Joined up Local Government? I Would not start here if I were you
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/014473940002000201 |
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
| Author | J. A. Chandler |
J A Chandler/Joined Up Local Government?
..
JOINED
UP
LOCAL
GOVERNMENT?
I
WOULD
NOT
START
HERE
IF
I
WERE
YOU
J.
A. CHANDLER
Sheffield Hallam University
The White Paper Modernising Government, published in March 1999, aims to:
'encourage and facilitate more joined
up
working between Government
departments and agencies, and also with the rest
of
the public sector, like
local government. The goal? High quality, modem, accessible and
responsive services'.
It adds that,
'We
know
from letters
we
receive that many people feel that different
Government services could work better together.
At
many important
times
in
their lives, people have to use several Government services.
There is a strong sense that links between the different agencies do not
always work as smoothly as they should'. (Cabinet Office 1999).
Superficially this seems a wholly reasonable and laudable aim presented in the
style
of
well meaning clarity and simplicity that has been cultivated by the Civil
Service since the 1980s.
But
'simplicity', when applied to a complex society,
can
be
misleading. It may assume a general agreement
on
the solutions
to
social
problems and, therefore, that agencies representing different interests and
different levels
of
decision making are likely
to
want similar solutions
to
social
problems. However, joined-up government cannot be easily pursued in the
context
of
subsidiarity and pluralism.
Proposals
for
joined
up
local
government
There is no clear definition
of
'joined up government'. The idea is used
eclectically
to
justify a range
of
very different programmes.
At
one level,
joined-up government is associated with a view that the initiative should largely
concern harnessing
new
technology to make information more readily available
to the public. A partnership team established in the Cabinet Office has set up
service action teams for a number
of
issues such as the problems caused to
individuals in notifying changes
of
address
to
numerous disparate government
departments (Cabinet Office 2000). However, such action, whilst alleviating
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