REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1983.tb00508.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1983 |
| Date | 01 March 1983 |
REVIEWS
APPROACHES
IN
PUBLIC POLICY
~
Steve Leach and
John
Stewart (eds.)
George Allen and Unwin,
for
the Institute
of
Local
Government Studies,
1982.
271pp.
€18.00
(cloth),
€6.95
(paper).
Birmingham University’s Institute of Local Government Studies is unusual among
academic departments in the extent of its influence on the real world of politics and public
administration The development of corporate management, rational planning, personnel
policies and area management in local authorities, have all been assisted by the tireless
advocacy
of
new approaches and methods in which John Stewart and his colleagues have
been engaged since
INLOGOV’S
foundation in
1963.
They have now presented the results of
their recent teaching and research in this book of essays, which contains a great deal that
will be of interest both to academic observers of local government and to those engaged in it.
Corporate management and planning have been subjected
to
some rude shocks in recent
years because a number of local authorities, including the City of Birmingham itself, have
ostentatiously scrapped the corporate structures they had adopted after reorganization and
the publication of the Bains Report. The expectations that corporate management would
produce better policies and more efficient administration have to some extent been
disappointed, although many advocates
of
corporate management underestimated the
importance of crude political motives in the dismissal of chief executives and the
dismantling
of
corporate committee and management structures which occurred in the late
1970s.
The overall message of this book is that even if corporate planning and management
cannot achieve everything their more enthusiastic advocates ori5inally promised, they
ought not therefore to be rejected. Indeed, it is fallacious
to
suppose that one must choose
between traditional incrementalism on the one hand or the rational approach in all its glory
on the other. Rationality is useful in the ’domain of justification’ of policies and it can be
applied selectively by the adoption of Etzioni’s’mixed scanning’ approach, which allows
us
to apply rational analysis
to
major policy issues while handling more routine decisions
incrementally. Policy-making should in any case be regarded as a cyclical learning process
whereby we hope continuously
to
improve our policies and performance without expecting
ever to arrive at perfect policies or final plans. Policy-makers should travel hopefully rather
than expect to arrive or, as Tony Eddison has said, ’planning is more important than plans’.
The rational approach has therefore a great deal to contribute to public policy-making, even
if
its prescriptions have to be modified in the face of changes in political control, pressure
group demands, or obstruction by other public or private organizations.
This leads to a second major theme of the book, which is the need to take full account of
the inter-corporate dimension in making policy. Friction between counties and districts
over shared powers, especially in planning, or the inability
of
regional planning bodies to
procure compliance with their proposals because they have few powers to offer as
inducements to the helpful or with which to threaten the uncooperative, illustrate the
importance in modern government of a full appreciation of the powers and policies of other
organizations and the need for skilful reticulists.
Two more themes must be mentioned. The need for local authorities to be more
responsive to the needs and wishes
of
the people they govern has led some to experiment
To continue reading
Request your trial