visible services are sacrificed for longer term aims). A visible party political imperative (parties competing for office every 5 years may seek short term measures of success or failure) may combine with visible effects on public services (and their employees) and the less visible issues such as intergenerational equality, to disrupt long term policies.
Normative. In some areas, early intervention may be criticised as excessive intervention (such as in tobacco and alcohol control – or the extreme example of preventative detention).
Wicked. We are dealing with areas that often seem intractable, or too big/ connected to be amenable to a simple/ workable solution.
Policy Transfer and Learning. What works in one issue or place may not work in another.
Policymaking. Any policy is subject to the usual constraints regarding uncertainty (for example, about how policy will influence social behaviour), the potential for unintended consequences, and the need for sustained leadership and partnership.
The Scottish Government may address these issues using a ‘Scottish Policy Style’, regarding:
The way in which it works with stakeholders to produce common policy aims.
The way in which it seeks to implement policy.
To some extent, it has a reputation for closer cooperation with stakeholders and building policy delivery on trust in implementing bodies (when compared to the UK Government). Its consultation approach may be used to gather information and foster group ‘ownership’. Its approach to implementation may be suited to a shift from short term targets to long term outcomes. It may continue to exploit advantages in relation to its size, with smaller government departments more able to make links across government, and senior policymakers more able to from personal networks with members of key stakeholder and delivery bodies. On the other hand, reputations can be misleading and based on snapshots in time. Early cooperation may have been based on a ‘honeymoon’ period of devolution and a favourable economic context. Further, not all Scottish Governments have pursued ‘bottom up’ and long term approaches to policy implementation.
Emily St Denny (@EmilyStDenny) and I are interested in how these issues play out in practice, examining:
The academic literature on preventative spending in theory and practice
Written statements on prevention in Scotland – reports by the Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament and related bodies such as the Improvement Service and CIPFA
Interviews with practitioners – Government, Parliament, local government, NHS.
with Michael Keating and Malcolm Harvey (@MalcH) at Aberdeen to link these issues to broader, comparative, studies of policymaking, examining the potential for learning from other, relevant, political systems and policies.
with the three Davids in Economics (Bell, Comerford, Eiser) at Stirling to examine how the progress of such policies can be tracked using outcome measures, and how meaningful it is to say that government policy helped cause those outcomes.
with Kirstein Rummery (@KirsteinRummery) and Craig McAngus (@craigmcangus) to examine particular aspects of inequality and unequal outcomes in areas such as age and gender
These posts introduce you to key concepts in the study of public policy. They are all designed to turn a complex policymaking world into something simple enough to understand. Some of them focus on small parts of the system. Others present ambitious ways to explain the system as a whole. The wide range of concepts should give you a sense of a variety of studies out there, but my aim is to show you that these studies have common themes.
Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy 