New Localism and regeneration management

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13/04/2005

08:24

Page 1

ISBN 1-84544-103-6

ISSN 0951-3558

Volume 18 Number 2 2005

International Journal of

Public Sector Management New localism and regeneration management Guest Editor: Jon Coaffee

www.emeraldinsight.com

International Journal of

ISSN 0951-3558

Public Sector Management

Volume 18 Number 2 2005

New localism and regeneration management Guest Editor Jon Coaffee

Access this journal online __________________________ 106 Editorial advisory board ___________________________ 107 Guest editorial ____________________________________ 108 A comparison of local management of regeneration in England and Greece Georgia Chondroleou, Howard Elcock, Joyce Liddle and Ioannis Oikonomopoulos__________________________________________

114

The leadership role of women in social regeneration in the UK Su Maddock ___________________________________________________

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Strategic superboards: improved network management processes for regeneration? Carole Johnson _________________________________________________

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A plague on all your partnerships: theory and practice in regeneration Andrew Coulson ________________________________________________

151

The management of local government modernisation: area decentralisation and pragmatic localism Jon Coaffee and Lorraine Johnston _________________________________

164

Reflecting on the processes of a local evaluation: networks, narratives and partnerships John Diamond __________________________________________________

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178

CONTENTS

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Dr Jamal Daoud Abu-Doleh Business Administration Department, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

Dr P.I. Gomes Caribbean Centre for Development Administration, St Michael, Barbados

Dr Stephen Ackroyd The Management School, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK

Dr Chira Hongladarom Human Resources Institute, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand

Professor Refat Al-faouri Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

Professor Owen Hughes Department of Management, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Dr Michael Barzelay Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics, London, UK Professor Mathias Beck Division of Risk, Caledonian Business School, Glasgow, UK

John Hutton Henley Management College, Henley-on-Thames, UK Dr Douglas McCready School of Business and Finance, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada

Professor Jonathan Boston School of Government, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

Penny McKeown Senior Lecturer, Queen’s University, Belfast

Dr Richard Boyle Institute of Public Administration, Clonkskeagh, Ireland Dr Anthony B.L. Cheung Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong John G. Corcoran Economist, School of the Built Environment, Limerick Institute of Technology, Limerick, Eire Joan Corkery European Centre for Development, Maastricht, The Netherlands Dr Carolyn Currie School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Broadway, Sydney, Australia

Editorial advisory board

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Geoff Merchant Civil Service College, Ascot, Berkshire, UK Peter Noordhoek Northedge Ltd, Gouda, The Netherlands Dr James Nti Management Development Institute, Serrekunda, The Gambia Dr Vinod Shanbhag All India Management Association, New Delhi, India David Shand Financial Management Board, OPCFM, The World Bank, Washington DC, USA Kuppusamy Singaravelloo Department of Administrative Studies and Politics, University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr Andrew L.S. Goh School of Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

International Journal of Public Sector Management Vol. 18 No. 2, 2005 p. 107 # Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0951-3558

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IJPSM 18,2

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

GUEST EDITORIAL

New localism and the management of regeneration

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Jon Coaffee Global Urban Research Unit, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Abstract Purpose – Aims to unpack the development and subsequent growth in the UK of so-called new localism concepts and policies post-1997. Design/methodology/approach – Highlights both the political rhetoric and the practical applications of such policies. In this context, introduces the articles in this special issue which focus on various dimensions of new localism-style policy, predominantly in the UK, but provide a series of arguments and illustrate a number of contradictions that are equally applicable in many Western countries. Findings – Tension exists between centralising focus and constructing prescribed policy at national state level, and decentralising power and responsibility to a more inclusive group of stakeholders in order to develop increasingly nuanced and locally specific sets of regeneration priorities and outcomes. Originality/value – The articles in this special issue illuminate a number of lessons for regeneration practitioners and managers, and for academics engaged in research and evaluation of public sector policy. Keywords Regeneration, Local government, United Kingdom Paper type General review

In health, education, in housing, in local government and elsewhere we need to decentralise and empower staff and citizens alike. We must decentralise from the nation to the region. From Whitehall to the town hall . . . these are the building blocks of real localism. The challenge to government is not whether Ministers can use the rhetoric of locality but whether we are now all prepared to live and govern with the reality of localism. I believe we should (Milburn, 2003).

International Journal of Public Sector Management Vol. 18 No. 2, 2005 pp. 108-113 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0951-3558 DOI 10.1108/09513550510584937

In recent years many countries have undergone significant change in the way in which the delivery of public services and regeneration has been managed. This has occurred amidst a growing complexity in public policy and hostility towards “big government”. The traditional delivery and management of regeneration based on Weberian representations of centralised power and bureaucracy is morphing, albeit slowly into a system of greater decentralised decision-making, collaboration between service sectors and wider participatory structures. This has been related to wider transformative processes that have sought to refashion and recast the political and managerial linkages between national, regional/provincial and local states. Furthermore, such processes have increasingly attempted to draw the private sector and local communities into decision-making processes about creating sustainable neighbourhoods, cities and regions. In the academic and political literature such reform is often referred to as “new localism”, which in the UK “is now widely seen as a main organising principle of sub-national governance. It is seen as a means of improving democratic accountability,

providing a local mandate, and producing inter-agency approaches to localities” (Morphet, 2004, p. 293). More explicitly, new localism in the UK as a conceptual and policy idea has been driven forward since 2002 by the influential public policy “think tank” the New Local Government Network (NLGN). To the NLGN new localism can be seen as “a strategy aimed at devolving power and resources away from central control and towards front line mangers, local democratic structures and local consumers and communities, within an agreed framework of national minimum standards and policy priorities” (Corry and Stoker, 2002; Corry et al., 2003). In short new localism can be seen as a loosely defined term for attempts at reducing managerial and political centralism and creating “enabling states” based on key principles such as effectiveness, accountability, participation, equality, diversity and innovation (Corry and Stoker, 2002; Corry et al., 2003). The ideological underpinnings of such reform are rooted in the concepts of “third-way” politics and its subsequent “modernisation” agendas (Giddens, 1998). In many cases this has amounted to the vertical devolution and decentralisation of a varying amount of power and responsibility to different tiers of government/governance premised upon the twin concerns of unleashing enterprise and market forces whilst at the same time ensuring the provision of key social support services. In North America and Western Europe in particular, the recasting of government is ongoing (see for example Hambleton and Sweeting, 2004) based on principles of smaller, more efficient government units and, particularly in the European Union, on the idea of “subsidiarity”, with critical questions being asked about the future role, remit and geographical scope of sub-national government (Morgan, 2002; Loughlin 2001). In the UK, since “New” Labour swept to power in 1997, the policy responses to their “agenda for change” have commonly been seen as new localist in nature. Such change is often articulated in terms of the complicated and ever-changing nature of central-local government relationships. As Wilson (2003, p. 317) highlights, since 1997 in the UK a number of tensions are inherent within this reform agenda and have emerged “between a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approach; between a drive for national standards and the encouragement of local learning and innovation; and between strengthening executive leadership and enhancing public participation”. There are, of course, those that argue that there is nothing “new” in new localism which uncritically adopts the language and rhetoric of previous localist initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, but without some of the most innovative features of the “going local” experiments including large scale devolution of power and responsibility from national government to localities (Diamond, 2004). Whereas supporters of previous localist experiments would argue that the local state was the legitimate provider of all essential services, new localist concerns appear to have changed the conception of state provision to that of “enabling” and “ensuring”. In addition, other commentators have also accused new localism of paradoxically being a form of new “centralism” (Lowndes, 2003). In this vein, a much maligned aspect of new localism has been the notion of “earned autonomy” (also referred to as constrained discretion, steering localism or decentralisation by degrees) which refers to the way in which the centre rewards top-performing local states, giving them “freedoms and flexibilities” and “discretion” to develop and reform as they see best, but alongside a commitment to the meeting of national standards. However, failure to meet such standards will more often than not see the removal of such discretion. Powell

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(2004) sees this approach as “ultimately the cousin of the centralist approach” and as a key feature of New Labours managerial style. Under New Labour the number of inspectors auditing, evaluating and scrutinising local state service delivery has recently seen a rapid growth as regimes of “best value” and performance assessment become central to the modernisation of local government and hence the resetting of its relationships with other tiers of government and governance networks. Supporters of new localism argue that the current challenges of localism are different and require fresh approaches – that is devolution but within a national framework of minimum standards. In this sense new localism involves a prescriptive or steering role for the national state. Previous attempts at localism, it is argued, leaves the potential for parochialism and NIMBYism to dominate agendas (Parker, 2004). The argument here is that certain public sector provisions require nationally set standards, and hence a particular form of managerial and performance framework to be established. Alternatively, other forms of service provision should be determined according to local priorities and concerns. However, this inevitably creates problems and tensions within a multi-level governance framework as there is a requirement to both centralise to get strategic focus as well as for devolution and decentralisation to gain stakeholder inclusivity and improved local solutions to local problems. As Prachett (2004, p. 373) notes: National government are caught . . . in a paradox. On the one hand, strong local autonomy is essential to maintaining the local democracy practices that underpin broader democratic cultures within the polity. On the other hand, local autonomy threatens the viability of democratically supported national priorities. Too much local autonomy, in this sense, can destabilise the national institutions of democratic government.

Prachett (2004) also argues that new localism can perhaps be seen as an attempt to manage and to “clarify some of the complexities that bedevil central-local relations” although ‘its capacity to resolve this dilemma seems limited”. In essence, new localism is about a balance between the competing forces of localism and centralism. Wilson (2003) however argues that despite the appearance in the local political arena of new forms of participation and stakeholders, the influence in policy making terms is still located at national level giving New Labours UK public sector reforms a distinct appearance of “control freakery” amidst and appearance of greater participatory mechanisms for stakeholders and citizens. As such national government appear to “offer local government the impression that it is being drawn into a new partnership (promising influence, increased powers, financial latitude) to distract it from the reality of increasing central control (reflecting the centre’s lack of trust) but do so in a highly conditional way by rewarding the top performers – hence the focus on earned autonomy” (Wilson, 2003, p. 342) The current debates around new localism about the relative level of decentralisation of power and responsibility to different tiers of government; the appropriate spatial, managerial and political level to decentralise to; the type and the impact of such devolution, are questions which will dominate the political landscape of many Western countries for some time to come. In short, protagonists in this ongoing debate appear to have two key positions centred on “restating the state” and “exploring how public value can be augmented by new relationships between the market and state and what role the state has in nourishing a wider public realm” (Gamble and Wright, 2004, p. 8). On one hand, as Stoker (2004, p. 118) argues:

New localism represents a practical response to a significant practical challenge: how to mange a substantial variety of state service provision and interventions in a world that defies the application of simple rule-driven solutions and often requires and effective response from the recipient of the service or intervention in order for the state to action work.

On the other hand, as Peters (2004, p. 138) argues, that perhaps the devolution dynamic of new localism has gone too far and that a degree of “recentering” is required as decentralised forms of governing is generally not co-ordinated and lack efficiency: As government attempt to recentre their style of governing, however they confront new challenges and dilemmas. The most important of these is that while strengthening the centre may overcome some of the problems that have been created by the adoption of the decentralising ideas of NPM, there is a the danger of going back to the old centralised, hierarchical system that was the cause of much of the recent innovation in governing.

This special issue of IJPSM seeks to extend our understanding of the political and management polices associated with this new localism dynamic and in particular the often contradictory ways in which current local and regional regeneration issues are delivered in different contexts within the public sector. For example, this will involve analysis and discussion regarding the exposition of the changing management systems of local and regional government/governance; the relationship between the engagement of different public, private sector actors with local communities and politicians; the changing nature of urban and regional political leadership and its compatibility with different forms and styles of decentralised service delivery; and the implications of “earned autonomy” for the continuation of the devolution of power and responsibility from national governments. This special edition focuses on various dimensions of new localism-style policy as it has been rolled out, predominantly in the UK, but provides a series of arguments, and illustrates a number of contradictions, which are equally applicable in many Western countries. The papers also illuminate issues of complexity which abound when public sector organisations and institutions are “forced” or encouraged to undergo “change management” in order to be increasingly responsive and innovative in the light of changing economic ad political externalities. A number of the case-studies presented in the following papers highlight examples of where the public sector, having been issued with policy guidance to which they must adapt but are being left to work out the intricacies of this task for themselves amidst dwindling public sector funding, resources and staffing. In the first paper Chondroleou et al. highlight the similarities and differences in the way local government has been managed, and continues to be reformed, in England and Greece. The implications of such change for community governance and socio-economic regeneration are illustrated as well as the inherent tension between local state and strong central state control. In particular the paper highlights how the central state finds difficulty in “letting go” when localist sentiments are expressed. In a similar way, Maddox’s paper argues that UK regeneration policy is dominated by economic as opposed to social concerns which necessitate an evidence-based performance management framework. It is further argued that such economically driven regeneration narratives reinforces closed and centrally steered systems of public sector management – driven by the need to meet “best value” targets imposed by central government as a form of earned autonomy. The paper also pinpoints an

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emerging role for women as transforming leaders within new models of public sector management based on increasingly open and innovative systems. Drawing on empirical case studies in a number of UK urban areas, the remaining papers by Johnson, Coulson, Coaffee and Johnston, and Diamond, highlight how new localism-style policies have developed in practice and impacted upon the management of localities. Johnson focuses on “network management theory” and the institutional design of so-called “superboards” that have become increasingly influential in the management of UK regeneration programmes. She provides a detailed expose´ of a number of such superboards as they have developed in practice. In particular, her paper highlights the failure of prescriptive central government guidelines and performance management criteria for the development and management of such boards, which it is argued, do not fit with local institutional contexts. Coulson’s paper unpacks the recent and rapid growth of different types of regeneration partnership in the UK and, in particular, the ambiguous role of community representatives as legitimate and valued actors on such partnership boards. This is unpacked through an analysis of different regeneration initiatives and the relationship between “professionals” and community representation which is often seen as problematic but equally seen as necessary, to the development of partnership priorities if they are to adequately reflect local need. In a similar vein, Coaffee and Johnston focus upon the impact of area decentralisation experiments through an analysis of the UK’s “area committees” initiative. This paper highlights the apparent tensions between prescriptive national policies and, the pragmatism of local states to develop tailored approaches to sub-local political and managerial decentralisation in relation to their own particular geographies and histories. The paper argues that a “middle way” is possible in which new localism-style policies can seek to balance top-down directives with local innovation in a more pragmatic way, and according to local circumstances of place. In the final paper, Diamond adopts a fine-grained approach to the study of local partnerships through an evaluation of how local regeneration networks are developed and how they often conceal real differences in power, status and authority of participants. He argues that often, the local perspective that emerges from such networks, represents a competition between a variety of contrasting viewpoints although already dominant views tend to decide the language and boundaries of the debate. Diamond calls for embedded practices and managerial approaches to be “unlearned” by statutory actors so that they can fully engage with the processes of community capacity building. Overall, the six papers in this edition represent a variety of differing, yet complementary perspectives, of how the concepts of new localism have been rolled out “on the ground” and “in the community”. They also illuminate a number of lessons for regeneration practitioners and mangers, and for academics engaged in research and evaluation of public sector policy. References Corry, D. and Stoker, G. (2002), New Localism Refashioning the Centre-Local Relationship, NLGN, London. Corry, D., Hatter, W., Parker, I., Randle, A. and Stoker, G. (2003), Joining up Local Democracy: Governance Systems for a New Localism, NLGN, London.

Diamond, J. (2004), “First it was ‘going local’ in the 1980s and now it’s ‘localism’: what have we learned and why does it matter?”, The Challenges of Localism, Regional Studies Association, London, pp. 18-21. Gamble, A. and Wright, T. (Eds) (2004), Restating the State, Blackwell, Oxford. Giddens, A. (1998), The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge. Hambleton, R. and Sweeting, D. (2004), “US-style leadership for English local government”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 64 No. 4, pp. 474-88. Loughlin, J. (Ed.) (2001), Sub-national Democracy in the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lowndes, V. (2003), “Between rhetoric and reality: does the 2001 White Paper reverse the centralising trend in Britain?”, in Carmichael, P. and Midwinter, A. (Eds), Regulating Local Authorities: Emerging Patterns of Central Control, Frank Cass, London, pp. 135-47. Milburn, A. (2003), “Localism: from rhetoric to reality”, speech by the Secretary of State for Health to the New Health Network and the New Local Government Network, 5 February. Morgan, K. (2002), “The new regeneration narrative: local development in the multi-level polity”, Local Economy, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 191-9. Morphet, J. (2004), “The new localism”, Town and Country Planning, Vol. 73 No. 10, pp. 291-3. Parker, J. (2004), “New Localism, defined, defended and developed”, speech to the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference, London, November. Peters, B.G. (2004), “Back to the centre: rebuilding the state”, in Gamble, A. and Wright, T. (Eds), Restating the State, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 130-40. Powell, M. (2004), “In search of new and old localism”, paper presented to the ESPAnet Conference, Oxford, 9-11 September. Prachett, L. (2004), “Local autonomy, local democracy and the new localism”, Political Studies, Vol. 52, pp. 358-75. Stoker, G. (2004), “New localism, progressive politics and democracy”, in Gamble, A. and Wright, T. (Eds), Restating the State, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 117-29. Wilson, D. (2003), “Unravelling control freakery: redefining central-local relations”, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 317-46.

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A comparison of local management of regeneration in England and Greece

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Georgia Chondroleou University of York, York, UK

Howard Elcock Department of Politics, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Joyce Liddle Durham Business School, Durham, UK, and

Ioannis Oikonomopoulos Municipality of Megara, Greece Abstract Purpose – Explores comparisons between the English and Greek local government systems, in the hope of offering some fresh insights into the regeneration and management of local areas. Design/methodology/approach – Discusses the issue of local political leadership at a time when changes in local political management arrangements are taking place in many European countries. Findings – The English and Greek experiments with developing local self-government provide some reassurance and some causes for concern but, above all, they demonstrate that in, unitary states, Ministers and Civil Servants at the centre find withdrawing from interference in local affairs a very hard exercise in self-denial. Originality/value – Illustrates the problems facing two centralised countries struggling with varying but limited success to cope with various public management issues raised by local devolution and decentralisation. Keywords Local government, Economic development, England, Greece Paper type General review


Introduction: some foundations for comparative local government studies The comparative study of political systems has now generated an extensive literature. One of the most important contributors thereto, Peters (1998, p. 10) postulates five approaches, in his well-respected text: (1) Single country studies of foreign countries, using a common analytical framework, thus enabling one to draw conclusions about the similarities and differences between that country and the author’s own. (2) Analyses of similar processes and institutions in a limited number of countries. (3) The development of typologies or other classifications of regimes. (4) Statistical or descriptive analyses of data from a subset of countries. (5) Statistical analyses of all countries. Another major contributor to the comparative government literature, Rose (1993), proposes that comparison can be achieved by lesson drawing. He proposes five approaches:

(1) Copying the institutions and practices of another country. (2) Emulation of another country’s institutions or practices, after adjustment to suit differing circumstances. (3) Hybridisation involves combining institutions or practices from two countries. (4) Synthesis – combining elements of practice from three or more places. (5) Inspiration – developments in some countries provide the intellectual stimulus for developing new programmes. The object of this paper is to explore comparisons, using Peters’ analytical approach and typologies, together with Rose’s emulation and hybridisation, between the English and Greek local government systems, in the hope offering some fresh insights in the regeneration and management of local areas. Comparison is easier if some general similarities between the two states in question can be identified. There are at least three significant similarities in the development of the English and Greek local government systems. First, both countries are unitary or union states with strong centralist traditions that are trying to cope with demands for regional and local devolution, including pressures generated by their EU membership. Both countries are relatively homogeneous (especially if we use England rather than the whole UK as the comparator) but there are tensions between centres and peripheries in both states. Both have a history of centralised government but not only are regions and localities increasingly demanding autonomy; also European Union (EU) policies are encouraging the extension of local autonomy, encouraging the development of regional and local government agencies with which the commission can negotiate the allocation of its structural funds. This leads to a second problem that England and Greece have in common: both countries are on the periphery of the EU. Partly because of this, both states face major regional and local regeneration and development problems. Thirdly, they both suffer from major internal imbalances: London and the South-East of England are considerably more prosperous than the peripheral English regions, especially those in the North. The latter have suffered economic deprivation and environmental degradation from the collapse of the heavy industries that used to provide most of their employment. Nearly half the Greek population lives in its two main conurbations, Athens/Piraeus and Thessaloniki. The rest of the country is mountainous and therefore sparsely inhabited, with many villages still dependent on primitive agriculture and fishing, although many coastal communities considerably augment their income from tourism during the summer months. Both countries have also experienced a long-term population drift from their rural areas to the major cities, especially their capitals. All these imbalances need to be addressed by public managers at all levels of government. However, they have very different histories, which may restrict comparisons between them. The UK has not been invaded since 1066 and has gradually evolved a stable if still imperfect democratic political system. Greece by contrast has had a turbulent history, having been invaded many times. It gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1830s. Multi-party democracy has only been firmly established there since the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic in 1974. Nonetheless, Greece has a European cultural and political heritage; indeed, many of the founding principles of European democracy were derived from the writings of Greek

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thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. A more detailed comparison of aspects of the two countries’ public management should, therefore, offer scope for interesting comparisons and contrasts. We are seeking here to explore community leadership and local management, by engaging in comparative analysis of aspects of English and Greek local government. In a previous paper (Chondroleou et al., 2003), we explored the reasons why both countries have engaged in structural reorganisation of their local government systems and the effects this has had on their community governments. Here, we discuss the issue of local political leadership, at a time when changes in local political management arrangements are taking place in many European countries. Reforming community leadership in Britain and Greece England In England, the government has imposed radical solutions on local authorities in order to make them develop strong “core executives” but unlike some other European states, it did not impose a single model of local leadership. Ministers saw a need to do this for several reasons: the extent to which local authorities, especially their leading members and officers, have the capacity fully to discharge their community leadership and managerial responsibilities was restricted by the weakness of their core executives and the lack of political or official leaders with whom the leaders of other organisations could communicate and co-ordinate their activities. Hence pressures to strengthen local government leadership since the 1960s have stemmed from two sets of problems (Elcock, 2001). The first relate to the internal management of the local authority itself. Local authorities needed to improve their co-ordination and policy coherence – their governing functions – in order to reduce waste and duplication, as well as preventing policy disasters and personal tragedies caused by poor communication and co-ordination in a system dominated by relatively narrow professionalisms and a fragmented committee system (Elcock, 1994). Also, successive reorganisations have created very large local authorities, both in terms of the areas they govern and the number of their employees, which requires local authorities to strengthen their core executives, which has resulted in the development of a series of reform proposals. These included the development of corporate management in the 1960s (Elcock, 1994), proposals for directly elected mayors from a conservative minister in 1991 (see Stoker and Wolman, 1992) and again from the Blair Labour government in 1998 (Elcock, 2001). Some form of executive control organ, selected from a menu provided by ministers, has now been imposed on most councils by the central government. Secondly, local authorities increasingly need to deal effectively with other governments, public service organisations including “Quangos”[1], private businesses and business organisations, trades unions, voluntary agencies and others. Since the late 1960s English local authorities’ roles have evolved from the Victorian tradition under which councils regarded themselves as being responsible only for discharging the functions allotted to them by Parliament, towards their accepting a wider responsibility for the economic, social and cultural welfare of their communities and citizens. In the first role, it did not matter unduly that they functioned as loose confederations of departmental and committee empires, the overall co-ordination of which was weak and occasional (Wiseman, 1963). However, the development of a governance or community leadership role required them to create a stronger “core

executive”, which was first attempted by corporate management from the late 1960s onwards (Greenwood and Stewart, 1974). Also, the increasing fragmentation of local governance through compulsory competitive tendering and the creation of increasing numbers of special purpose authorities (“Quangos”, see Robinson and Shaw, 2002) in the 1980s has compelled local authorities to become centres of networks involving local business organisations, trades unions, voluntary agencies, educational institutions and many others in joint planning and decision-making, which has caused some observers to describe such systems as “governance without government” (Rhodes, 1996). The Local Government Act, 2000 enables and requires local authorities to accept this community leadership role. It has been accompanied by a growing series of requirements for local authorities and other sub-national government organisations to develop corporate plans and strategies whose remit extends beyond their own responsibilities to include those of other organisations. Thirdly, community leaders need to secure firm support bases in order to secure the implementation of their policies and their own survival – their allegiance roles (Elcock, 2001). New political management arrangements were imposed on most English local authorities less than three years after the Blair government came to power, through the Local Government Act 2000. A new structure for Greater London was enacted to enable the first elections for the Greater London Assembly and London Mayor to be held in April 2000. Elsewhere, local authorities with over 85,000 inhabitants were required to choose a leadership structure from among three options (DETR, 1998, 1999): (1) A leader elected by the council from among its members, with a cabinet. (2) A directly elected mayor with a cabinet. (3) An elected mayor with a council manager. In addition, a new overview and scrutiny function was invented for those councillors who are not appointed or elected to the cabinet or executive. Hence, new political management arrangements structures have been imposed from the top down. However, only 11 councils plus Greater London have acquired elected mayors (Game, 2003) but they now seem to be carving out distinctive roles for themselves (Elcock and Fenwick, 2004). The election results were not what the government wanted or expected in two-thirds of the mayoral authorities, including London, hence ministers now seem to have lost interest in creating elected mayors. Academics and ministers alike hoped that creating executive mayors would address the chronic weakness of the “core executive” in British local authorities (Stoker, 1996; Leach and Wilson, 2000). Elected mayors have become increasingly fashionable throughout Europe (Schaap and Ringeling, 2003) but they have been widely resisted in the UK as not conforming to British norms, culture and traditions, which lay heavy stress on collective rather than individual leadership (Beecham, 1996; Doyle, 1996; Elcock, 1998; Elcock and Fenwick, 2003). The vast majority of councils opted instead for leaders elected by councils, supported by cabinets or executives whose members are usually appointed by the leader. The election of mayors or the appointment of leaders and cabinets with executive powers, have established a formal demarcation line between the mayor or leader and the cabinet responsible for deciding policies and managing the authority and the remaining councillors, whose main function is to be ward and citizen representatives. However, these non-executive members can now scrutinise the activities of the


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executive and the council’s officers, as well as being empowered to scrutinise other public and private organisations. Overview and scrutiny committees are therefore increasingly undertaking reviews both of their own authority’s leadership and policies and of outside organisations such as local health trusts. However, the success or otherwise of overview and scrutiny committees is influenced by the quality of their chairs, as well as the encouragement or otherwise that they get from mayors and executive members (Elcock et al., 2003). Allegiance functions and the public. Another major cause for concern for local government leaders in Britain is the low and declining levels of voter turnout in local elections and a general lack of citizen involvement in local affairs. Also, public participation exercises usually command a low or derisory level of participation. To this apathy elected mayors in particular are responding vigorously by developing new forms of public consultation and participation. The danger of local government becoming an “insider” activity, fascinating for councillors, officers and political activists but of little concern to anyone else, is widely recognised among councillors and mayors alike (Elcock et al., 2003; Elcock and Fenwick, 2004). It has led local authority leaders to attempt to increase public interest and involvement in local politics and government by taking a wide range of initiatives, including establishing area committees or neighbourhood forums (Coaffee and Healey, 2003; Elcock and Fenwick, 2003; Elcock and Fenwick, 2004). Public apathy weakens the role local authorities play in the leadership of their communities and win public support for its policies and plans, because it weakens their legitimacy. Directly elected executive mayors were proposed as a remedy for public apathy because they would provide a visible focus of local leadership but there is no evidence from abroad or at home that introducing mayors has or will increase public interest in local politics (Stoker and Wolman, 1992; Hambleton, 1994; Elcock, 2001; Game, 2003). However, interviews with elected mayors reveal that they are energetically seeking to address this problem through consultation exercises and area based initiatives, such as publishing local consultative papers, as well as responding to community needs, for example appointing community wardens to improve safety and concentrating street cleaning in particular areas to improve their appearance (mayor interviews). Area committees are widely reported to have increased public participation in local government (councillor and mayoral interviews), as have changes to the electoral system, especially postal voting. Some mayors regard them as a means of communicating with local communities without going through councillors (Elcock and Fenwick, 2004). The general thrusts of developing community leadership in British local government, then, have been to strengthen the leadership of local authorities to increase their ability to tackle their governmental and governance problems. Political leaders also need to seek to ensure their continuance in office by maintaining their popular support and electoral machines, which may reduce their freedom of manoeuvre and distract them from performing their governing and governance roles. Elected mayors and local political leadership in Greece In Greece, by contrast, there has been concern to reduce the power of locally elected or otherwise selected leaders, the toparxes, ever since Greece won independence in 1830, because they have tended to be at the centres of clientelistic and often corrupt local networks, now maintained by their links with the political parties (Kafetzis, 2003;

Lyrintzis, 1984; Makridimitris and Liverakos, 2000). However, mayors have acquired additional powers and functions as the responsibilities of local councils have increased. Also, the central government has wished to increase its control over local communities and their governments in order to increase the pace of economic and social development. However, there is also a need to develop networks to bring about economic regeneration and better social provision at the local level. The issue in Greece is therefore more concerned with governance than governmental terms, because it is concerned chiefly with the reduction in corrupt inter-agency relationships at the local level and securing increased state control over local communities, while at the same time encouraging local economic development and the provision of better local services. The governmental issues concerning internal management are not as significant as Britain, perhaps because most Greek demoi and koinotites are too small to present significant internal management problems of co-ordination and control. With a population of 12 million, Greece still has more than twice the number of local authorities that now exist in the UK with some 58 million inhabitants. Hence there are only 12,000 people on average in each primary local government area, compared with 127,000 in England. However, some of them are large enough to run into the same problems of co-ordination and control that exist in Britain. Another reason why managerial issues are less significant may be that “new public management” has not yet entered the Greek administrative agenda. Local political leadership Local political leadership has been a controversial issue characterised by a continuous competition for political power between leaders at the local and national levels since the formation of the modern Greek state. Local political leaders (toparxes) were very powerful and had an important role in running local affairs during the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. During the War of Independence (1820s), their role became even more significant; their political power and influence increased rapidly. Their prominent role during the war in combination with the existence of strong local loyalties led to the creation of powerful political leaderships (Kitromilidis, 1984). The newly established independent Greek state (1831) was characterised by strong tensions between the central administration seeking to create a unitary, centralist state and local leaders aiming at maintaining their powerful political roles and a multi-centred system (Vlaxos, 1982). Despite the political power of local leaders, all decisions and laws, even from the interwar period, were orientated towards a centralised system aiming at national unity and social integration. This conflict between politically powerful local leaders and a centrally controlled administrative and political system has dominated local politics and government until nowadays. The formation of large municipalities (dimoi) in 1833, although it initially restricted the power of prominent local leaders, gradually led to their empowerment since they operated in a large geographical area. In addition, the problems faced by the newly established state in performing its duties allowed for local government to undertake numerous administrative and economic responsibilities, hence further empowering local leaders. Gradually, the national government secured control of dimoi, continued to articulate the clientelist and partisan system at the local level and gradually diminished the responsibilities of dimoi. However, local leaders acquired significant political power, although not any real decision-making powers, and were very


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influential not only at the local but also, through members of parliament, at the national level (Hlepas, 1999, pp. 269-291). It is evident that since its inception, the modern Greek state has been characterised by a continuous struggle between local and national political leaders for power and by a constant attempt from the state to control the local leaders while reproducing the clientelist system at the local level. By the beginning of the twentieth century, local leaders had succeeded in acquiring significant political power, which had allowed them to control their local communities as well as the national centre (Mavrogordatos, 1998). In 1912, the government introduced a major local government reform in an attempt to diminish the power of the local leaders, known as the “rule of the mayors” and reduce their domineering influence over MPs. The local government reform abolished the dimoi in order to invigorate parliamentarism and to diminish the influence of the government’s political opponents who were dominant in the dimoi. This reform had political motives and it introduced a large number of small communes (koinotites) and municipalities (dimoi)[2]. The fragmentation to a plethora of small units created numerous economic and administrative problems, which weakened local government and hence the power of the local leaders (Hlepas, 1994; Makridimitris et al., 2000). Local government continued to decline suffering extreme fragmentation under a centralist and paternalistic state throughout the twentieth century. Indeed, ongoing emigration, falling birth rates, localist disputes and tight but unsuccessful central control contributed to an astonishing weakening of local government (Christofilopoulou, 1991; Hlepas, 2002)[3]. Although, the present constitution (1975/1986/2001, art. 102) has safeguarded a significant role for local government and its directly elected representatives (mayors for municipalities and presidents for communes and their councils) for managing local affairs, in practice local government has been unable to exercise successful administration of local affairs, increase the pace of economic and social development and escape the close control from the state (Hlepas, 1999). Despite these problems in local government, local political leaders, especially in dimoi, continued to remain politically powerful and to reproduce the partisan, clientelistic system reflecting the central government. An important characteristic of the central-local government relationship that has significant implications for local political leaders concerns the close relationship between political parties and local government (Lyrintzis, 2000). The doctrine of non-political character of local elections, that was advocated after the civil war (1945-1949) never materialised and local elections were becoming increasingly politicised from the 1950s onwards. Nowadays the political parties officially announce the candidates they support for both municipal and prefectural governments (Hlepas, 2002). Party involvement in local politics has been an intrinsic part of local government and it reflects the clientelistic and paternalistic character of the central government. Since 1974, the development of mass political parties has increasingly subordinated local communities to mechanisms of influence and power controlled by the centre (Lyrintzis, 1984, 2000). Local political leadership, although it enjoys significant political power, is controlled through partisan relationships by the centre and it reproduces its partisan character, clientelistic and paternalistic practices and corruption at the local level. The 1990s local government reforms introduced rapid changes in local government by establishing a second tier of local government at the prefectural level (1994) and by

restructuring the first tier through a rigorous reduction from 5,775 communes and municipalities to 1,033 (1997). The consequences of these reforms for local political leadership are significant and they are expected to influence local-central relations, as well as affect the political power of local leaders and alter the balance of power between local leaders, MPs, and state representatives at regional level in favour of the first (mayors in municipalities and nomarxes in prefectures). However, close partisan relations between local administration and political parties continue to safeguard control by the centre. Indeed, the reforms have brought about a contradictory outcome. On the one hand, they seek to encourage economic development, better the provision of services and reduce clientelism and corruption in local politics (Hlepas, 2000). On the other hand, they aim to increase central state control over local communities through partisan relations and fiscal control, which is one of the main causes of clientelistic, patronage relations and corruption (Gkekas, 2000; Lyrintzis, 2000; Mavrogordatos, 1998). The relatively small size of most Greek dimoi[4] in combination with the absence of new public management (NPM) techniques in the Greek local government administrative system, have led to a minimum need for co-ordination and “joined-up” government. Unlike the British case, issues regarding resources management, NPM strategies and co-ordination/overlapping have only recently started entering into the Greek administrative agenda and local government (Michalopoulos, 2003). This has allowed more autonomy for the elected local leaders, since the absence of managers and managerial practices have, in practice, give to both mayors and nomarxes the sole power to formulate policies at the local and prefectural levels. However, this is changing, for two main reasons. The first is that NPM practices and techniques have started entering the Greek local government system, especially in the big cities and this will gradually increase the need for co-ordination and strategic allocation of resources (Makridimitris et al., 2000). The second is that the introduction of different levels of local government and decentralised services has established a complex system in which there is an overlapping of competences, hence, creating problems of co-ordination and control which necessitate a more clear division of competence (Chryssanthakis, 2000) and more sophisticated managerial and administrative techniques (Michalopoulos, 2001). The issue of governance has increasingly become an essential element of the Greek administrative system, especially after the 1990s local government reforms. These reforms have introduced a multi-level and multi-tiered system of local government. There is a two-tier system (communes and municipalities) at the primary level. The municipalities are sub-divided in accordance with the territorial boundaries of the abolished LGAs, as municipal departments. The second level of local government is categorised to simple and consolidated secondary level local government authorities (SLLGAs). The consolidated SLLGAs are separated into prefectoral departments, which have the same territorial boundaries as the abolished prefectures and operate in an independent manner. The SLLGAs are further sub-divided into counties (eparxeia), especially in the island areas. The administrative and policy-making system becomes even more complicated if we add the two levels of decentralised state departments (prefectures and regions) as well as the central state. Moreover, the operation of the different forms of communal or municipal companies further complicates the system. As a result, a complex network of organisations and actors has been created, whose competences and responsibilities are overlapping and often confused while different


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levels of government have led to a great diffusion of political power (Spanou et al., 1997). This “new” system of governance has significant implications for local political leaders since it has created politically powerful local leaders at the municipal level (mayor) and the prefectural level (nomarxis) whose political power is similar to that of the local MPs (whose constituency is coterminous with the prefecture). The current administrative structure has created a politically overload system where the mayors and nomarxes enjoy great political power which is not, however, followed by a similar degree of control over economic and political planning (Gkekas, 2000; Kafetzis, 2003; Tatsos, 2003). A significant contrast with the British case is that local political leaders in Greece do have firm support bases and a great degree of political power to formulate and implement their policies. Local leaders at both levels of local government are directly elected and enjoy significant political support and power (Hlepas, 2002). Indeed, their political power can be more influential in local communities than those of local MPs. However, local political leaders lack economic resources and fiscal independency, which leads to great dependency from the state and the maintenance of central control. In addition, dependency on political parties ensures the reproduction of the partisan, clientelistic system and secures central control over local government. In sum, the Greek case is characterised by a long tradition of politically powerful local leaders who, however, have no real powers over economic and political planning of the local communities because of their partisan dependency and tight central state control. Community governance and socio-economic regeneration In both countries, new institutions to tackle economic and social deprivation have been generated initially by the central government, so that again the initiative and funding have come at least partly from the top down. However, the subsequent development of the new agencies is much more a matter for local initiatives, to which the central governments have had to respond. These new organisations include community representatives and are to some degree independent from local authorities. The issues raised by previous studies of single and multi-functional local agencies can be applied here (Davis and Hall, 1996). The rationale for creating special agencies includes: . special regeneration agencies can concentrate on a limited range of aims related to economic redevelopment/regeneration; . special regeneration agencies can more easily engage with a variety of partners than can traditional local authorities. . special agencies can engage expertise that is not available within local government; . special agencies can engage in entrepreneurial behaviour and projects which a local authority could not undertake without facing charges of waste, impropriety or illegality and which bureaucrats are ill-equipped to deal with; . special agencies are more familiar with local conditions, problems and needs than the central government can hope to be; and . special agencies are better equipped to allocate national and EU funds than either local authorities or the central government.

However, if relations with local authorities are not co-operative, conflicts may arise which inhibit development. Also, who the community representatives are to be and how they are appointed if they not local authority members, raises issues of democratic legitimacy. Also, experience has demonstrated that it is not always easy to identify a “community” which relates to a single purpose agency. Community governance and community leadership emphasise a shift from managing and administering services, budgets and staff within local authorities or other public organisations towards taking the lead in the new governance systems beyond their own organisations’ boundaries and working within networks and partnerships. The local authority no longer has sole responsibility to deliver services for its population and governing its constituents. It now has to take on the role as community champion or community leader to assist local people and diverse groups in deterring overall needs and developing relevant capacities. Local authorities have always been the responsible and accountable bodies acting on behalf of local communities, with the threat of political overthrow if plans did not have popular community approval or were outside of their mandated obligations. From a UK perspective, local authorities not only have to lead their communities, as defined in the white paper Strong Local Leadership-Quality Public Services (DETR, 1998, 2001) but also have responsibility under the Local Government Act 2000 for the overall social, economic and environmental wellbeing of their areas. Such community leadership requires local authorities to: . support grass root development of communities; . mobilise effective partnerships with other public, private and voluntary organisations; . understand the needs and interests of local communities in regional, European and national arenas; and . give strategic direction on service development (Hartley, 1998). For Southern (2003), public managers have a primary role in enabling communities to understand the causes of deprivation, and help them to develop capacities. In cyclical rather than linear processes, regeneration managers are urged to develop the skills of analysis, implementation and measuring and evaluating performance, as well as creating a continuous circle of identification of new opportunities and problems solving. In the era of outcome measures and target setting it is essential to have managers who can understand the regime and ensure that communities are centrally involved in shaping the evaluation and monitoring mechanisms. By involving stakeholders in the entire process from project identification through to developing measures of success, continuous learning and iteration are needed. Added to the skills of analysis, implementation and measurement Southern also recognises the very wide experience, expertise and portfolio of skills and competences needed to manage regeneration. These are general organisational skills of financial planning to support business cases, together with more specific skills in human resource management, strategic thinking, performance management, marketing, risk management, use of technology, as well as relationship management. These may not always be found among career local government officers – an issue central to similar developments in Greece.


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Conclusions These case studies illustrate the problems facing two centralised countries struggling with varying but limited success to cope with various public management issues raised by local devolution and decentralisation. In particular, they illustrate how central governments respond when local governments or agencies start behaving in ways that are unanticipated and perhaps inimical to the centre’s intentions and policies. Central government may not like the results when local people express their will and must decide whether to accept their verdict or recentralise control over local governments and agencies. The Blair government did not want Ken Livingstone to win the first London Mayoral election and the Labour Party suffered a series of embarrassing electoral defeats when mayors were elected in other communities. Hence, it responded by losing interest in the whole mayoral project. The Greek government seems unable to dislodge the clientelism and corruption that is endemic among mayors who enjoy local support. The upshot is that since local government autonomy is valued and has to be respected under the terms of the European convention on local self-government, central governments must learn self-denial and not interfere when the results are not to their liking. The English and Greek experiments with developing local self-government provide some reassurance and some causes for concern but above all, they demonstrate that in unitary states, ministers and civil servants at the centre find withdrawing from interference in local affairs a very hard exercise in self-denial. This is all the more important as community leaders are urged to regenerate their locales, improve the management of their local governments and set policies in motion to achieve key objectives.

Notes 1. Quasi-non-government organisations are agencies established to administer a specific policy area, which are governed by boards of directors appointed by ministers. They became increasingly numerous under Mrs Thatcher’s Administrations (1979-1990) and have remained numerous since then. 2. The reform introduced 2,727 communes and municipalities for a population of just 3.24 million. The number was gradually increased as new parts were gradually annexed to the Greek state and the population raised. By 1997 there were 5,825 communes and municipalities for a population of 10.5 millions. 3. More than 80 per cent of rural municipalities had less than 1,000 inhabitants, 60 per cent had less than 500, and they represented less than 20 per cent of the population (Hlepas, 2002, p. 1). 4. The size of most Greek dimoi is small by comparison to that in Britain. Greece, with a population of about 12 millions, has almost twice the number of local authorities than Britain, with a population of 58 millions, has.

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Christofilopoulou, P. (1991), “Local government reform in Greece”, in Hesse, J. (Ed.), Local Government and Urban Affairs in International Perspective, Nomos, Baden-Baden, pp. 551-62. Chryssanthakis, C. (2000), “The new administrative ‘reality’ at the level of local government: Law 2539/1997”, Greek Political Science Review, Vol. 15, pp. 20-35 (in Greek). Coaffee, J. and Healey, P. (2003), “‘My voice: my place’: tracking transformations in urban governance”, Urban Studies, Vol. 40 No. 10, pp. 1979-99. Davis, H. and Hall, D. (1996), Matching Purpose and Task: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Single-Purpose Bodies, INLOGOV, University of Birmingham, Birmingham. DETR (1998), Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People, Cm 4014, HM Stationery Office, London. DETR (1999), Local Leadership, Local Choice, Cm 4298, HM Stationery Office, London. DETR (2001b), Strong Local Leadership-Quality Public Services, Cm 5237, HM Stationery Office, London. Doyle, P. (1996), “Mayors or nightmares”, Public Policy & Administration, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 47-50. Elcock, H. (1994), Local Government, 3rd ed., Routledge, Oxford. Elcock, H. (1998), “Council leaders in the New Britain: looking back and looking forward”, Public Money and Management, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 15-21. Elcock, H. (2001), Political Leadership, Edward Elgar, Aldershot. Elcock, H. and Fenwick, J. (2003), “Lesson drawing can fail: leadership in local government”, paper presented at the 2nd ECPR General Conference, Phillipps-Universita¨t, Marburg an der Lahn, September. Elcock, H. and Fenwick, J. (2004), “The new leadership in British local government: an interim verdict?”, paper presented at the Political Studies Conference, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, April. Elcock, H., Fenwick, J. and Lilley, S. (2003), “Out of the loop?”, Public Policy & Administration, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 29-43. Game, C. (2003), “Elected mayors: more distraction than attraction?”, Public Policy and Administration, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 13-28. Gkekas, R. (2000), “The new type of relationships between central and local government authorities”, Greek Political Science Review, Vol. 15, pp. 54-71. Greenwood, R. and Stewart, J.D. (Eds) (1974), Corporate Management in English Local Government, INLOGOV and Charles Knight, London. Hartley, J. (1998), Leading Communities, Local Government Management Board, London. Hlepas, N-K. (1994), The Multilevel Local Government: Theoretical Questions and Institutional Metamorphosis, A.N. Sakkoula, Athens-Komotini (in Greek). Hlepas, N-K. (1999), Local Administration in Greece: The Dialectical Antagonism between Decentralisation and Local Government, A.N. Sakkoula, Athens-Komotini (in Greek). Hlepas, N-K. (2000), “Local government and field administration: restructuring and old rivalry?”, Greek Political Science Review, Vol. 15, pp. 36-53 (in Greek), available at: www.neighbourhood.dtlr.gov-uk/partnerships/accred/index.htm and www.neighbourhood. gov.uk/sandk.asp?pageid=36 Hlepas, N-K. (2002), “Local government reform in Greece”, paper presented at the Reforming Local Government Conference, Stuttgart, 25-27 September.


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Kafetzis, P. (2003), “Local autonomy, partisan dependency and political strategy”, in Makridimitris, A. (Ed.), Local Government and the State in a Globalised Era, A. Sakkoula, Athens. Kitromilidis, P. (1984), “Democratic wishes and ideological myths: the current historic genealogy of local government reform”, Political Science Review, Vol. 43, pp. 32-48 (in Greek). Leach, S. and Wilson, D. (2000), Local Political Leadership, Policy Press, Bristol. Lyrintzis, C. (1984), “Political parties in post-junta Greece: a case of bureaucratic clientelism?”, Greek Political Science Review, Vol. 15, pp. 3-19 (in Greek). Lyrintzis, C. (2000), “From the restoration of democracy to the end of the 20th century”, History of the Hellenic Nation, Vol. 16, Akadimaiki, Athens. Makridimitris, A. and Liverakos, P. (2000), Decentralisation and Local Government: The Apparent Need for Transformation of the Regional and Local Governments in Greece, Centre for Social and Economic Research, Athens. Makridimitris, A. et al. (2000), “Decentralisation and Local Government”: ConclusionsSuggestions, Athens Academy, Athens (in Greek). Mavrogordatos, G. (1998), Between Pitiokampti and Prokrousti: Pressure Groups in Modern Greece, 2nd ed., Odysseas, Athens (in Greek). Michalopoulos, N. (2001), “Methods of management and organisation of state-citizen relations”, in Spiliotopoulos, E. and Makridimitris, A. (Eds), Public Administration in Greece, A. Sakkoula, Athens-Komotini. Michalopoulos, N. (2003), From Public Bureaucracy to New Public Management, Papazisis, Athens (in Greek). Peters, G. (1998), Comparative Politics: Theory and Methods, Macmillan, London. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996), “The new governance: governing without government”, Political Studies, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 652-67. Robinson, F. and Shaw, K. (2002), “Who runs the North-East . . . Now?”, University of Durham, Durham. Rose, R. (1993), Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy, Chatham House, Chatham, NJ. Schaap, L. and Ringeling, A. (2003), “Mayors as actors improving municipal governance”, paper presented at the European Group of Public Administration Conference, Oeiras, September. Southern, A. (2003), The Management of Regeneration: Processes and Routes to Effective Delivery, Centre for Local Economic Strategies, Manchester. Spanou, K. (Eds) et al. (1997), Secondary Local Government: Expectations and Opportunities, A.N. Sakkoula, Athens-Komotini (in Greek). Stoker, G. (1996), “The reform of the institutions of local representative democracy: is there room for the mayor-council form?”, Commission for Local Democracy Research, paper no. 18, September. Tatsos, N. (2003), “The financial crisis of local government”, in Makridimitris, A. (Ed.), Local Government and the State in a Globalised Era, A. Sakkoula, Athens (in Greek). Vlaxos, G. (1982), Political Change in Greece, Papazisis, Athens (in Greek). Wiseman, H.V. (1963), “The working of local government in Leeds”, Public Administration, Vol. 41, pp. 51-69, 137-155. Further reading Burgess, P., Hall, S., Mawson, J. and Pearce, G. (2001), Devolved Approaches to Local Governance Policy and Practice in Neighbourhood Management, Joseph Rowntree, York.

DETR (1997), Regeneration Programmes – the Way Forward, HM Stationery Office, London. DETR (2000), Preparing Community Strategies: Draft Guidance to Local Authorities, HM Stationery Office, London. DETR (2001), “Special grant report”, No. 78, March. Jessop, B. (2000), in Stoker, G. (Ed.), The New Politics of British Local Governance, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, pp. 11-32. Kellerman, B. and Webster, S.W. (2001), “The recent literature on public leadership reviewed and considered”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 12, pp. 485-514. Leadbeater, C. (2003), The Man in the Caravan and Other Stories, Improvement and Development Agency, London. Liddle, J. (2001), “RDAs, sub-regional partnerships and local regeneration”, Local Economy Journal, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 312-23. Liddle, J. and Townsend, A.T. (2003), “Reflections on the development of local strategic partnerships: key emerging issues”, Local Governance, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 37-54. Montgomery, J. (2001), CEO, NR Unit, speaking in Durham, 27 November. Mumford, M.D., Connelly, S. and Blaine, G. (2003), “How creative leaders think: experimental findings and cases”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 411-32. Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (2002), “Skills and knowledge report”, available at: www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/sandk.asp?pageid=36 Social Exclusion Unit (2000), National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal: Report of Policy Action Team 16: Learning Lessons, HM Stationery Office, London. Taylor, M. (2000), Top Down Meets Bottom Up: Neighbourhood Management, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York.



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The leadership role of women in social regeneration in the UK Su Maddock

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Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Abstract Purpose – Proposes that arguing for greater access for women is essential but not sufficient to drive equality or the spirit of diversity. Design/methodology/approach – Explores the role that women and others can play in broadening agendas and in transforming managerial and regeneration practices. Findings – A few innovative chief executives are leading the way and showing what transforming leadership is about in practice. In spite of this the intransigent lack of diversity within decision-making bodies produces a brake on positive social change. Originality/value – Provides an insight into the leadership role of women in social regeneration. Keywords Gender, Regeneration, Government, United Kingdom Paper type General review


The regeneration narrative: fracture between economic and social regeneration In 1997, New Labour was first elected to government by the British people, who wanted a form of fairer government, following the Tory era of the Thatcher and Major governments. The prime minister, Tony Blair was in particular was an advocate for community cohesion and citizenship within disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Blair, 2002). The Labour government set up a task force on regeneration and regeneration policies that produced a report entitled “Towards urban renaissance” (1999). The task force reported that £200 billion was spent on urban areas and that this accounted for 60 per cent of all UK public expenditure. The same study found that 25 per cent of urban dwellers thought that their areas had deteriorated in terms of crime, rubbish and transport. In the light of the above the task force’s main recommendation was to propose a planning policy that would support change and be flexible enough for neighbourhood voices to be heard in regeneration master-plans. However, involving communities, beyond one-off consultations has proved a challenge to many UK governments, including the New Labour government. The present government’s approach to social regeneration has been piecemeal and has failed to understand that policies and strategies need to focus on how to work with communities rather than merely with targeted groups. The plethora of community regeneration schemes such as new deal for communities were clearly motivated by a desire by the government to reinvigorate citizenship but it is ultimately impossible to build the confidence and trust necessary for community engagement without also addressing local democracy and the gendered nature of the power relations between local people and the local state. Throughout the world, those most active at the local level are women with less status, power and smaller budgets. Economic regeneration has been and continues to be separate from social regeneration and the politicians involved in economic and

infrastructure development have tended to leave social and community concerns to others, usually women elected members. The planning policies and strategies relating to community and economy have tended to be separate from one another, those working on community strategies also having less status than public managers concerning themselves with infrastructure development. Although lessening in some places, there is a fracture between infrastructure planning and social regeneration, with each conducted by different managers and politicians from separate committees. Economic regeneration has been and continues to be separate from social regeneration and the politicians involved in economic and infrastructure development have tended to leave social and community concerns to others, usually women elected members (Lowndes, 2004). A total of 75 per cent of those active in communities are women, who organise local projects on meagre finances usually raised from local government (Hall, 1999). The distinct nature of local social regeneration is reinforced by a “gender” divide between those involved at the community level and those involved in master-planning. While the narrative about “social capital” is included in all current policy documents as critical to the successful civic society – this is the theory. In reality social and human capital development is seen as a local and community concern ignored too often by those involved “master planning” who pay little more than “lip service” to the interests of local people or to the time it takes to build local relationships, especially in areas of conflict. While those in the third sector assume that: You don’t regenerate the buildings until you regenerate the people (Adebowale, 2004, pp. 43-4).

The above message has not had an impact on the business and corporate planning frameworks within regeneration. While the lack dialogue between planners and communities was more evident in the 1960s, when a building boom led to planners developing housing estates with little regard for green space, play-areas, shops and facilities (personal experience); and planners have improved and now concern themselves with the public realm, improvements have not extended to the ways that public servants work with people in disadvantaged communities. The role that women play in social capital Despite the rhetoric about social capital there is little political debate about how to develop social relationships within disadvantaged neighbourhoods nor about the role that women play in building them. You could say women earn social capital and men spend it (or benefit from it): 75 per cent of people in local groups in the UK are women, yet when funds roll in and jobs occur, the men appear. Yet it is women who know what is to done (Neighbourhood consultant, 2004).

There are of course many contributing factors to local social capital, how it is formally expressed in political parties or less formally expressed in the community; its location in social classes etc. What is clear is that women tend to contribute to “social capital” in a different way from men. Women’s contribution tends to be informal, whereas men prefer the clarity and status of formal organisations (Lowndes, 2004). Most people in disadvantaged communities lack formal power connections and too often it is women

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and those from ethnic minorities who are active in communities but invisible within the business and political arenas. This has significant implications for the way social capital in deprived communities can connect to the mainstream of politics and to local strategic partnerships[1]. Hall (1999) notes that local communities in Britain are sustained by women’s participation in community groups and organisations. Yet, women’s representation on local partnership boards is still poor. Geddes (1997) revealed that only a quarter of local partnership board seats are held by women and these tend to be places assigned to community representatives, who are isolated. A total of 72 per cent of local councillors in the UK are male and 28 per cent are female (2001 census). Most men invest their time in building relationships where they can get some return, through formal politics and organisations, while women tend to network and build informal relationships, where they feel less constrained by institutional and formal practices (Lowndes, 2004; Geddes, 1997). Traditional levers While, New Labour politicians aim to build on “social capital” within deprived communities, many of their schemes are well intentioned but poor in impact. Local participation in social regeneration is valued on paper, in policy, this intent has not been translated into social regeneration practice, such that it involves local people. New Labour’s approach to social regeneration needs to be understood within the context of social and economic regeneration in Britain over the years. The single regeneration budget was introduced to funnel finance into local regeneration schemes but these suffered from the weight of government performance management or “too much bean counting” which pulled statutory staff away from working with communities towards meeting specified single targets (Strachen, 2003). Recent schemes include: . targeted investment in disadvantaged areas; urban, rural, city or regional; . specific programmes for specific groups of people, women, youth, unemployed etc.; and . monies for particular programmes with specific objectives, such as training etc., ranging from general community capacity building and training, latterly for social enterprise[2]. More recently, the Labour government introduced new deal for communities (1998) in 39 urban neighbourhoods across England, each received £50 million over a ten-year period. East Manchester was one such area. Hilary Wainwright (2003) suggests that the weak relationships between communities and the local authority have not helped the new deal for communities work, however she suggests that such initiatives do suggest the potential of participatory democracy and the need for brokering a new alliance between the formal representative and participatory forms of political accountability. The big money in regeneration is in transport, business infrastructure and in housing, and it is a rarely the case that opinion leaders and decision-makers in this domain are female or that the community voice is heard. There are many reasons for the continuing separation between social and physical regeneration, but a major one is because of the lack of diversity, and especially of women, at board level within politics and regeneration companies. This lack of diversity has a detrimental impact on “regeneration” priorities, designs and timescales.

Embedded inequalities Many public service staff still tend to be think of disadvantaged communities as either “victims” in need of welfare, not as people with ideas or as dissidents, unworthy of too much attention. National and local government decides “who is deserving” and “who is not” and when and how they should receive financial support When local people organise they have to go through more hoops than necessary to get grants because policy-makers tend to believe that “governance” is poor in the community sector and they need strict monitoring. In reality governance in local organisations is no better or worse than in any other sector. Policy makers tend to expect more of those they have least confidence in – while business and public bodies may renegotiate terms, community enterprises are expected by local officials to meet all the criteria on time and within budgets that are very small. A further issue for community groups is the attitudes of local officers and staff and the fad of government to target particular activities and groups of people and not others. In addition, new enterprises in disadvantaged neighbourhoods find it difficult accessing appropriate resources and the “know how” to support them. Local and national bureaucracy deters small, community organisations. Whereas, larger private businesses have the capacity to access funding opportunities; community ones do not. In practice, social regeneration works at the pace of people’s relationship building – whereas physical regeneration is planned on the basis of work schedules and is more predictable. Developing relationships where there is little confidence or trust is time-consuming and very unpredictable. While physical regeneration projects have the larger budgets, social regeneration is harder, less predictable and less easily managed. This is the nub of the problem and not one solved except through negotiation and practice. While government acknowledges many of these issues, the implications of them in terms of planning, attitude and process are not translated into new approaches to regeneration that involve local people, such that: . they are involved in master-planning; . other stakeholders, including business, accept the need for adjustments in schedules and activities in the light of this involvement; . their public space and facilities are part of design and planning; . social services and other mainstream service are part of these process; and . larger, anchor business project schedules are made transparent to the community. Opting out of the system can appear as a relief to many on the margins who find government is “tricky”, its bureaucracy dense and its performance management undermining of the emergent nature of development and the time it takes for people to gain trust and confidence in the work (Maddock and Morgan, 1998). Working with communities reveals that often local people want: . better mainstream services, not more projects; . genuine consultation, not just “them” showing “us” plans; . officials who talk to each other instead of looking after their own jobs and pet schemes; and . consistent investment, not finance that comes with so many conditions it fragments local activities and is turned on and off like a tap.


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All of which are signs of a desire for a renegotiations of local power relationships, instead they receive more solutions from policy makers. While there has been a move away from targeted projects on specific communities towards more general neighbourhood renewal schemes, statutory officers are still required to monitor specific activities for specific groups of people for funding, on the basis of single performance indicators. This fragments local activities and people’s lives to appease auditors, and pulls local energy into activities determined by government, not by themselves. This is unfortunate when social cohesion is created when groups of people work together around the realities of life-experience. We need a fundamental shift in the way services are organised and monitored by government, and in the attitudes of public servants towards disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Seeking sustainability Previous government regeneration schemes have tended to be monitored through very narrow performance management based on performance indicators set by the government not by local people or on the life-experience of local people. Too often the way schemes are monitored and funded pulls people’s lives into fragmented strands, because the various programmes or services are administered by different public servants. If the statutory sector is to move towards negotiated local strategies for development with communities, then local statutory agencies need to recognise: . the context and complexity of people’s lives; . that outcome indicators and monitoring should be more closely based on local conditions; . social development, partnership and local relationships require a stable environment to develop (not constant political interference of objectives); . the need for a central government fund for “conflict resolution and dialogue”, shared learning between communities and local officers, and the development of local knowledge transfer mechanisms; and . the need for diversity and for a value of difference in the public realm. Successful interventions The question for government is how to intervene in a way that will energise communities without creating chaos and be realistic in terms of the monies available. Successful schemes appear to be those where: . people feel engaged and confident that they will be involved in future work; . the whole community gets a range of local benefits and can see where it is leading, i.e. not isolated training programmes; and . evaluations inform learning. What makes a difference to local social regeneration: . energetic and committed individuals who drive change; . statutory, public sector workers with a capacity to reach-out to local people and develop activities; and . responsive senior managers – who make connections between successful communities and their own practice, and make changes accordingly.

Partnership between stakeholders (communities, business and statutory bodies) is at constant risk from a loss of “champions”, poor management and conflict between partners (Lowndes, 1999). However, the main cause of concern is that bigger partnerships receive significant amounts of funding for yet more “pilots”, when the transfer of learning from these into the mainstream is poor and frequently resisted. Mainstream change in the way planning decisions and targets are made is beginning to happen but too often the impact of managerial processes are ignored by politicians.


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Social change dependent on organisational change The lack of connection between public sector “custom and practice” and communities has hindered social regeneration for many years. The inward organisational pull on staff in many local authorities has had a detrimental effect on their capacity to empathise with what people feel, think and want in communities. Too often those local officers who are innovative have had to choose between their loyalties to communities and to their employer authority. The National Audit Office[3] reported that nearly 50 per cent of all public bodies demonstrated cultures where managers and staff were risk-averse. Even programmes such as the health action zones given the task of driving mainstream change in health failed to really kick-start a serious change process inside the health service or in local government. The fact remains that there are confidence, prejudice and motivation problems in the public sector. And a lack of “know how” among manager about how to motivate staff to work with communities in order to find solutions instead of perpetuating the myth that disadvantaged communities create problems. This traditional narrative and inward pull has had a detrimental effect on all of the government’s regeneration programmes. Public sector improvement Driving public service improvement in Britain has largely been through agency restructurings, public sector targets and monitoring mechanisms such as “best value” and the corporate performance assessment process in local government. Many local authorities in Britain have been concerned for some time with the micro-management of their affairs by central government – this ethos is driven down the organisation such that too many managers are making staff less self-motivated, not more so. Unfortunately, the government’s narrative about change strategies continues to rely on top-down directives and on control, rather than on leadership (Table I). Most management consultants refer to the above models which are usually referred to as open and closed systems, more recently these systems are also contextualised within the context of a local over-arching system, that draws attention to the Old model

Emergent model

A closed system Rationalist Top-down directives Change through structural and operational processes Fragments evidence Seeks neatness and conformity

Emerging within open/living system Defined through dynamic relationships Acknowledges flow and agency Seeks diversity Change through active people

Table I. Old and new paradigms for change management

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complexity of the system. Transformation and alternative organisations require fresh thinking and practice within government, as well as in local authorities. Importantly, modernisation if it is to develop social capital requires a paradigm shift in conceptualising “change itself”. New practices that involve collaboration and bridging the gap between communities and staff are going to be messy and unpredictable and cannot therefore be mapped out on the basis of existing and planned activities nor measured by standard or general indicators. Emerging new relationships within social regeneration need time to grow – constantly measuring them not only restricts their growth but also strangles them before birth. Internal modernisation and social regeneration The above demonstrates how internal practice within local authorities for instance has an impact on local regeneration – and there is a need for more connection between internal change in public bodies and what it actually means to communities. This is a leadership issue, the government’s concern with audit in the public sector has resulted in too many senior managers paying attention to what government wants, rather than what their communities are saying and developing their staff capacity accordingly. This is of course unsurprising given the history of public administration where managers were reinforced for managing standard systems not for being responsive to communities or for their transforming leadership (Carless, 1998). Consequently, it is hardly surprising that most public bodies are run by system’s enthusiasts who are: . rational and logical; . good at planning and detail, but poor at people and community leadership; . are detached from political purpose; . deny the significance of emotional intelligence and experimenting with emergent networks; . cautious risk takers, intolerant of ambiguity and exploratory reflection; and . often in reality view change as a matter of policy to be relayed to junior ranks through “telling and informing.” These qualities are unhelpful in a context where public managers need to be aware of the emergent and messy nature of community organisation in all areas not just in areas of disadvantage. Unfortunately, traditional public servants have been trained to stick to the rule-book and are not good are analysing the emotional realities of staff or communities (Maddock, 1999). Their risk-averse culture can lead them into an obsession with operational detail rather than an ability to scan the environment and embrace difficulties and conflict. The problem for the UK, especially in the regions, is that it is those managers who have a history of managing operations and finances who are still promoted over those who have people skills and the ability to orchestrate change; this demoralising for innovative managers (Maddock, 1999). This results in most leaders having particular qualities of decisiveness, control and direction but lacking in the political and emotional skills necessary for transforming public organisations. The current imbalance in the public sector management between central control and local development is undermining the ability of many managers to make sound and good judgment. Clearly, social modernisation demands a form of transformational management style and managers who can cope with ambiguity and uncertainly.

Transforming or adaptive leaders Leadership is critical to dragging modernisation back on a path of social development because it concerns dramatically improving the people relationships within a complex system and creating work environments that are open to emergent practice and creativity. The culture in many public bodies has changed and there is not more of an “outward focus” and responsiveness towards service users, however there remains poor strategic leadership in the public sector in terms of relating diversity, regeneration and improvement agendas within corporate and business strategies. We need to understand what type of leadership style is most appropriate within the public sector in a changing environment. There has been over the years a distinction made between “transactional” and “transformation” leadership styles. The two corresponding roughly to the closed and emergent systems mentioned earlier. Transforming leaders are said to more adaptive and responsive to changing dynamics and people – largely because they are less controlling and more able to “go with the flow.” While there has been a definite shift in thinking about leadership among many executives and there is now a general acceptance that the traditional directive approach to leadership no longer works in the public sector, there is less clarity about what to develop in its place. Many executives are confused about how to change an organisation while also not be directive in the traditional sense. They know that it is no longer enough as a leader to be in control, modernisation requires an ability to have vision but also let go, to scan the bigger-picture and to orchestrate any change. Successful organisations require leaders, at all levels not just at the top, with emotional and political intelligence as well as intelligence and operational experience. Senior public servants need to develop their capacity to: . be visionary in terms of the bigger political picture able to challenge traditional thinking and as well as practice; . improve management systems to be flexible enough to support innovation and responsiveness in staff (which is not the same as efficient); . accept diversity and handle ambiguity and flux; . be open to criticism and new ideas; and . have the ability to integrate people issues with financial, performance and operational management. The reason why transformational leadership is critical to public modernisation is that the rigidity of public bodies is no longer appropriate. In spite of 20 years of such thinking it is only recently that chief executives have been grappling with how to “walk to talk” and become transforming leaders. These leaders are hard to find and the technical, risk-averse society tends to call too quickly for functional competence at the expense of strategic leadership (Maddock and Morgan, 1998). Many of those attempting to make change live are women (Fox, 2004). Women have been reported to be more adept at the transforming style than men who tend to have a preference for form and protocols (Carless, 1998). The popular “herioc” leadership style is gendered and the lack of women in senior positions in private and public organisations is noticeable across the world. In Britain there remains a popular belief in heroic leadership, fed by the press and the media. Ministers are being asked by some to take a look at their own thinking and expectations about the type of people


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who can “turn around” failing public agencies and why (Edwards, 2004). Edwards, an adviser in health, questions the tendency to presume that macho “heroic” leadership is the only solution to endemic problems in the public sector. Most women suggest that leaders must believe less in the public definition of the leader as “heroic” and more in the capacity to lead others in a direction that benefits society (Maddock, 1999). Everyone involved in change has the potential to take a lead and be a leader, because new practice involves a personal readjustment of behaviour at work. However, demonstrating leaderships is harder lower down the organisation because it is not given credibility by status. Women know this well all too well, and remain frustrated in middle and senior management (Maddock, 1999). A management study on executives from the USA, Germany, Japan, China and the UK showed that the phenomenon “think management, think male” still pertain around the globe (Schein et al., 1996). While there have been some positive shifts in public sector gender cultures in the UK and more women are becoming executives, some regions lag behind. For example, in the Northwest England there are only seven local authority chief executives out of a total of 60. In the USA the situation in corporations is not improving and women are leaving to become entrepreneurs in large numbers. Women in the USA now own 33 per cent of all small businesses yet only 6 per cent of CEOs of large companies are women (Catalyst, 2001). Only three women are listed among CEOs of the 500 largest corporations in 2000 (Catalyst, 2001). Linda Stroh, professor of Industrial Relations in a Chicago University suggests that across the USA there persists a view that women are not serious executives who are too influenced by their desire to have babies (Stroh, 1992). It is no longer an adequate explanation that this situation is due to women’s lack of talent or confidence, it concerns male attitudes to women and the gendered culture of American companies. This gendered world results in there being an unwillingness to improve the intensive “long-hours” culture and an obsessive work-ethic. Baxter and Wright (2000) conclude that women in the USA face many more obstacles to executive positions than men and hence women are choosing to run their own businesses (Hewlett, 2002). Conclusion It sometimes appears that some public sector leaders are actually dis-empowered by the unpredictability of modernisation, and want clarity and clear roles and are not been convinced of the need to change. Others convinced that improvements are desirable but question how to go about modernisation, they tend to fall into two groups; those who seek predictable change through ICT and performance systems and those who would fall more under the “transforming” banner and recognise the value of developing relationships with people. While the context is changing and chief officers within the public sector are now committed to improvements, most view change strategies as top-down processes and those committed to working with staff and communities continue to be fewer number. It would seem that chief executives are beginning to challenge conventional top-down change strategies because they can see that complex local environments demand more people based approaches to change. While both men and women conform to the traditional practices, it is undoubtedly the case that innovative women (Maddock, 1999) are faster to see the connection between open-management and working with communities. Unfortunately, although many local chief executives are now

reappraising their approaches to management and to change, policy makers themselves are slow to challenge the hegemony of closed system’s thinking. The critical issues within local and national government which impact on working with communities and therefore social regeneration concern the: . attitudes of local public agencies towards communities and in particular, particular types of people, i.e. drug users, youth and single mothers; . alignment between government’s policies for regeneration and their own change strategies and management procedures; . the connection between economic narratives and social regeneration; . lack of diversity in decision-making; and . lack of gender awareness. While the British government calls on local agencies and partnerships to prove that they have the capacity to change and to deliver real improvements, in reality this is difficult to achieve when the national economic narrative continues to portray the public and social realm as a cost to the country. The public sector is a platform from which social capital can develop in disadvantaged areas. The public realm sustains everyone including business (Hutton, 2002). Yet, rarely, is the business sector maligned as a cost, where as the public services are frequently referred to as a drain on resources, even though, the private sector is as dependent on social capital and the public realm as is the public sector. There is a need to challenge the traditional separation between economic and social regeneration and to stop maligning disadvantaged communities as a cost, when their diversity and creativity within the local and global economies is in reality an asset in the longer term. However, developing the public realm and social capital is not merely a matter of finding new economic narratives but requires a reconnection of political vision with organisational process. The stretch and practice of the public realm is no longer merely about services nor about control, it concerns a reconnection between social, business and public domains and requires leaders who are able to read political realities, orchestrate change, communicate with staff and with communities. Too many leaders remain complacent within the safety of male environments and continue to ignore the connection between the improvement debate and diversity. A few innovative chief executives are leading the way and showing what transforming leadership is about in practice, in spite of this the intransigent lack of diversity within decision-making bodies produces a break on positive social change. Notes 1. Local strategic partnerships (LSPs) were introduced by the Labour government to bring various public bodies across a location together to create a strategic framework for local development. 2. Schemes since the 1970s have included the community development programme, training projects for disadvantaged group through the European social fund, locality funding through the single regeneration budget and later neighbourhood renewal funding in specified cities, national programmes such as the health action zones, sure start etc. 3. The National Audit Office – a report by the controller and auditor general on supporting innovation: managing risk in government departments 2000.


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References Adebowale, L. (2004), “Marginal points in Health Service Journal”, Health Service Journal, 3 June, pp. 43-4,. Baxter, J. and Wright, E.O. (2000), “The glass ceiling hypothesis: a comparative study of the United States, Sweden and Australia”, Gender and Society, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 275-95. Blair, T. (2002), “I have learned the limits of government”, Renewal, Vol. 10 No. 2. Carless, S.A. (1998), “Gender differences in transformational leadership: an examination of superior, leader and subordinate perspectives”, Sex Roles, Vol. 39 No. 11/12, pp. 887-902. Catalyst (2001), “2001 Catalyst census of women board directors of Fortune 1000”, available at: www.catalyst.org/research/censuses.htm Edwards, N. (2004), “Comment in the Health Service Journal”, Health Service Journal, 5 February. Fox, P. (2004), personal communication. Geddes, M. (1997), Partnership against Poverty and Exclusion? Local Regeneration Strategies and Excluded Communities in the UK, Polity Press, Bristol. Hall, P. (1999), “Social capital in Britain”, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 29, pp. 417-61. Hewlett, S. (2002), Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children, Tal Miramax Books, New York, NY. Hutton, W. (2002), The World We’re in, Abacus, London. Lowndes, V. (1999), “Rebuilding trust in central/local relations; policy or passion?”, Local Government Studies, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 116-36. Lowndes, V. (2004), “Getting on or getting by? Women, social capital and political participation”, British Journal of Political Participation, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 47-56. Maddock, S. (1999), Challenging Women, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Maddock, S. and Morgan, G. (1998), Conditions for Partnerships, Manchester Business School, Manchester. Neighbourhood consultant (2004), personal communication. Schein, V.E., Mueller, R., Lituchy, T. and Liu, J. (1996), “Think manager, think male: a global phenomenon”, Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Vol. 17, pp. 33-41. Strachen, J. (2003), “Interviewed by Jackie Ashley”, The Guardian, 10 November. Stroh, L.K. (1992), “Work-home conflict in female owners of small businesses”, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 31-8. Wainwright, H. (2003), Reclaim the State – Experiments in Popular Democracy, Verso, London. Further reading DETR (1999), “Towards an urban renaissance”, available at: www.regeneration.odpm.gov.uk Maddock, S. (2003), “The health action zone legacy”, available at: www.mbs.ac.uk/research National Audit Office (2000), Supporting Innovation: Managing Risk in Government Departments, National Audit Office, London.



Strategic superboards: improved network management processes for regeneration? Carole Johnson

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Nottingham Policy Centre, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Abstract Purpose – Aims to present a critical discussion of two UK case studies through which a “third way” modernisation of regeneration policies has been identified as a world-wide trend. Design/methodology/approach – Provides case studies that represent attempts at creating “strategic superboards”: the first, local strategic partnerships (LSPs) is a national programme and the second, the regeneration zones (RZs), is peculiar to a specific region in the UK. Network management theory is used to analyse how regeneration partnerships, as networked organisations, are managed. The focus is on the institutional design rules used to achieve decentralisation, balance and joining-up. Findings – Although the findings show that the programmes’ institutional design was potentially improved, the partnerships’ achievements fell short of their objectives. It is concluded that a key factor in this failure is the continuing partial approach by central government in managing the networks. As a result these partnerships found it difficult to operate within the new institutional designs. Originality/value – Highlights that there has been an absence of attention to management in network situations by UK academics that is not shared by our UK and European counterparts. Keywords Regeneration, Strategic management, Partnership, United Kingdom Paper type General review

Introduction Strategic approaches through partnerships in regeneration have long been the aim of the UK central government (Fordham et al., 1999). In some programmes this approach has been extended in terms of partnerships being superboards: large in terms of the scale and scope at which they operate. City challenge, city pride and the new commitment to regeneration (NCR) are examples[1]. The latter influenced the development of the local strategic partnership (LSP) policy (Russell, 2001). It is recognised that superboards, likened to the traditional local authority, can impact more positively upon local economies and populations whether pursued at the regional, sub-regional or local level due to their superior resource base. The New Labour government’s regeneration policy has thus evolved and contains some sound policy ideas, the defining feature of which is joined-up government or coordination but in the context of decentralisation and broad participation. They have based their approach on a vast amount of research and consultation with academic, practitioner and deprived communities concerning how best to tackle deprivation. A joined-up approach was considered necessary, pursuing interventions that reinforce each other, and operate at a large enough scale to have substantial impact. A key finding in regeneration research is that it is not correct to argue policies have not had an impact but have not had widespread enough impact to stem the flow of deprivation


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(Social Exclusion Unit, 1998). Many regeneration programmes have thus attempted to turn this situation around through the use of superboards. The case study research reported below focused on three regeneration partnerships, two of which represented the LSP and regeneration zone (RZ) programmes[2]. These had similar aims, to operate through superboards bringing together key players from across the community, in order to provide substantial impact over the long-term in regenerating their areas, thus replacing the tendency for smaller scale, area or single theme-based interventions epitomised by the SRB programme. The third partnership was an SRB scheme operating under the SRB’s revised rules. This provides a comparator for the new programmes. All three partnerships were based in one area of the West Midlands region. The paper is organised as follows: the first section discusses network management theory, its relevance and use in this research. It includes a summary of the impact of the institutional design on the original SRB programme. The second section discusses the outcomes of the case studies in relation to two key aspects partnership formation and the strategy and action plan development. Finally, a discussion and conclusions are presented. Network management theory The theory of network management can explain how policy networks both succeed and fail in the quest to gain the hoped for synergies between partnership members. Klijn and Koppenjan (1999) argue that network management is a form of public management. It is one way in which government can “steer” actors into dealing with societal problems. Drawing upon this approach, the techniques used by central government and local actors within regeneration are conceived of as forms of network management. Two types of network management can be identified, the first, game management, deals with interactions within an existing network structure, for example, where a network member facilitates meetings within a partnership in order to improve interaction between members. The second, involves changing the institutional design or structure of a network, for example, where central government changes the rules around resource distribution. These basic categories include many individual interventions. Key interventions cited as game management include: activating a network, arranging, facilitating, brokerage, mediation, and arbitration. Network structuring includes influencing formal policy; influencing interrelationships, values, norms and perceptions, and including new members (Kickert and Koppenjan, 1997). In the UK, changing the network structure is commonplace, for example, each time central government determine that a new set of actors should be involved in regeneration. Through doing this they hope to alter the interaction within the network. This is an important feature in regeneration partnerships that have changed from narrow central-local relationships to broad multi-sectoral networks where the level of interaction has necessarily increased. Although this paper focuses on the actions of central government in establishing the institutional design of the network, game management is also important since it is this aspect that explains how local actors implement programme rules into their particular partnership. However, the programme’s institutional design appears to be the most important determinant of how partnerships operate (Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000).

A feature of the new superboards is the appearance of increased autonomy over what they do and how they do it, as many of the rules concerning the micro management of partnerships, which were evident in the SRB programme, have been relaxed. Nevertheless, the overarching structure of the network appears to remain a key determinant of success or failure.


Network management and the SRB Until New Labour came to power in 1997, the most important urban regeneration partnership programme was the SRB. This represented the amalgamation of 20 funding streams into a single holistic budget to which partnerships could bid for resources through yearly competitions. Partnerships were intended to collaborate to produce a bid that represented a coordinated approach to regeneration. Whilst the programme improved over time (Brennan et al., 1998), it has not been perfect, and in the early years, it was particularly problematic. In terms of network management, central government operated a partial approach. Whilst the scheme was rooted in an interactive perspective in which synergy would be achieved through interaction between the various sectors in the partnership it resorted to instrumentalism as partnership formation was the prerequisite of funding. Local actors, responding to cuts elsewhere, simply formed a partnership to access funds which they often saw as their entitlement, previously provided through routine allocations (Environment Committee, 1995, 1996). Little was done to enforce, encourage or support the hoped for interaction through the institutional design of the programme. The outcomes were disappointing. Partnership working was poor, spending decisions were made by those with power, particularly local authorities. Many partnerships had no voluntary or community sector representation and where they were involved, they were often expected to sign up to pre-made plans. Influence from the private sector was also weak as their inclusion was described as tokenistic (ibid). It has been argued that the institutional rules by which this programme operated led to less successful interventions since it encouraged poor partnership working and the focus of interventions tended to be biased towards what central government wanted rather than what was needed in the local areas (Hall and Nevin, 1999). The institutional rules of the SRB undermined the primary goal of interactive partnership working in the following ways: . open competition led to overbidding and too fierce a competitive process; . competition was exacerbated as the challenge element of the SRB budget was small due to the top-slicing to fund existing programmes (Stewart, 1994); . there was an absence of rules regarding the basis for the competition, bidders had no idea of the level of funding within each region. It has been described as a monopsonistic market in which central government held the purchasing power (Hall and Nevin, 1999); . timescales were short in comparison to the task of forming a partnership and producing an outline bid for regeneration work; and . whilst the management of the interaction in partnerships can be described as passive by central government, there was active management regarding the bureaucratic nature of the process in terms of “regularity, propriety and value for money” (DETR, 1998, p. 3).

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An overall assessment of the SRB is that the level of strategic working between partnership members and the resulting synergy acquisition was poor. It can therefore be viewed as a weak exercise in network management. It succeeded in instigating partnerships but in general these did not function as intended. The SRB during this phase is not unique in its failings, strategic planning has been regularly identified as weak within regeneration policy. The content of schemes have thus been an amalgamation of existing projects which were ready for implementation regardless of their suitability, usually drawn from a small group of public sector actors (for summaries of research findings see Higgins et al., 1983; Wilks-Heeg, 2000). In partnership models, where all partners are supposed to influence such decisions in order to acquire the optimum mix of projects, such activity is problematic. One outcome of this situation is the lack of integration between economic development and training for the unemployed in deprived communities that would allow them to compete for employment (Hambleton, 1981; Oatley and Lambert, 1998). Thus, the benefits of development are rarely gained by those in need. This research sought to investigate the ways in which the New Labour central government were managing regeneration partnerships through the institutional design of new programmes. The substantive content of regeneration has changed little whilst more emphasis has been placed on process. The emphasis has been on aspects of increased co-governance or decision-making concerning appropriate development plans combined with joint work or coordination between organisations in terms of acquiring policy coherence and, where appropriate, in service delivery. The research was conducted over the 2001/2002 period. Key to it was the institutional design used by central government and the Regional Development Agency, and how local partners had interpreted these? Given that it was too early to assess the partnership’s substantive impact, the focus was placed on processes: how the partnerships were established and their early attempts to develop strategies. Network management under New Labour – the research findings Two important characteristics of this phase of policy, which compare favourably against the SRB, are the aims of regeneration policy and how those aims would be fulfilled. In general, there was little tension created by central government’s policy aims. The findings suggested that the policy community were in favour of the concept of strategic superboards and of increased joint work; better quality partnership and targeting attention on the worst deprivation. As such, this phase of regeneration is characterised by consensus. This is possibly due to the high level of consultation carried out by central government and the commitment to evidence based interventions. Thus, network management during this phase operates within a fairly uncontentious context. Therefore, it might have been expected that programmes would be more successfully implemented. Partnership formation A key aspect of New Labour’s regeneration strategy has been to establish partnerships which are truly multi-sectoral and which demonstrate that inclusion in the partnership is matched by influence. This aims to reduce the occurrence and severity of the so-called paper partnerships (DETR, 1997). This objective was particularly clearly expressed in both the SRB and LSP guidance (DETR, 1998, 2001). Admittedly, less so

in AWM’s Zone guidance[3], but the inclusion of the private and voluntary sector as full partners in order to gain synergy was evident (Advantage West Midlands, 2000). The LSP partnership Both central government inspired programmes led to the development of broad inclusion in the partnerships. This aspect was particularly evident in the case of the LSP. The guidance required LSPs to form genuine multi-sectoral partnership boards in order to be eligible for funding through the neighbourhood renewal fund (NRF) and community empowerment fund (CEF)[4]. The NRF was allocated to local authorities in year one to use as they wished. This rushed process reflected the need to get spending from the treasury (Stone-Lee, 2001). The remaining funding from the NRF for years two and three was “earmarked” for partnerships to spend jointly, but they would have to fulfil the accreditation requirements as a quality measure to qualify (Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, 2001). A less positive innovation was the refusal to allow the NRF to be used to support the management and running costs of the LSP. LSPs are thus novel, particularly in the degree of freedom over spending, what is in effect, a single devolved budget. The outcome in terms of partnership formation was a model of what LSPs should be. Each sector had been provided with five seats on the board. The public sector numbered ten, reflecting the need to include the full range of public sector service delivery organisations. However, the overall balance between the 35 members, it could be argued, was on the side of the community broadly conceived. Each of the voluntary, community and private sectors had five seats each. Councillors formed another group, and a further five seats were allocated to ad hoc members with the intention that representatives from trade unions and religious groups would be involved. Without doubt it fulfilled the requirements of the accreditation process with only some minor criticisms of it voiced by the government office. As this LSP was eligible to receive NRF, it also received the CEF. This led to the community sector being represented by community representatives who were paid wages to develop links with and represent communities through the operation of a community network. In principle, this represents an important institutional innovation which supports this sector’s ability to be both included and influential. In principle, the institutional design led to an adequate partnership. The SRB partnership The SRB programme (DETR, 1998, 1999) reasserted the need for multi-sectoral boards; the need for partners to be influential as well as included; eligibility was based on deprivation criteria; and the level of competition was further reduced through an increasingly managed process at the regional level. The SRB partnership had successfully involved the public, private, voluntary and community sectors. The theme based nature of this scheme allowed a highly focused approach to the various issues which face a particular group among the deprived, that of young people. It had been reasonably obvious, in this case, who should be on the board, in terms of those actors who had an existing interest in young people’s services. Two young people were elected to the board from the local youth council to represent the interests of the young.


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The established nature of the SRB, despite its innovations, meant that members of the partnership understood the system well and had learnt how to operate within the SRB “game”. Indeed one private sector member argued that they would not be able to operate within new programmes since they did not have the same knowledge about these that had been acquired about the SRB over time. He saw this as being more or less the end of the flow of resources into the company’s community programme. The voluntary sector had also been represented early in the process. These factors culminated in a coherent partnership board that had a clear idea of what it wanted to, and could, achieve. The zone partnership In contrast to the former partnerships, the institutional design for the zones suffered from conflicting aims which impacted upon the partnership’s membership and functioning. AWM sought inclusive multi-sectoral boards, whilst reducing the influence of elected councillors, local authorities and other public sector bodies in general. The zones would, ideally, have boards comprised primarily of private sector representatives together with voluntary sector members and a few public sector representatives. Community sector representatives of any kind were not sought. A further aim was to adopt existing partnerships. This decision was made, in a pragmatic gesture, to avoid further partnership proliferation and the associated fatigue. Partnership’s would also receive 50 per cent of the costs of developing the strategy and AWM were committed to funding the administration of the partnership (Advantage West Midlands, 2000). The outcome, created through choosing an existing partnership, undermined other principles embodied in the guidance. The board, in fact, was weighted in favour of elected councillors and there were no private sector members beyond the chair, a retired business executive. The voluntary sector were included but it was described by a voluntary sector representative as “not one of the best partnerships I have been involved with”. The public sector were sparse, but community representatives had been introduced by the partnership itself in an attempt to fulfil the aim of capturing the benefits of economic development for the deprived communities targeted for assistance. AWM’s institutional structures were weak in relation to forming an appropriate membership, and this had significant ramifications for the development of the strategy. Strategy development within the partnerships A key feature of New Labour’s policies has been its commitment to planning at all spatial levels, the purpose of which is to create higher levels of coordination in order that interventions would reinforce each other and provide better value for money. As such, the role of planning was exhorted within regeneration policy and it was implied that this would be carried out by all members of partnerships with the clear intent of including deprived communities themselves. Therefore, the existence of multi-sectoral boards should be demonstrated in the strategies themselves and in the process of production. The superboards were primarily established to deal with the multiple causes of deprivation. Much store has been set on their ability to regenerate local areas through

adopting more inclusive ways of working between partnership members and the production of balanced and appropriate strategies. The SRB partnership The findings, from this admittedly small-scale study, suggest that in terms of strategy development, the SRB scheme was favourably positioned in comparison to the new superboards. This programme has attracted much criticism in the past but this case demonstrates that in its revised mature form it could address deprivation. This partnership took at least as much of a strategic role in local service development as the superboards and was supported by other innovations such as community planning[5]. The partnership was not perfect and did not resource all projects that were considered key in the area. A young carer’s project in need of further funding was overlooked in the planning process and another member complained that the lack of Black and minority ethnic board members had led to a lack of resources for ethnic minorities. The new superboards, however promising for regeneration in the longer term, suffered from many of the same problems as past initiatives including the SRB. This raises questions: to what degree should the institutional design change? Should we build minor amendments into existing programmes or discard previous attempts? Certainly academics working within the institutional perspective in network management argue that sweeping away existing institutions in favour of new ones can be counterproductive (Ostrom, 1990). New institutional rules take time to embed, and in the intervening period, the goals of the partnership may not be easily secured. This argument seems appropriate for explaining the outcomes of the SRB partnership that had developed a more coordinated approach within a largely existing institutional structure, certainly with regard to entering into a competitive process. The LSP partnership The LSP had been less than successful at generating a strategy formed by the partnership, despite the fact that the LSP extended an existing strategic partnership at the local authority level. The strategy was neither developed by the existing or new partnership, but was based on the existing community plan, devised largely by the council and other key public sector providers. Even the local authority officer argued that the system in use “had not been ideal”. Ideally, she argued: I would actually work with communities and commission and be much more specific about where the money was going to be spent. We can do that once we have the strategy in place because we didn’t have the strategy in place it was quite difficult.

The funding was used to address deprivation, however, the production of coordinated approaches was absent. There were several key targets for funding within the strategy, aimed either at communities of interest or geographic areas. Despite central government’s interest in producing services which would reinforce each other and have a real and lasting impact on deprived populations, it was difficult to see how this would be achieved through following this particular strategy. Nowhere in the documentation was there any hint that such reinforcement or coordination was the aim. The key difficulties responsible for creating this situation cannot simply be viewed in terms of the local council being keen to restrict access to the decision-making regarding spending. Other factors also contributed, such as the timescales for partnership development; the way that the funding was distributed for the use of the


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local authorities in the first year and only in the subsequent years with the LSP; the lack of funding for a secretariat; the poor timing of the distribution of the CEF, which came too late to establish the community network and representative system on the board in time for year two planning and spending, where spending commitments for year three were also made. Thus, just as the partnership had developed in terms of members and systems, the opportunity for members to influence that spending disappeared. A criticism of LSPs in general in the region, was that they had failed to focus spending on a single priority area in which the funding could have made a real difference through the reinforcement effects of integrated actions. It is unfortunate that the outcome of LSPs has led once again to some of the problems identified previously in regeneration partnerships, such as peripheral partners signing up to pre-made plans and a lack of coordinated action. Another factor was the tendency for LSPs to introduce a bidding competition for projects through which to deliver the strategy. This occurred within this partnership and others too. Despite central government’s dismissal of competitive bidding, local actors, in this case the existing partnership, forced the local authority into introducing this mechanism as a way of trying to ensure inclusivity. A government office representative argued that: There’s been a knee jerk response, lets go and get people to put bids in and set up huge teams assessing bids . . . They needed to decide where the problems were and then decide what the solutions might be and they were not that far in their thinking. The money was not intended to go into projects.

The bidding process seemed to fulfil neither the aim to create strategic coordinated responses or, realistically, that of generating a strategy that was the outcome of a co-governed approach. In assessing the LSPs, we need to acknowledge the intended long-term nature of this development. Certainly, the partnership was adequately formed and its structures were beginning to work well within the confines of what was possible. It could be suggested that this particular partnership may be successful in the long-term. However, there is a need to consider the effects of the withdrawal of funding. The commitment to the NRF was for three years, and it is uncertain who will receive further NRF, whilst there are no plans to extend the CEF regardless of its important role in developing community networks. Therefore, how these partnerships worked in this early phase is important and it appears that if these outcomes are indicative of the general outcomes for LSP’s then the institutional design has not worked effectively. The zone partnership The outcome of the zone case was also disappointing. In principle, the partnership produced a balanced strategy and implementation plan. Furthermore, unlike the documentation for the LSP, theirs was detailed, containing information about the key strands of the strategy and the reasoning behind them; each project’s focus; who was involved; what funding it required and a full risk analysis. It aimed to be coordinated, and was, in relation to the coordination of funding sources from the EU and the RDA. It also attempted to integrate training within deprived communities with the new employment opportunities created within the zone reflecting the desire of AWM to explicitly link need and opportunity (Advantage West Midlands, 2000).

However, the various strands of the strategy were not equally well developed. In particular, the linking of training which would involve the voluntary and community sectors in service delivery was underdeveloped. By comparison, the strategy was most highly developed in the area of infrastructural developments creating an imbalance in approach. Despite the partnership’s experience and the investment by AWM to support strategy development, the outcome was poor. This can be explained, at least partially, by the membership of the partnership and the lack of full inclusion by the voluntary and community sectors. The absence of the private sector exacerbated this situation. With no real counterbalancing force within the partnership, it meant the core members, the councillors, were the key players in decisions regarding the strategy. In reality, it was not even the councillors who were key to developing the actual strategy, this work had been done by the council officers who formed a task group representing the two local authorities within the sub-region. As one officer commented about developing the projects: It was a last minute scramble to put bids together. We had a strategy we knew what we wanted to do but we did not have the projects. Given a clean sheet of paper they are not necessarily the projects I would choose, but these could spend in time. It is so difficult to tap into it, it may distance innovative bids from the private and voluntary sectors. I do have the concern about it being a clique. The big players are soaking up the year one money, we have to be careful, no one is kicking up a fuss yet that they’re not just duplicating spending it has to be additional spend.

The outcome here appears to be remarkably like that of earlier schemes where partnerships endorsed pre-made plans. The officer continued on the subject of influence by the weaker partners upon whom the partnership relied to an extent to deliver the strategy: Some people can be outside the process and not have the opportunity to bid . . . with [European Union Objective 2 funds] and AWM, you have to spend it quickly so its always the big boys, the local authorities who get the bids in . . . the community and voluntary sector groups are always very late in our case its really dreadful we’ve sort of allocated all the money more or less.

The situation of the more peripheral members was weak in terms of influence. Despite the inclusion of two voluntary sector representatives on the board from early on in the process, they had little influence. The community sector representatives were included in the partnership only after some 18 months of development. To be fair to the partnership, their inclusion was not required for funding. However, having invited applications from would be community representatives, a process that they were only eligible to join if they were working in the community sector and had experience of a similar programme, the roles they could play were limited by the board’s existing membership. The community representatives had found themselves rubber stamping decisions taken by others and despite their professional experience they had been forced to fight to gain access onto the theme groups where they felt their skills could be properly put to use. There was an impression that all the important work would take place in sub-groups in the same way that the Task Group had developed the strategy.


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Conclusions This paper has outlined the ways in which two new strategic superboard partnerships representing new programmes have failed to contribute to the aim of a more coordinated, co-governed and strategic approach to the regeneration of their areas. In comparison to the original SRB, all three cases reviewed showed substantial improvements in their institutional designs. However, of the three cases, the two superboards do not compare particularly well with the recent SRB case that appeared to be delivering the objectives sought by central government. Superboards, in reality, have offered little added value during this period. This is despite the possibility that LSPs, particularly, may bring advantages in the longer-term. From a network management perspective the institutional designs used did not make sufficient allowances for the embedding and development of new partnerships working within new systems. This outcome suggests that central government should think carefully before introducing new systems and that they should pay more attention to the way new institutions will work in practice within institutional contexts that they often have little control over. This is not to say that the new programmes did not include some novel and potentially important innovations, they did, but we have yet to see the benefits from these. For example, in the LSP case the rewards of community involvement supported by the CEF investment have not been reaped. They may, of course, contribute more effectively over service provision in the future. Neither should it be argued that we should avoid change at all costs, but if we do make radical changes, then we have to accept that early wins are unlikely to be gained, such ventures are truly long-term, which is, as we know a difficult concept within the political environment, but unfortunately necessary. It is sad to note that after such an extensive planning period, the LSP policy has been shown to be performing poorly and the recurrence of issues found in previous policies in both new programmes does suggest the need for greater continuity. To this end we must continue with the regeneration structures we now have, amending them incrementally as learning takes place about the ways in which they can be productive. Methodologically, it might be argued that this series of case studies carried out in one area supplies insufficient evidence for generalisation. This could indeed be a valid critique, and more evidence is needed, however, given the impact of the SRB’s institutional design reported by the extensive research carried out on the SRB programme, for example Mawson et al. (1995), which suggested very strong patterns of outcomes emerging from a flawed system, then it can be argued that we can be confident that these findings have a substantial degree of generalisability without suggesting that all LSPs and sub-regional partnerships, zones or otherwise, will produce exactly the same outcomes. The institutional design and the ensuing network management was partial in these new programmes, just as it had been in the SRB. Central government needs to find a better balance between renewing institutional structures and developing approaches that allow partners to work together more productively through more active management within existing structures. Notes 1. These refer to policy programmes that encourage partnerships to develop proposals for the purposes of regenerating local areas through a combined social and economic approach. City challenge the NRF and CEF are the two components of the funding available to LSPs with

2.

3.

4.

5.

eligibility based on deprivation criteria. The NRF is a general fund for fighting deprivation through the provision of services whereas the CEF is designed to build capacity within the community in order to allow their full representation and involvement in the decision-making processes within the LSP process and the SRB challenge fund provided funding through a competitive process. City pride and new commitment to regeneration were unfunded programmes initially, designed to encourage joint work among the business, voluntary, community and public sectors. LSPs and RZs are regeneration programmes, the former operate at the level of the local authority and in areas where high levels of deprivation exist have been funded by the UK central government in order to generate “superboards” through which regeneration activities can be more highly coordinated, long-term and strategic. RZs were designated by the West Midlands Regional Development Agency whereby funding was made available for multi-sectoral partnerships based on the sub-region. Neither programme was competitive but the RZs were not guaranteed a certain level funding as were the LSPs who qualified. Their remit is fundamentally similar to the LSPs but has a bias towards economic development rather than socially based regeneration. AWM in constructing the ideal partnership aimed to reduce the power of elected members from local authorities in favour of dominance by business partners. They were also very keen to include the voluntary sector. However, community representatives were not highlighted in the guidance document as potential members (see Advantage West Midlands, 2000). The NRF and CEF are the two components of the funding available to LSPs with eligibility based on deprivation criteria. The NRF is a general fund for fighting deprivation through the provision of services whereas the CEF is designed to build capacity within the community in order to allow their full representation and involvement in the decision-making processes within the LSP process. Community planning is a process designed to allow full consultation of the community in local development matters. It is widely reported as being pioneered by Coventry city council in 1997 and later introduced as national policy as community strategies.

References Advantage West Midlands (2000), Zone Prospectus Guidance Manual, Advantage West Midlands, Birmingham. Brennan, A., Rhodes, J. and Tyler, P. (1998), Evaluation of the Single Regeneration Budget: A Partnership for Regeneration: An Interim Evaluation, HMSO, London. Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997), Regeneration Programmes – The Way Forward, HMSO, London. Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (1998), Single Regeneration Budget Bidding Guidance: A Guide for Partnerships, HMSO, London. Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (1999), Single Regeneration Budget Guidance Manual, HMSO, London. Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (2001), Local Strategic Partnerships: Government Guidance, HMSO, London. Environment Committee (1995-1996), First Report: Single Regeneration Budget, House of Commons, HMSO, London. Fordham, G., Hutchinson, J. and Foley, P. (1999), “Strategic approaches to local regeneration: the single regeneration budget challenge fund”, Regional Studies, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 131-42.


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Hall, S. and Nevin, B. (1999), “Continuity and change: a review of English regeneration policy in the 1990s”, Regional Studies, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 477-91. Hambleton, R. (1981), “Implementing inner city policies”, Policy and Politics, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 51-71. Higgins, J., Deakin, N., Edwards, J. and Wicks, M. (1983), Government and Urban Poverty, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Kickert, W. and Koppenjan, J. (1997), “Public management and network management: an overview”, in Kickert, W., Klijn, E.H. and Koppenjan, J. (Eds), Managing Complex Networks – Strategies for the Public Sector, Sage Publications, London. Klijn, E.H. and Koppenjan, J. (1999), Network Management and Decision Making in Networks: A Multi-Actor Approach to Governance, International Research Symposium on Public Management, Birmingham. Klijn, E.H. and Koppenjan, J. (2000), “Public management and policy networks: foundations of a network approach to governance”, Public Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 135-58. Mawson, J., Beazely, M., Burfitt, A., Collinge, C., Hall, S., Loftman, P., Nevin, B., Srbljanin, A. and Tilson, B. (1995), The Single Regeneration Budget: The Stocktake, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Birmingham. Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (2001), Accreditation Guidance for Local Strategic Partnerships, Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, London. Oatley, N. and Lambert, C. (1998), “Catalyst for change: the city challenge initiative”, in Oatley, N. (Ed.), Cities, Economic Competition and Urban Policy, Paul Chapman Publishing, London. Ostrom, E. (1990), Governing the Commons, University Press, Cambridge. Russell, H. (2001), Local Strategic Partnerships, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York. Social Exclusion Unit (1998), Bringing Britain Together, Cabinet Office, London. Stewart, M. (1994), “Between Whitehall and town hall: the realignment of urban regeneration policy in England”, Policy and Politics, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 133-45. Stone-Lee, O. (2001), “How not to spend £10 bn”, BBC News Online, BBC, London. Wilks-Heeg, S. (2000), Mainstreaming Regeneration: A Review of Policy over the Last 30 Years, Local Government Association, London.



A plague on all your partnerships: theory and practice in regeneration Andrew Coulson

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Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Abstract Purpose – Much of the writing on partnerships implicitly assumes that they are beneficial. Other literature points out that partnerships are seldom of equals, and can become instruments of oppression whereby a strong partner gains at the expense of weaker members. This has been taken up by community development specialists with particular reference to the position, at best ambiguous, of representatives or residents of local communities on the boards of regeneration partnerships. This paper aims to review this theory. Design/methodology/approach – Reviews partnerships and briefly considers three types of partnership in the UK: private finance initiatives (PFI) or public-private partnerships (PPP); local strategic partnerships; and local area regeneration partnerships. Findings – Concludes that partnerships need time to grow for confidence to be gained inside as well as outside the partnership; partnerships are not usually of equals, and the position of “community representatives” on the boards of partnerships is intrinsically problematic. However, local area partnerships need them: to make “decisions”, to test the likely reception of new ideas, to help sell what is going on. It is likely to prove a serious problem for some PFI/PPP partnerships which are contractually bound for 25 or 30 years; but one may surmise that in many cases partners will fall out and it will be difficult then to deliver the promises that have been made. Originality/value – Partnerships vary, and hence generalisation is difficult. But some important points from the discussion can add to the ongoing dialogue about the nature of partnerships in regeneration. Keywords Partnership, Community development, Regeneration, Private finance, United Kingdom Paper type General review

The context In Britain, the Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997 set up agencies or quangos (“quasi-non-government organisations”) – i.e. arms-length bodies with their own management boards and staff – to run important parts of public services. Many had regional or sub-regional branches. That made it almost inevitable that partnership bodies would be created in defined geographical areas to co-ordinate the activities of these quangos and agencies. It was equally unsurprising that many of these partnerships were required to include representatives of residents living in those areas, alongside local agencies of central government, representatives of business, the voluntary sector, and local authorities. Towards the end of its period of office, it also started promoting private finance initiative (PFI) or public private partnership (PPP) projects. In these, a consortium of The author would like to thank the referees of this journal, and Mike Smith, for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.


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private sector companies provides assets for part or all of a service that might otherwise have been run by the public sector and in return gets income either from charges to the public or to the agency that uses the assets. Each project involves, implicitly, two partnerships: a partnership of the private sector interests (e.g. bank, engineering company, construction company, manufacturing interest, etc.), and another partnership which involves the client, such as the hospital trust or highways authority or local council which remains responsible in political and often financial terms for the service. The Labour governments from 1997 onwards created yet more quangos and agencies, and rapidly developed the private finance initiative. Hence even more partnerships: In the early years of the Blair Government, partnership has become a favourite word in the lexicon of “New Labour”, giving rise to a wide range of public-private partnership initiatives, some representing a continuation and development of Conservative policies, and some representing New Labour approaches to public policy. The use of public-private arrangements serve a number of important objectives: the need to provide alternative sources of capital funding for the public sector, as in the case of the private finance initiative; the need to “reinvent” government and establish legitimacy with local communities in the implementation of local economic development policies; and the need to address the challenges posed by the increasing involvement and participation in the policy process of civil society organisations (Falconer and McLaughlin, 2000, p. 121).

Sullivan and Skelcher (2000) calculated that, in broad terms, there were 5,500 partnerships in Britain in 2001, as shown in Table I. Later that year, the Government committed itself to reducing the numbers of partnerships, and co-ordinating more activity through newly-created “local strategic partnerships” which would comprise leaders of the main public sector agencies active in the area covered by a district council, together with leading representatives from the private and voluntary sectors (DTLR, 2001, p. 19). Since 2002, a number of the partnerships identified in the table have completed their agreed programmes and ceased to receive government funding (for example many of the single regeneration budget programmes, the neighbourhood support fund, early excellence centres). Some of these partnerships have continued to function, and receive funding in other ways, for example from the neighbourhood renewal fund (central government money directed at the 88 council area with the most deprived populations in England, to be spent on project approved by the local strategic partnerships) or from the regeneration programmes of the regional development agencies (set up in 1998 in the eight regions into which England is divided, and London, with a remit to channel government money into economic development and regeneration). It is not possible to produce an accurate estimate of the number of partnerships currently functioning, but the Sullivan and Skelcher figures are of the right order of magnitude, perhaps a little on the high side. Sullivan and Skelcher do not include partnerships created to bid for, and if successful to run, PFI or PPP projects. Table II lists PFI/PPP projects on-going or close to agreement as of September 2004. The projects are very large – the average education PFI or PPP project costs £53 million, and the average transport project £143 million (excluding the modernisation of a major part of the London Underground system, the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly Lines, which alone is cost £4.4 billion). Overall the biggest spending is on defence PFI/PPPs, the largest number of projects in health and education. There are an increasing number of projects outside the UK. It has

Single regeneration budget partnerships Neighbourhood support fund Sure start Local strategic partnerships Crime and disorder partnerships Local agenda 21 partnerships Community legal services partnerships Education action zones Early years development and childcare Supporting people partnerships Healthy schools programme Youth offending teams New deal partnerships Partnership projects (involving state and independent schools) Early excellence centres Lifelong learning partnerships Drug action teams Other community development Other education/childcare Other employment creation Other health Other crime Others Total

Number

Start date

900 600 500 400 376 285 182 173 150 150 149 149 140 120 100 100 100 342 206 144 144 64 74 5,548

1994 2000 1999 2001 1998 1991 1991 1998 2000 2001 1998 1999 1998 1996 1998 1999 1999

Source: Adapted from Sullivan and Skelcher (2000)

become an active UK government policy to promote this form of procurement all round the world (Milburn, 2004). All these projects involve consortia of partners, and lifetimes of at least 25 years. Public sector partnerships As already noted, Labour Party rhetoric stressed the importance of partnerships to the effective delivery of public services, and government policy statements assume, without much qualification, that partnerships are good: for example, the 2001 white paper Strong Local Leadership – Quality Public Services: In recent years there has been an increasing recognition, in both central and local government, of the importance of successful partnership working. To tackle our most challenging problems – on health, crime, education, transport, housing and the local environment – we need to marshal the contributions of the public, private and voluntary sectors, and of communities themselves. We will not achieve genuinely citizen-centred services unless service deliverers work well together (DTLR, 2001, p. 18).

At face value, this is self-evidently true: thus if local authorities, the police, the probation service and important parts of the voluntary sector are involved in efforts to reduce crime, there is everything to be said for getting them to work together in a crime and disorder partnership. Much of the academic literature, while showing awareness that partnerships are not without risk or effort, goes along with this – for example, in the use of the term


Table I. Multi-agency partnerships 2001-2002

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Known value (£ million)

Education

64

3,007

53

Transport London Underground Other transport

1 13

4,400 1,425

4,400 142

Health LIFT projects Other hospitals etc.

24 45

488 2,666

22 62

Department of constitutional affairs/home office/police/fire Other local authority

17 29

399 1,375

25 60

Defence Allenby/Connaught Defence information infrastructure Strategic tanker aircraft Armoured vehicle training Other defence

1 1 1 1 11

4,000 4,000 2,500 1,000 1,837

4,000 4,000 2,500 1,000 230

208 18

27,097

Project type

154

Table II. PFI/PPP projects, short-listed or signed September 2004

Average value per project (£ million)

Number of projects

Total Other countries Source: PFI Intelligence Bulletin (2004)

“collaborate advantage” (Huxham, 1996), or Hudson et al. (1999) who “whilst recognising that there are other positions, take the normative position that collaboration is generally ‘a good thing’”. They do, however, recognise that it is often difficult to achieve, and suggest a set of preconditions that need to be met if a partnership is to succeed. Sullivan and Skelcher’s conclusions can be summarised by saying that partnerships should be researched more, but the “powerful momentum for collaboration is unlikely to be diminished” so the key issue is how to make them more effective. Osborne (2000, p.1) stresses that the growth in the numbers and importance of public-private partnerships is an international phenomenon – that in the US they are “central to national and state-government initiatives to regenerate local urban communities”, while within the European Union they are “an essential mechanism both to combat social exclusion and to enhance local-community development”. Huxham – following Maureen Mackintosh (1992) – provides a set of rationales for collaboration. There is frequently a financial or efficiency motivation. The funding of a project, or its delivery, may require a number of partners. Or collaboration may be desirable to avoid overlaps (“it is ceteris paribus not sensible for two public agencies to provide a housing placement service in the same area”). But partnerships may also be imposed for what Huxham calls “political” (but others might describe as “cultural”) reasons: for example in the hope that “what is seen as private sector managerial ‘good practice’ may rub off on what are seen as the more inefficient public agencies”. Finally,

Huxham identifies what she calls “moral” arguments for collaboration: based on “the belief that the really important problem issues facing society – poverty, conflict, crime and so on – cannot be tackled by any single organisation acting alone . . . they are inherently multi-organisational. Collaboration is therefore essential if there is to be any hope of alleviating these problems” (Huxham, 1996, pp. 3-4). But Huxham is also well aware of the problems of making partnerships work: “differences in aims, language, procedures, culture and perceived power” (p. 4), the “need to spend unusual amounts of time in reaching understandings and agreements compared to other situations, and at worst becoming embroiled in misunderstanding and conflict” (p. 5). In later work (Huxham and Vangen, 2000) she is even more sanguine, facing up to the fact that “many partnerships do not get near to achieving collaborative advantage” (p. 293). This may be because the aims of the different partners are ultimately incompatible, or their cultures and histories too diverse to be brought into harmony in a short period of time, or because of inequalities in the power of the different partners (but leaving the weaker partners with the option of walking away, or just not taking the partnership seriously). Excessive numbers of partnerships create problems of accountability and create ambiguities about who is responsible for what. Partnerships are a challenge – certainly not a panacea.


Private sector partnerships An extensive literature claims to demonstrate the benefits to private companies of working together (for contrasting approaches see Kanter, 1989; Porter, 1990). Table III provides a series of rationales for collaboration between companies in differing circumstances. This type of collaboration is the basis of a sometimes rose-tinted interpretation of the success of regional economies in middle Italy based on small family firms (Piore and Sabel, 1984). Darwin presents a typology of partnership arrangements: unstructured partnerships where the joint working takes place without a separate organisation; joint ventures where two companies create a third to undertake a project which either alone would find more difficult; a hub network where some agency in the centre – such as a large retail/marketing company like Benetton, or a contractor employing a range of subcontractors – draws a range of other companies into a collaborative arrangement; or a federation without a strong central player where a group of companies collaborate in a range of ways when it suits them to do so. His Direct activities with competitors

Direct activities with non-competitors

Hiring competitors’ workers Sharing information with competitors Engaged in joint venture Engaged in joint research Engaged in joint advertising Engaged in joint training Engaged in licensing agreements Sharing transportation costs Joint purchase or sales agreements

Hiring suppliers’ or buyers’ workers Sharing information with suppliers or customers Joint venture with suppliers or customers Joint research with suppliers or customers Joint advertising with suppliers or customers Engaged in joint training Engaged in licensing agreements Sharing transportation costs

Source: Darwin (1992)

Table III. Collaborative advantages in the private sector

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fourth type of network, a productive network, has everyone potentially collaborating with everyone else, and some breaking right outside the network to form new ventures. This private sector literature, like the public sector literature, remains ambiguous, proclaiming the benefits of working in partnerships, but also pointing out the risks. Thus Kanter, on the basis of a large study of alliances between companies across continents and cultures, writes: In every case, a business relationship is more than just the deal. It is a connection between otherwise independent organisations that can take many forms and contains the potential for additional collaboration . . . . Relationships between companies begin, grow, and develop – or fail – in ways similar to relationships between people (Kanter, 1994, p. 98).

In her 1989 book she lists ways in which a partnership may fail: . shifts in strategy by one or more partner; . absence of a common framework; . uneven levels of commitment; . imbalances in power – over resources, or over information; . imbalances in benefits; . conflicting loyalties – which may be complicated by problems with internal corporate politics; and . “undermanagement”. However, private sector partnerships may succeed for the partners, but be highly counter-productive for the wider polity. There is an extensive literature that is critical of cartels and monopolies. But even small markets may have elements of monopoly in them – and partnerships may be created to keep potential new entrants out of a market, or otherwise to limit competition. The proponents of institutional economics (especially Williamson, 1975, 1985, 1996) are even more sceptical. Williamson starts from three axioms: (1) That knowledge is limited, and expensive – often impossible – to acquire. (2) That some companies have advantages over others (due to their histories, or being in the right place at the right time, or undertaking similar work). (3) That if players can gain a competitive advantage by being devious, then sooner or later they will do so. That does not mean that every partnership will break down. It does mean that partnerships are more likely to succeed where there is money, or profit, to move around; and that players have to take a long-term view, where they benefit from trust built up over a lengthy period of time, and have much to lose if that trust is lost. Nevertheless, the import of this analysis is that, if there is choice, it is less risky for a company to take an activity in-house, rather than to risk the possibilities of opportunistic or uncontrollable behaviour by a partner. Inequalities within partnerships A sociological literature, going back at least to Benson (1975), points out that partnerships are seldom of equals, and can easily become instruments of oppression wherein a strong partner gains at the expense of weaker members.

The point is made very strongly by community development professionals with particular reference to regeneration partnerships which involve representatives or residents of local communities alongside professionals from a wide range of public or private agencies. Thus Balloch and Taylor (2001, p. 2), looking at partnerships from the point-of-view of the voluntary sector, start from the view that:

A plague on all your partnerships

Partnership can offer participants the opportunity to influence other agencies to operate in ways that help them achieve their objectives more effectively and it has the potential to transform radically the culture of public service delivery, through compelling people to think in new ways.

157

But a few pages later they are reporting that this ideal is very difficult to achieve, and that: Partnership has largely left existing relationships intact. Partnership working has too often been dominated by the more powerful partners and has not “delivered”, especially for the communities and service users who are now a required part of most partnerships (p. 8).

This is spelt out in another chapter in the same book where the frustrations of community representatives on area partnerships are well expressed: their failures to be involved when key decisions are taken, lack of training or briefing, difficulties dealing with powerful bodies like councils, and refusal to allow matters of importance to local communities onto the agendas – all in a context where large sums of money were often available and promises made, and yet the local people – especially black and ethnic minority groups – found themselves marginalised (Mayo and Taylor, 2001). Another writer concludes: Is empowerment possible? The answer would seem to be: not through partnership, because that at best attempts to reconcile irreconcilables and at worst, which means usually in practice, offers the objects of policy, at the very most, some role in influencing the implementation of strategies that have already been decided upon. This is incorporation, not partnership (Byrne, 2001, p. 256).

Rowe in an article on “abusive partnerships” reverses the language of Kanter (1989, 1994), who writes positively about giants learning to dance, or partnership development as a succession of successful stages from courtship to marriage. In his analysis partnerships have the properties of an unequal relationship that a strong partner uses to dominate a weak partner (Rowe, 2004). It is rare in social science to find such strong language used to describe something that, at face value, is potentially beneficent. To shed more light on these issues, the final section of this paper looks at three kinds of partnerships: (1) Complex private finance initiatives. (2) So-called local strategic partnerships (involving elite members of local private and public sector bodies – forming urban regimes). (3) Local area regeneration partnerships. Private finance initiatives There are two types of private finance initiative: in the first, such as a toll road or bridge, a concession is given by the state to a consortium of private investors to

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construct an asset and earn money from it. The consortium invests in the asset, which earns a stream of revenue, and that revenue is claimed by the private investors. In the second type of PFI, the stream of revenue is promised by the state, for a long period of time, typically 25 or 30 years, and in return the consortium constructs and maintains an asset, such as a school or hospital. The main critique of the first type of PFI is that, typically, the state underestimates the revenue stream that will result from the investment, and the project becomes “a license to print money”. An extreme example is the toll bridge across the narrow straight that divides the island of Skye from the Scottish mainland (Monbiot, 2001, chapter 1). If the bridge had been built by the public sector, either the state would have made a profit, or the tolls would have been lower. The second type is more complex. The proponents of PFI have been at pains to present it as “simply one way of delivering better public services” (Bingle, 2004). The main critiques have been that borrowing by the private sector is more costly than by the state; that profit has also to be paid to the private investors; that much of the profit is achieved by poorer terms and conditions for the workforce than would be paid by the public sector; that there may be lack of flexibility if conditions change over the long life of the contract; and that there have been serious problems in the design of many PFI projects, such as schools and hospitals. In response the defenders of PFI (such as Grimsey and Lewis, 2004) point out that borrowing is more costly because the private sector is taking on more risks, in particular the risks of cost over-runs during construction, or the maintenance costs over the life of a building which the public sector may not pay; that the private sector is more likely to introduce cost-saving innovations; that terms and conditions are a matter for negotiation in any labour market, and that it is up to a workforce and its trade unions to negotiate better terms and conditions if it can; that changes of needs are a problem for the public sector as much as for the private; and that design problems, while admittedly serious, are partly a problem of poor specification when the contracts were signed, or of poor interpretation of the brief, and will often be remedied by the contractors; but in any case these problems are one-offs, which need not be replicated in subsequent projects. The analysis of this paper suggests a deeper critique. A complex project requires a consortium of interests to construct an asset and maintain it. Over a long period, the balance of power of these interests will change – indeed some of the partners’ interests will largely cease once construction is completed. In these circumstances, it is highly likely that, in some projects, the partners will fall out among themselves. An example from an early proto-PFI project, was the “design-build-operate” project to build Midland Metro, a light rail system running between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands of England. The consortium involved a civil engineering contractor that undertook the construction, a company that builds trams and related equipment, and the operator of a large local bus company that runs the system. There were many problems with the trams – but once the supplier had been paid for the trams, it had little interest in the project. It proved difficult to get technical failures with the trams, or other equipment supplied from this source, dealt with quickly and efficiently – which caused great problems for the partner responsible for operating the system.

There is a degree of monopoly in almost any large PFI project. Thus having signed a contract for ICT for 30 years with one consortium, it is more or less impossible to change to another supplier (although partnership members, especially banks, may sell on their holdings in a partnership to other financial institutions when the risk elements change as project develop). Something similar is true of any contract, once it has been signed. But normally the contractor concerned wants to preserve its reputation in order to win other contracts: that incentive may well be less here. That may be the reason why even the most passionate of supporters of PFI are having doubts about its effectiveness when it comes to ICT (Milburn, 2004, p. 3). Finally, there is little incentive to be imaginative in terms of design or any other environmental feature, and pressure is created to introduce commercial profit streams that may run counter to the wider objectives of the project client – e.g. sales of unhealthy fast foods in a health facility. As a result of experience during the first ten years of PFI, its main exponents have now concluded that it is not suitable for certain types of project (e.g. large ICT programmes or projects whose value is less than about £20 million). The government has introduced provisions to protect sections of the workforce, and recognised the need to provide for the revenue costs without cutting other services. The second generation of school and hospital projects appear to be better planned than the pioneer projects. Even so, the logic of the way in which PFI partnerships are constructed would suggest that, for complex projects, there are likely to be problems down the line, when the interests of the different partners in a complex scheme start to diverge. Local strategic partnerships As noted earlier, these are partnerships of leading figures from the public, private and voluntary sectors, in most district or unitary council areas in England. They usually include some direct representation of, or attendance by, organisations that represent local communities. Their task is to prepare, and take ownership, of a community strategy for their area, and to co-ordinate the responses of all the organisations in that area. In 88 of the most deprived areas of England, they are also responsible for the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, designed to regenerate the areas with greatest concentrations of deprivation. Typically, they meet monthly, chaired by the l eader of the local council, with a senior civil servant from the relevant regional office in attendance. The problem with the organisations is not attendance – their members find them useful as means of identifying problems and putting pressure on other members, such as the council or the official from the government office, to get these problems resolved. They provide opportunities for the heads of the organisations represented, and others who may be invited to particular meetings, to explain what they do. They allow key players in the area to unite around a common strategy, expressed in rather general terms, but still useful for clarifying what needs to be done, and ensuring that all the relevant agencies speak with one voice when representing the area outside. The difficulty with these organisations is that they have few specific powers or sanctions, and hence find it hard to define specific achievements or outcomes. They are expected to “bend” or “mainstream” the spending activities of their member organisations, so that these focus on key strategic needs, especially areas of multiple deprivation and poverty. In the areas with the most severe poverty, the Neighbourhood


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Renewal Fund gives them some leverage for this; but the sums of money are two widely dispersed for this to be either effective or easily measurable, and at worst the whole partnership can be drawn into the micro-management of a relatively small funding programme. They can only endeavour to influence the much larger funding regimes that have been put in place by different government departments in London, and which are already managed by other partnership boards involving those most immediately involved in specific programmes (such as the area regeneration partnerships discussed below). Organisations, regardless of whether their leaders are formal members, treat local strategic partnerships with care, trying to get as much out of them as possible (e.g. information about what others are doing) while giving away no more detail than they need about their own plans. The problems are compounded by the level of representation – chief executives or cabinet members who are not necessarily familiar with much of the detail on the ground, and who are comfortable operating at a strategic level. It is not surprising that many LSPs have achieved little that could not have been done in other ways. Community representatives on these partnerships feel frustrated, because from their point of view little happens – the main decisions appear to be already taken or taken elsewhere. Area regeneration partnerships There is a long tradition of money from central government being made available for regeneration in small geographical areas of multiple deprivation. But many of these initiatives were oriented to developing land and property. Enterprise zones, from 1980, were “managed” (if that is the right word for a programme whose philosophy was not to intervene) directly by the civil service. The urban development corporations, also charged with reviving areas of urban decay, the first also in 1980 but an important group delayed till 1986, had boards of directors from the private sector, but little involvement of local authorities or community groups. The city challenge companies that ran from 1992 to 1998 did involve, as board members, local councillors and representatives of organisations active in the areas concerned. This was developed in the single regeneration budget partnerships, from 1994, and especially in the new deals for communities from 1999. There is now considerable of experience of what these can achieve. The sociological literature referred to earlier reflect this, and highlights the tensions that arise when community representatives feel that they are not allowed a real influence on the partnership boards that are spending large sums of money in their areas. But these boards also present challenges for the staff employed by agencies in the voluntary sector, in housing, in the health service, or in local government or education, who have professional knowledge and in-depth experience of what works and what does not, and would like to see resources invested in their fields of specialisation. They are accustomed to the tensions and compromises that are inevitable where demands on resources exceed what is available, and will not willingly support proposals that they do not feel they can justify. But they also understand that some structure above them – a board, or a council cabinet member or committee – will need to mediate and to take decisions when there are choices, and then to defend the resulting decisions against critics inside or outside the organisation. There is no unambiguous model of how any partnership or agency can deal with the problems of multiple deprivation, or of social class (Coote et al., 2004). There is an

overwhelming case for involving people who live in an area in discussions about its regeneration – but difficulties of legitimation and risks of corruption and special pleading, especially when, as is inevitably the case, there are many communities (of place, interest, race, housing tenure, etc.) within one geographical area and it is not clear that the fundamental problems can be solved. It is not necessarily reasonable to expect those who live in an area to have a full vision that is feasible and practical. Community representatives are put in an almost impossible position, because they have little real power (only the sanctions of opposing the partnership in public, or of resigning), and do not find it easy to challenge professionals with many years training and experience. The partnerships can only succeed if the professionals realise that they can only make a success of the investments if they carry the communities with them, and the community representatives have the political skills to mediate between the professionals and the rest of the residents. Concluding comments We have seen that partnerships vary, and hence that generalisation is difficult. But some important points from the discussion above can add to the ongoing dialogue about the nature of partnerships in regeneration. Firstly, partnerships are dynamic, growing organisations. They need time to grow – for confidence to be gained inside as well as outside the partnership. They should not be evaluated, or judged, at a single point in time, but over time – and a key consideration should be whether they demonstrate the capacity to learn about their environment, and to learn from what works and what does not. Secondly, we can agree with those who have argued, or assumed, that in many situations partnerships are progress. It is generally better to communicate with someone who is doing the same thing as you are, or is involved in a complementary activity. But they are not a panacea. Anyone who gets involved in a partnership will still have loyalty to other places, not least ones that led to that person’s involvement with the partnership. Partner members will therefore by careful, or cagey, and seek to minimise risk to their own organisations. They are not all powerful – in particular they may not have the resources, or even the tools, which they need to do a proper job. Partnerships are not of equals – each member contributes something different. Some (not necessarily those you might expect) will be centrally involved in resolving a particular issue or decision. The problem facing area regeneration partnerships in particular is that each profession involved (housing, health, crime prevention, economic development, childcare, education, training, youth, employment, environmental improvement) thinks that they are all or part of the solution. Yet for either institutional, or financial, reasons all their dreams cannot be implemented. So choices have to be made, and the community representatives can become a kind of citizens’ jury, supporting some ideas and questioning others. The professionals hesitate to hand over to the community. But they need them, to make “decisions” (i.e. choices), to test the likely reception of new ideas, to help sell what is going on, and sometimes – some would say most of the time – the community representatives will be the source of key ideas. Until this relationship is better understood and appreciated from both sides, there is unlikely to be much joy in many regeneration partnerships. Finally, partnerships are for the long-term – but sometimes the only action that an individual member who does not like what is happening has is to walk away. A


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partnership that does not allow for that will have elements of a shotgun marriage, and will risk collapse as soon as the gun or fear of it is removed. That is likely to prove a serious underlying problem for many PFI/PPP partnerships – we do not know what will happen over 25-30 years, but we may surmise that in many cases partners will fall out, either among themselves or with their clients, and it will very difficult then to deliver the promises that have been made.

162 References Balloch, S. and Taylor, M. (Eds) (2001), Partnership Working: Policy and Practice, The Policy Press, Bristol. Benson, J.K. (1975), “The interorganizational network as a political economy”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 20, pp. 229-49. Bingle, P. (2004), “PFI and politics”, speech to the PPC Forum Conference, Birmingham, July. Byrne, D. (2001), “Partnership – participation – power: the meaning of empowerment in post-industrial society”, in Balloch, S. and Taylor, M. (Eds), Partnership Working: Policy and Practice, The Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 243-59. Coote, A., Allen, J. and Woodhead, D. (2004), Building Knowledge about Complex, Community-Based Initiatives, Kings’ Fund, London. Darwin, J. (1992), “The network organisation”, MBA dissertation, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield. DTLR (2001), Strong Local Leadership: Quality Public Services, White Paper, Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, London, December. Falconer, P.K. and McLaughlin, K. (2000), “Public-private partnerships and the ‘New Labour’ government in Britain”, in Osborne, S.P. (Ed.), Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Practice in International Perspective, Routledge, London, pp. 120-33. Grimsey, D. and Lewis, M. (2004), Public Private Partnerships: The Worldwide Revolution in Infrastructure Provision and Project Finance, Edward Elgar, Aldershot. Hudson, B., Hardy, B., Henwood, M. and Wistow, G. (1999), “In pursuit of inter-agency collaboration in the public sector: what is the contribution of theory and research?”, Public Management, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 235-60. Huxham, C. (Ed.) (1996), Creating Collaborative Advantage, Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Huxham, C. and Vangen, S. (2000), “What makes partnerships work?”, in Osborne, S.P. (Ed.), Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Practice in International Perspective, Routledge, London, pp. 293-310. Kanter, R.M. (1989), When Giants Learn to Dance, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. Kanter, R.M. (1994), “Collaborative advantage: the art of alliances: successful partnerships manage the relationship, not just the deal”, Harvard Business Review, July-August, pp. 96-108. Mackintosh, M. (1992), “Partnerships: issues of policy and negotiation”, Local Economy, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 210-24. Mayo, M. and Taylor, M. (2001), “Partnerships and power in community regeneration”, in Balloch, S. and Taylor, M. (Eds), Partnership Working: Policy and Practice, The Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 39-56. Milburn, A. (2004), “The future of public-private partnerships”, speech to the PPC Forum Conference, Birmingham, July.

Monbiot, G. (2001), The Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, Pan Paperbacks, London. Osborne, S.P. (Ed.) (2000), Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Practice in International Perspective, Routledge, London. PFI Intelligence Bulletin (2004), PfI Project Tracker, September. Piore, M. and Sabel, C. (1984), The Second Industrial Divide, Basic Books, New York, NY. Porter, M. (1990), The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Free Press, New York, NY. Rowe, M. (2004), “Abusive partnerships: new forms of governance, new forms of abuse?”, Regeneration Management Research Workshop, Liverpool, June. Sullivan, H. and Skelcher, C. (2000), Working across Partnerships: Collaboration in Public Services, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Williamson, O. (1975), Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Anti-Trust Implications, Free Press, New York, NY. Williamson, O. (1985), The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, Free Press, New York, NY. Williamson, O. (1996), The Mechanisms of Governance, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Further reading Darwin, J. (1998), “Partnerships: what type of relationship?”, in Montanheiro, L.C., Haigh, B., Morris, D. and Hrovatin, N. (Eds), Public and Private Sector Partnerships: Fostering Enterprise, Sheffield Hallam University Press, Sheffield. Darwin, J., Johnson, P. and McAuley, J. (2002), Developing Strategies for Change, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.



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The management of local government modernisation Area decentralisation and pragmatic localism

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Jon Coaffee and Lorraine Johnston Global Urban Research Unit, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Abstract Purpose – Seeks to analyse the complexity of current practices surrounding the management and governance of urban regeneration activities in the UK. In particular, aims to focus on the potential of initiatives decentralised to the sub-local level that have been designed both to effectively manage public service provision and to improve citizen participation in local government management decision making. Design/methodology/approach – Explores the early experiences of local authorities’ attempts to introduce “area committees” in line with the complex “modernisation” agendas advanced by the “New Labour” government under an overarching project of “new localism”. Findings – Highlights that new attempts at devolving power and responsibility to these sub-local structures should be more flexible to local conditions rather than directed by national policy. Originality/value – Argues for a “middle way” to be adopted in managing local government and governance changes in order to develop a more “pragmatic localism”. Keywords Local government, Decentralized control, Change management, United Kingdom Paper type General review


Introduction Since the 1970s, the rapid pace of public sector reform, particularly linked to the need to transform public service delivery and modernise public institutions, has continued apace in many parts of Western Europe, North America and Oceania (Page, 1991; Borraz and John, 2004; Leach and Wilson, 2004). Such change has also tended to be linked to emergent concepts of “third way” politics – a normative agenda for centre-left politics throughout the Western world (Hall, 2003; see also Giddens, 1998; Scanlon, 2003). This approach, popularised in recent times by the Clinton administration in the US, and the Blair government in the UK, has sought different ways to manage the complexities of the increasingly globalised world. This has occurred at national and local levels through the creation of new and progressive approaches to social democracy and governance, as opposed to top-down and directive state intervention. Such an ideology has subsequently facilitated change to the way in which government per se is organised and in particular the relationship between the national state, regions and localities. As a result, at a local level, new political cultures and new forms of management strategies have been introduced within the public sector. This has led to different forms of political leadership and institutions being established to cope with the perceived necessity to coordinate and “join-up” the increasingly fragmented strands of public service delivery. Within this emergent political and policy context, this paper unpacks one key aspect of such change in the UK, namely area decentralisation, and its implications for the management of urban regeneration[1] through the establishment of new governance

arenas. The remainder of the paper is divided into five sections. The first section will highlight the new reform rhetorics of the “third way”, new localism and area decentralisation which have impacted upon public policy, in particular, the inherent tension between central and local government and the adoption of new public management principles. Second, the UK’s area committee initiative will be introduced. Such committees were intended as a key delivery driver of local regeneration and governance policy. The third section, will detail attempts at developing area committees in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The penultimate section broadens this discussion out to highlight the potential of area-decentralised structures as transformative governance tools. The final section, argues that a more “pragmatic localism” should be developed, which requires central government to be less prescriptive and directive in urban policy formulation. Managing change through decentralisation – the “third way”, “new localism” In the UK, local decentralisation initiatives are now seen as integral to new patterns of urban governance and partnership working, as well as to overall projects of city-wide restructuring (Paddison, 1999; Johnston, 2004; Coaffee, 2004a). During the mid-1980s and early 1990s, academic observers and policy makers began to explore notions of transformative management change related to the governance of localities, particularly linked to the devolution of power and responsibility from national to city governments, and how this might make local public service delivery more efficient. Such an approach, linked strongly to regimes of “challenge funding”[2], adopted elements of both “citizen participation” and “change management”, and was referred to, by some commentators, as “new localism” (Stewart, 1994). This “market-led” approach was, in part, criticised by political opponents for its focus on private investment opportunities, a lack of true community involvement and the decentralisation of responsibility, but not power, from the national to local level[3]. By contrast, the opposition Labour party argued for an enhanced role for community participation per se in local government decision-making arenas alongside a move towards integrated public service delivery (Labour Party, 1994, 1995). After “New” Labour was elected in 1997 these dual ideas of participation and efficiency of service delivery became central drivers of regeneration management, resulting in a series of policy initiatives under the guise of the “modernisation of local government”. The approach adopted was seen as symptomatic of the emerging concept of “third way” politics – a programme for “permanent revisionism” involving the development of a “strong civil society” and “active government” (Blair, 1998). The “third way” was embodied within a host of complex policies linked to reshaping the relationships between national and local government and, between local government and its communities (Coaffee, 2004a; Johnston, 2004). At a local level, this “double-tension” governance transformation has been articulated as a shift from local authorities having a traditional “self sufficient” and “providing” role to play in service delivery to that of “enablers”, where local authorities, rather than provide all services themselves, facilitate and co-opt other organisations, often from the private sector, to act for them (Wilson and Game, 2002, p. 23). Such transformation in the public sector has occurred amidst the increased complexity and fragmentary nature of public policy. Local government, as key

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cornerstones of the “third way”, have been asked to develop a flexible enabling role, with changing managerial positions reflecting pragmatism, accountability and transparency, alongside wider consultation with citizens/customers. In short, bottom-up approaches are favoured over top-down directive approaches, with central government providing both the funding and encouragement for locally focused strategies to take root. This amounted to what many have referred to as the “hollowing out of the state” (Rhodes, 1994), with national government “steering” rather than directly controlling public service provision. However, despite such subtle guidance about partnership formation from national government, many have argued, in effect, that “local authorities are being left to work out the practicalities of this complex task for themselves” (Merchant, 2003). The UK also provides one of the most radical examples of how local political management structures have been reformed in recent years. Such change was particularly pronounced after the Modern Local Government: in Touch with the People White Paper (DETR, 1998) and the subsequent Local Government Act (2000) which required all local authorities to modify their existing, and often entrenched, political management systems. Importance was placed upon the creation of an “executive” form of government (a combination of an executive cabinet and/or elected mayor) and upon strong community leadership roles being established, at a local level, by elected politicians. The act also focused on “what devolution to neighbourhoods means in practice and how local authorities can use these different developments to define a fresh and innovative approach that responds to the needs of local communities” (Corrigan, 2000, p. 44). In short, this act “paved the way” for today’s explosion in new styles of partnership, area based initiatives and networking at the local level, but also articulated a need for, and the development possibilities of, sub-local governance structures (Coaffee and Healey, 2003). Such approaches, contrast strongly with traditional methods of regeneration management based on “Weberian formalisation, centralisation and bureaucratic procedures” (Liddle, 2001, p. 312). Traditional approaches to the management of regeneration were increasingly challenged by the call for more flexible arrangements with decentralised decision-making powers and wider participatory structures. These changes in local government management drew from a critique of previous local government reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s[4] and most notably those introduced by the Conservative government in the 1980s who had championed theories of new public management (NPM) with an emphasis on effectiveness, streamlined decision making processes, customer service and executive managerial control. As in North America, the need for such public sector reform was embedded within a belief that private sector “change management” principles (see for example, Peters and Waterman, 1982; Kanter, 1989) could be increasingly utilised in the management of the public sector to improve the quality and performance of delivery and, fundamentally, to “reinvent government” (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). The aim was to create “lean and athletic organisations with fewer management levels and greater responsiveness to change” (Kanter, 1996, p. 10). In short, NPM pointed to the possibilities of organisational change “from unresponsive, paternalistic and leaden bureaucracies to the customer driven, flexible, quality orientated and responsive organisations of the future” (Powell and Hewitt, 2002, p. 119).

In the late 1990s, the criticism of NPM by the incoming New Labour government was that it had a tendency to separate out the “management” and “policy” function of local government and exacerbate policy complexity through further fragmentation (Cabinet Office, 1999). New Labour’s approach was an attempt to knit together these two critical stands of public sector management. It did this, in large part, through an overarching program of “new localism” that echoed Stewarts (1994) earlier sentiments. Contemporary “new localism” – a policy directive developed by the New Local Government Network[5] as a response, and in relation to, “third way” thinking – has become an umbrella term for many of the policy changes enacted by New Labour linked to both managerial and political devolution (Johnston, 2004; Coaffee, 2005). It is essentially a framework by which the relationship between the centre and local authorities and, between local authorities and their communities have been refashioned and reshaped with the emphasis being placed on the government to take “a leap of faith” and “let go” (Corry and Stoker, 2002; Corry et al., 2003). New localism represented a new pragmatic ideology at the centre of government, and in theory, for local authorities. At the local level, the crucial question has been the extent to which the centre trusts localities to embrace such pragmatic change-management and offer the appropriate support to achieve this task, without localism being misused (Raysford, 2004). This question is set against a tendency for national government to prescribe policy to localities in either a controlling and centralised way, or through subtler types of “steering” (Johnston and Coaffee, 2004). That said, the much debated and contested “new localism” has influenced the policy and practice of local government regeneration management in a number of fundamental ways: . through strategy devolution – offering re-imagined concepts for joining up different tiers of government; . through alternative service management frameworks which permit local authorities to “focus on improvements” through developing increased levels of efficiency and effectiveness; . through enhancing and empowering community voice within decision making processes; . through democratic renewal – with attempts to reform local authorities as community leaders rather than as service providers – this was facilitated in many areas by the development of a new model of executive cabinet and “backbenchers”; and . through area decentralisation giving local authorities a clear opportunity to decentralise service delivery to the sub-local level and give local communities a “voice” in decisions about their “place” through the setting up of area committees. In many localities area committees were developed in order to bring together these key elements of modernisation policy with a focus on both improving citizen engagement and ownership over local decision-making and, the targeting of locally specific public service delivery. The area committee concept The Local Government Act (2000) makes clear that “area committees” would allow for the decentralisation of limited power and responsibility from the “executive” of the


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Figure 1. Linkages between corporate and devolved area structures

local authority to “area structures” in order to carry out a range of functions such as dealing with minor planning applications and refining local service delivery. This would effectively allow local people and councillors the opportunity to manage specified local government functions and budgets. It was intended that area committees membership comprise all, or some of, the elected members, which the “area” covered. The “committees” main functions were to provide a role for non-executive councillors especially in relation to community leadership, and, provide a vehicle for public involvement in council matters. These roles were intended to allow such area committees to strategically link city-wide and area-based concerns, facilitate partnership working amongst key stakeholders, and help with overall local government modernisation. Area committees were also seen as an attempt to co-ordinate wider corporate structures with decentralised service delivery, highlighting the rhetoric’s of “joined up thinking” and transformation from clientelistic government to community-led governance (Coaffee and Healey, 2003; Taylor and Gaster, 2001). Figure 1 shows the imagined relationship between corporate structures and area concerns which were, at the time of the Local Government Act (2000), already operating through area based regeneration initiatives but, in the future, it was hoped would increasingly link to area committees. Area committees were seen to have a huge potential in terms of decentralisation – to determine local priorities within a strategic framework, to set annual targets to achieve measurable and positive outcomes and, to promote best practice. No prescriptive prototype of the way area committees should operate was given by central government. Instead, local government was advised to use flexibility in interpreting and adopting guidance in order to fit local agendas and policies. In practice however, a number of local authorities interpreted area committee policies in a straightforward and prescriptive way, with some local authorities taking their time implementing area committees in order to learn lessons from others. Adopted structures for area committees across the UK have varied in terms of size, representation, function, degree of devolved power, and linkages to the strategic regeneration and governance frameworks (LSP)[6] and service providers. Some area committee structures that were adopted can be seen as radical with large scale funding

and power devolved to the area level. For example, Birmingham city council in 2004 adopted “mini councils” as a “revolutionary effort at localisation” aimed at replacing “the bureaucracy of centralisation” in order to better link civic renewal and improvements in public services (Walker, 2003). As Bore (2004, p. 34) notes: On 5 April 2004, Birmingham implemented the most radical restructuring of a local council in the last 50 years, with the localisation of service management, and the devolution of political decision making to 11 districts within the city. But Birmingham’s plans are about much more than devolution – they are part of a wider vision for the reinvention of city governance; a vision that shows how civil renewal and public service improvement can be linked and how national, regional and local government can work together to develop a new role for the state.

These 11 area/district structures, which replaced the previous 39 wards, are managed by “constituency directors,” and run by area councillors[7]. According to the city council’s strategic director these “constituency councils”, will “provide a structure through which all sections of the city’s community can participate in decision-making” with measures in place to prevent constituencies creating “mini empires” (cited in Rowe, 2004, p. 17). However, the envisioned pace of change is slow with the devolution of wide ranging responsibilities to the local committees taking up to ten years (Rowe, 2004). The key challenge in the Birmingham case is not to simply advocate greater local autonomy to the local state from national government but actually to develop mechanisms to downscale such power and resources to the community and neighbourhood level. The Newcastle area committee experience In contrast to Birmingham, Newcastle upon Tyne, until recently Labour-controlled, provides an example of more advanced attempts to set up area committees, prescriptively following national government guidance. In Newcastle, “area committees” have recently been “rolled out” as a response to both the national and local political pressures to modernise local government. This has occurred through the creation of sub-locality structures, which aimed to transform the traditional style of interaction between council and citizen to one that is more interactive, mutually trusting and partnership-focused. Historically, Newcastle has a long history of neighbourhood improvement initiatives in disadvantaged areas of the city which have been criticised over the years for their ineffectiveness, their paternalistic and fragmented governance and managerial style, their high cost, and, the considerable inability, or reluctance, to change such embedded practices[8]. In 1998, a programme of wide-scale change and reform was set in train that was locally referred to as “waking up the sleeping giant”. Stimulated by the appointment of a new chief executive, the old departmental system was streamlined into six large service directorates. Politically, the council was re-organised into a cabinet-style arrangement that included only ten councillors with portfolio and 68 having a backbench role. Against this backdrop of managerial and political change, area committees were introduced with three key ideas in mind: (1) To attract national regeneration funding (through grants such as the neighbourhood renewal fund and community empowerment fund[9]) which required linkages to be made between strategic and locally focused (and community-driven) actions.


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(2) To transform entrenched and out-dated council working practices. (3) To involve the community in local government and governance processes. Pressure was also coming from citizen concerns about the perceived inadequacies and disempowerment of community involvement in recent planning and regeneration discourses as a result of recent citizen protest linked to wide scale housing demolition. This subsequently led to further political inroads being made by the opposition political party – the Liberal Democrats – in the city[10]. As area committees have developed they began to recast the established relationship between the city council, elected councillors and the wider citizenry. Table I shows the evolution of area committees in Newcastle in terms of key stages of change[11]. Baseline development The initial aim of the area committee initiative was to provide the: . . . essential building blocks that will ensure that the city’s strategic plan addresses local issues and priorities [and be] a cornerstone of the city council’s modernising agenda emphasising the leadership role of elected members in bringing together key partner agencies and local communities and acting as the strategic link between local aspirations and the broader vision of the city[12].

In short, the area committees were an attempt “to create a more flexible, accountable decision making structure . . . where local people are involved in this process from the outset in order to ensure the decision making process is both informed and influenced”[13].

Table I. The evolution of area committees in Newcastle upon Tyne 1999-2004

Date of area committee conception

Stage/level of change

Key dimensions of change

1999-April 2002

Baselining

Area committees set up within a wider process of community planning linked to local government modernisation agendas

April 2002-April 2003

Developmental

Small changes to the existing area committee model of structures and processes as a result of initial internal evaluations which highlighted where improvements could, and should, be made. Area committees provided a destabilising influence on existing governance structures

May 2003-October 2004 Transitional

A process of reforming area committee processes and structures is set in motion. Objectives for new “area structures” or “area networks” aimed to encourage greater strategic management and “thinking outside the box” which helped to break systemic and behavioural resistance to changing working practices

October 2004

New area structures began to develop as a paradigm shift from the old model of area committees. Different models of change are negotiated-out

Transformational

The structure and function of the area committees was first developed in 2000 alongside the city council’s commitment to “community planning”[14] and focused upon identifying and representing local priorities with an aim to improve service provision and mechanisms for community consultation. Newcastle’s seven area committees were formally launched in April 2001 with each area committee consisting of a group of pre-existing wards, overseen and managed by ward councillors. With the introduction of cabinet-style government, the area committees (which were sub-committees of this cabinet) therefore gave a strategic role to all councillors, above the ward scale. Thus area committees, in theory at least, when they properly developed, would have real power to make locally significant decisions regarding service provision, regeneration priorities and spatial and community planning concerns. Area committees were also presented as the interface between local and city-wide issues, where strong links were envisioned between the emerging strategic regeneration networks (i.e. the LSP), the community strategy and the twenty year city-wide regeneration policy. Initial development Initially, the seven area committees developed unevenly and in very different ways with little or no overarching co-ordination, leadership or strategic focus. This predominantly occurred as a result of the different histories, geographies and experiences of previous regeneration initiatives within the seven areas, the various corporate managers and politicians involved in organising the area committees, as well as the location of the meetings, which, to the annoyance of the local community, were often held outside of the area the committees were representing. Despite many corporate policies explicitly highlighted area committees as important arenas of governance, there was also much confusion and misunderstanding about where area committees fitted into the city’s governance and managerial structure. For many, area committees gave the appearance of old-style council meeting, essentially resembling “mini-town halls”. A number of area committees were also perceived to be little more than “councillor committees” – controlled by, and for, locally elected representatives with traditional meeting agendas, structures and behavioural repertoires being re-enacted. As one community group described them, area committees were little more than – “posh surgeries, totally dominated by the council chamber and very tokenistic in terms of community input”[15] instead of new, interactive and participative style meetings. Initial evaluation exposed the lack of suitable funding mechanisms, and support from service directorates being given to area committees, and that the dates, times and venues of the committees were poorly advertised and often cancelled at short notice. Evaluation also highlighted that the committees were having a destabilising influence on existing governance structures in the city (Coaffee and Healey, 2003; Johnston, 2004). Overall, it was almost universally accepted by those involved in the creation, and subsequent management of area committees, that they were not working as intended and that strategic restructuring was required to clarify the area committees roles and responsibilities. Transition In 2003, an area committee restructuring process began which aimed to reinvigorate the importance of the committees through clarifying and strengthening their strategic


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importance within management structures, and to break the systemic and behavioural resistance to change displayed in the way some area committees functioned and were supported by the local authority. It was also seen as particularly important to try and co-ordinate the area committees to other area-based regeneration partnerships and service delivery areas, and thereby, reduce the local authority bureaucratic burden[16]. After wide-scale consultation it was agreed by corporate mangers to set up four new larger-scale “area-networks” – seen as catalysts of change with an emphasis placed on learning the lessons from the area committee experience and from other regeneration networks and partnerships, as well as generating more coherent links to the city-wide strategic partnership. These networks were intended to be conduits for joining up activities at an area level effectively and were spatially defined according to fluid boundaries rather than the static political administrative boundaries that characterised the earlier area committees (CLES Consulting, 2004, p. 27). The membership of the networks was to be broadened, and was to come through numerous public sector organisations, private sector and community/voluntary networks, as well as locally elected politicians. The rhetoric surrounding the establishment of this area structure was that particular individuals and organisations were “IN a network, not ON” the institutional body of the network (CLES Consulting, p. 29). Moving towards transformation Upcoming local elections in June 2004 forced this area committee restructuring agenda to be put on hold until after the ballot. In this election the Liberal Democrat political party gained control of Newcastle city council from the Labour party that had controlled the city council for the previous 31 years. At a national level the Liberal Democrats had emphasised devolution and subsidiarity of both power and responsibility to area and neighbourhood levels in terms of regeneration management. In line with these national aims another new scenario was put forward for area committees in Newcastle, which involved the devolution of much more power and responsibility to existing area committees with far greater links to services providers and service directorates. However, in practice this, at the time of writing, is not proving an easy task. The new administration has to deliver a number of different regeneration and governance polices simultaneously as well as reversing entrenched relationships, often of mistrust, between city and citizen in regeneration practices. The failure to remove such embedded mistrust was a key failing of the original area committees. The new administration will have to strive hard to push through their style of “neighbourhood localism” by devolving real power and responsibility to area-level committees which will perhaps become the key local “delivery driver” of such change (Coaffee, 2004b, Johnston, 2004). The result, which at the time of writing is unclear, is however likely to be a compromise between the proposed new area networks and more powerful and resourced area committees. The new structures are scheduled to be rolled-out in 2005. Whereas Birmingham’s “going local” initiative provides a radical example of how area devolution and organisational cultural change might, in the long-term develop, and decentralise real power and responsibility to the local level, the Newcastle example highlights the many complex issues surrounding the minutiae of establishing area committees, linked to transforming embedded governance practices – around different decision making powers, budgets, group membership, community participation and, links to strategic bodies, action plans and political ideology.

Area committees as a transformation tool in managing change In recent years, both external pressures and local challenges are transforming the formalised ways in which local government functions. Conceptually, this has been embraced by New Labour public policy with consistent calls for a movement away from narrow, elite and bureaucratic relations and networks, towards multiple and diverse relationships which are innovative, and shift away from static sectoral organisation. As such, there is a focus on holistic “place-making” and a move to create a better engagement between the local state and civil society (Coaffee and Healey, 2003). As such, the establishment of area committees highlights one method by which local governments are attempting to change from provider to enabler to partnership facilitator. The adoption of area committees highlights the “tensions between centralising power to get strategic focus and the encouragement for greater citizen voice” (Coaffee and Healey, 2003, p. 1982, see also Sullivan et al., 2001). Area committees can also be seen to be having a destabilising influence on existing governance structures as well as pointing to the potential for positive change and transformation of these processes – through the resetting of relationships between communities and local council, councillors and mainstream service providers. However, it can be argued that area committees have, for some UK local authorities, increased the complexities of local government modernisation by placing too many contradictory agendas on the table, and by adding to an already-complicated policy maze, which the inexperienced, in particular, find hard to navigate. There is for example, confusion over what area committees are, who can participate, what degree of community involvement there should be, and, the appropriate balance between representative and participative elements. Area committees are also prone to partisan politicisation – being seen as an emerging arena of power outside of executive government. Nevertheless, recent examples of area committees developed in both Newcastle and Birmingham, or equivalent structures elsewhere, do give some tentative glimpses into the potential of such devolved structures to become responsive and locally significant governance and management mechanisms. Such committees also highlight the medium and long-term potential, to more effectively delivery local services and enhance the ability of local citizens, councillors and community groups to participate in decision making processes which have a bearing on their locality. Pragmatic localism and the “middle way” The UK “modernisation” agenda is now beginning to be heavily critiqued, with many commentators arguing that perhaps it has gone too far, too quickly, and is too prescriptive in terms of attempting to transform local government. Critics have also argued that New Labour has failed to articulate fully the nature of the “third way” and “new localism” despite these concepts gaining an increased influence within social and political policy. For example, one commentator, referred to the “fundamental hollowness” of the “third way” and that articulating this is “like wrestling an inflatable man. If you get to grip on one limb, all the hot air rushes to another” (cited in Giddens, 2000, p. 7). Others argue that new localism “has so far been led from the centre and lacks definition and consistency” (Grimble, 2003, p. 2), and which could ultimately “bypass local government and local democracy” amounting to a re-centralisation of power at national government level (Beecham, 2003, p. 3). The reality of all the local level


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changes and reforms of New Labour has, thus far, been one of increased complexity and confusion amidst attempts to increase participation and community leadership and to manage services more effectively (Smith Institute, 2004; Audit Commission, 2004). Two bodies of current literature perhaps highlight different scenarios for future modernisation and give alternative scenarios of the way to proceed and, the potential pitfalls of stalling necessary change in the public sector. On one hand, work in the political sciences on “institutional void” and “institutional ambiguity” (Hajer, 2003, 2004) argues that the incapacity of local states, and its staff, to deal with emergent and complex policy issues and challenges, can create a vacuum of power which potentially can be exploited by knowledgeable agents (usually of the old-style) for their own ends and to push their own agendas. This model is seen to resist the fundamental change envisaged by the modernisation agenda. On the other hand, recent policy research on “adaptive states: strategies for personalising the public realm” (Bentley and Wilsdon, 2003) argues that organisational change combining elements of learning, openness, adaptability, innovation and leadership at the local level (although often steered from the centre) is the way to proceed. A key issue here, as McInroy (2004, p. 14) points out is that “local adaptation will result in varying organisational shapes and styles” which is the antithesis of “the desire for institutional neatness and the blind application of best practice from elsewhere”. This approach suggests that fundamental change should not be resisted, but instead, embraced. Ministers, and some national policy makers, talk constantly about policies of “change” but there is limited discretion, at the local level, about how to implement such prescribed policy. All too often local governments are “forced” to implement prescriptive change out of political allegiance, the lack of an alternative route to follow, or simply as a result of pressures on time and resources – in order to achieve the “freedoms and flexibilities” they crave. As such, we argue here for pragmatism over prescription in local government policy – for a so-called “middle way” (Davis, 2003), which is inclusive of “top and bottom” and acknowledges that you can have a local initiative and individual empowerment without the local state “letting go”. Such an approach should have fewer targets and closer consultation with stakeholders to develop “quality-based routes to excellence” as well as giving greater managerial discretion and flexibility to those in charge (see also Done, 2004). In short, the argument is for a far more nuanced, “pragmatic localism” where “models” of change are replaced by “ingredients”, “menus” and “frameworks” of alternative methods of service delivery and community capacity building, which are selected according to local circumstances of place and not centrality prescribed targets. Notes 1. Often referred to in North America as urban renewal. 2. This was connected to the introduction of the single regeneration budget (SRB). The SRB was a re-packaging and streamlining of government grants introduced in 1994. The aim was to make it easier for local authorities to apply for funds. 3. For a critique of UK regeneration policy under the Conservative government (1979-1997), see Thornley (1993). 4. In particular, the Maud report (1967) and Baines report (1972).

5. An influential public policy consultancy with close links to the New Labour government. 6. Local strategic partnership’s (LSPs) aimed to: “bring together at a local level the different parts of the public sector as well as the private, business, community and voluntary sectors so that different initiatives and services support each other and work together” (DETR, 2001, p. 4). 7. Wards in the UK are small political electoral/administrative areas which combined make up the local authority area. 8. In particular, Newcastle developed a regeneration culture based on the successful bidding for area-based assistance, which were then “flown in” and prescriptively applied in accordance with government guidance. 9. These were grants given to selective local authorities who had developed a coherent and accredited local strategic partnership and community strategy. 10. Politically, Newcastle City Council is divided into 26 wards from which 78 councillors are elected. The councillors in 2003 were mostly from the Labour Party (54), although in the late 1990s the Liberal Democrat Party made some gains into Labour’s electoral base (24 councillors). After June 2004 the figures were 48 Liberal Democrat and 30 Labour. 11. This framework is based in part upon work by Bateson (1972) Anderson and Ackerman (2001) and Young (2001, 2003). 12. Minutes of Cabinet 18 October 2000. 13. Area committee website: http:\\194.61.167.29\areacomm.nsf\a\home?opendocument (accessed 28 June 2002). 14. Developed as a result of increased pressure for more local involvement in the planning and management of the environment. 15. Cited in Johnston (2004). 16. Consultants Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) were appointed to undertake this work. References Anderson, D. and Ackerman, A.L. (2001), Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders, Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA. Audit Commission (2004), People, Places and Prosperity, HMSO, London. Bains, M. (1972), The New Local Authorities: Management and Structure, HMSO, London. Bateson, G. (1972), The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication in Steps to an Ecology of Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to Man’s Understanding of Himself, Chandler Publishing Company/Ballantine Books, New York, NY. Beecham, J. (2003), New Localism or New Centralism? Planning and the Regions, Local Government Association, London. Bentley, T. and Wilsdon, J. (2003), The Adaptive State: Strategies for Personalising the Public Realm, DEMOS, London. Blair, T. (1998), The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century, Pamphlet 588, The Fabian Society, London. Bore, A. (2004), “The local authority perspective: city governance in Birmingham”, Making Sense of Localism, The Smith Institute, London, pp. 33-42. Borraz, O. and John, P. (2004), “The transformation of urban political leadership in Western Europe”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 107-200. Cabinet Office (1999), Modernising Government, Cm 4310, HMSO, London.


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CLES Consulting (2004), “Working together at an area level”, report for Newcastle City Council and the Newcastle Partnership, Newcastle upon Tyne. Coaffee, J. (2004a), “Re-scaling regeneration: experiences of merging area-based and city-wide partnerships in urban policy”, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 443-61. Coaffee, J. (2004b), “End of the growth drive”, Regeneration and Renewal, 2 July, pp. 20. Coaffee, J. (2005), “Editorial: new localism and the management of regeneration”, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 18 No. 2. Coaffee, J. and Healey, P. (2003), “‘My voice: my place’: tracking transformations in urban governance”, Urban Studies, Vol. 40 No. 10, pp. 1979-99. Corrigan, P. (2000), Starting to Modernise: Local Solutions: A Practical Guide to Neighbourhood Forums and Area Committees, NLGN, London. Corry, D. and Stoker, G. (2002), New Localism Refashioning the Centre-Local Relationship, NLGN, London. Corry, D., Hatter, W., Parker, I., Randle, A. and Stoker, G. (2003), Joining up Local Democracy: Governance Systems for a New Localism, NLGN, London. Davis, G. (2003), “Why centralised targets miss the mark”, Public Services Review, Autumn, p. 290. DETR (1998), Local Government: In Touch with the People, HMSO, London. DETR (2001), Strategic Partnership: Government Guidance, HMSO, London. Done, F. (2004), “Why local leaders need a better deal”, Regeneration and Renewal, 25 June, p. 14. Giddens, A. (1998), The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge. Giddens, A. (2000), The Third Way and its Critics, Polity Press, Cambridge. Grimble, J. (2003), “Localism is our debate”, Localist, May, p. 2. Hajer, M. (2003), “Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void”, Policy Sciences, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 175-96. Hajer, M. (2004), “Three dimensions of deliberative policy analysis”, paper presented at the American Political Sciences Association Convention, Chicago, IL, September. Hall, S. (2003), “The third way revisited: New Labour, spatial policy and the national strategy for neighbourhood renewal”, Planning, Practice and Research, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 265-77. Johnston, L. (2004), “Managing complexity in local governance transformation”, guest seminar, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, September. Johnston, L. and Coaffee, J. (2004), Managing Change, Complexity and Pragmatism in Local Government Modernisation: Experiences of Area Decentralisation, CLES Policy Briefing, Centre for Local Economic Strategies, Manchester. Kanter, R.M. (1989), When Giants Learn to Dance, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. Kanter, R.M. (1996), When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenge of Strategy, Management and Careers into the 1990s, International Thompson, London. Labour Party (1994), In Trust for Tomorrow: Report of the Labour Party Policy Commission on the Environment, Labour Party, London. Labour Party (1995), Renewing Democracy, Rebuilding Communities, Labour Party, London. Leach, S. and Wilson, D. (2004), “Urban e´lites in England: new models of executive governance”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 134-49. Liddle, J. (2001), “RDAs, sub-regional partnerships and local regeneration”, Local Economy, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 312-23.

McInroy, N. (2004), “Hard puzzles need supple solutions”, Regeneration and Renewal, 21 May, p. 14. Maud, J. (1967), Committee on the Management of Local Government, HMSO, London. Merchant, L. (2003), “Instructions not included”, Regeneration and Renewal, 9 May, pp. 22-3. Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992), Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, Addison-Wesley Publications Co., Reading, MA. Paddison, R. (1999), “Decoding decentralisation: the marketing of urban local power?”, Urban Studies, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 107-19. Page, E.C. (1991), Localism and Centralism in Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Peters, T.J. and Waterman, R.H. (1982), In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, Harper & Row, New York, NY. Powell, M. and Hewitt, M. (2002), Welfare State and Welfare Change, Open University Press, Milton Keynes. Raysford, N. (2004), “Overcoming the obstacles to effective localism”, Making Sense of Localism, The Smith Institute, London, pp. 9-22. Rhodes, R. (1994), “The hollowing-out of the state: the changing nature of public service in Britain”, Political Quarterly, Vol. 63 No. 1, pp. 138-51. Rowe, M. (2004), “Taking a devolutionary approach”, Regeneration and Renewal, 30 January, p. 17. Scanlon, C. (2003), “A step to the left or just a jump to the right? Making sense of the third way on government and governance”, Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 481-98. Smith Institute (2004), Making Sense of Localism, The Smith Institute, London. Stewart, M. (1994), “Between Whitehall and town hall: the realignment of urban regeneration policy in England”, Policy and Politics, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 133-45. Sullivan, H., Smith, M., Root, A. and Moran, D. (2001), Area Committees and Neighbourhood Management: Increasing Democratic Participation and Social Inclusion, Local Government Information Unit, London. Taylor, F. and Gaster, L. (2001), In the Neighbourhood: Area Decentralisation and New Political Structures, Local Government Association, London. Thornley, A. (1993), Urban Planning under Thatcherism: The Challenge of the Market, 2nd ed., Routledge, London. Walker, D. (2003), “The road to the north”, The Guardian Unlimited, available at: SocietyGuardian.co.uk/futureforpublicservices/story/0,8150,1077345,00.html (accessed 6 November). Wilson, D. and Game, C. (2002), Local Government in the United Kingdom, 3rd ed., Palgrave/Macmillan, Ebbw Vale. Young, P. (2001), Understanding NLP: Metaphors and Patterns of Change, Crown House Publishing, Carmarthen. Young, P. (2003), Young Be Your Best Change Manager . . . and Beyond, Hodder Headline plc, London. Further reading DETR (2000), Collaboration and Co-ordination in Area-based Initiatives, 2nd research working paper, HMSO, London.



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John Diamond Centre for Local Policy Studies, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, Ormskirk, UK Abstract Purpose – Seeks to draw together a number of separate but, arguably, inter-related themes which are present for those involved in “sense making” within and across public and third sector agencies or organisations. Design/methodology/approach – Uses a case study approach of one community-based network in South London to explore the ways in which action learning can facilitate self-reflection and open up the processes of partnership to a wider audience. Findings – The particular challenge for any evaluator is to identify the ways in which definitions and meanings are shared or contested by participants. These can be “heard” through the different narratives which are constructed by those engaged in the evaluation process. Originality/value – Attempts to identify what the critical questions were for those involved and provides a commentary on the experience. Keywords Local authorities, Narratives, Partnership Paper type General review

Introduction This paper seeks to draw together a number of separate but, arguably, inter-related themes which are present for those involved in “sense making” within and across public and third sector agencies or organisations. These themes are: . the processes involved in the evaluation of public sector initiatives; . the significance of “networks” as ways of supporting action learning; . the implications of “partnerships” which cut across single service agencies; and . the importance of recognising how individuals construct their own narratives of experience and how these are shaped by issues of power.


There is an additional issue too which is the way in which all of these processes construct the way in which we hear and interpret what is happening and the “voice” we attach to these processes. At times in the paper which follows the voice of the author is heard explicitly and this is a deliberate choice on the author’s part. The decision to adopt a more personal tone was made to illustrate the point that external evaluators are active participants in the processes discussed. And their experience and the sense that they make of what is happening can be a more influential voice than those who are the subjects of the evaluation. The author would like to thank all those who were involved in the evaluation, Carole Brocken (CLPS Office), Graeme Chesters, Anne Kearney, and Andrew Nelson for discussing the ideas with him.

In the UK public sector initiatives that are concerned with the physical and social regeneration of areas of multiple deprivation are subject to external evaluation. Usually those undertaking the evaluation are seen as neutral outsiders often drawn from the academic community. They work to criteria set by the commissioning agency (central government departments, local authorities or regeneration agencies). The criteria define the scope of the evaluation and, as a consequence, “rule in” or “rule out” certain questions and methodologies. In the UK there has been a concern in the recent past to examine the extent to which regeneration initiatives have added to the capacity of local economies or have increased the potential for urban renewal through physical infrastructure developments. In some cases this has resulted in quantitative studies that seek to explore the relationship between such investments and improvements in economic outputs. Whilst these approaches have some value they do not provide a “holistic” picture of what is happening within particular neighbourhoods nor do they capture the differential experiences of those living and working in their communities. At the same time we can observe how the growth in exploring strategies to effect change within the public sector management literature has focussed upon the significance of “networks” as reference points for managing change and support those engaged in change management. These networks can often provide rich diaries documenting the experience of practitioners. And they can provide invaluable reference points to encourage self-reflection and can identify specific strategies that have been adopted and/or can provide evidence of success (or failure). These communities of practice that, often, exist both within and outside agencies can yield fruitful insight into what works and what does not. In the UK the Blair government have sponsored the creation of defined networks based upon the community and voluntary sector. Their role is described below. But, at this stage it is important to note that their formation, development and function are defined externally yet they do offer a series of insights into the practice and experience of contemporary UK regeneration initiatives. The growth in partnership working is described more fully below. It is perceived to be a necessary pre-condition for successful neighbourhood regeneration in the UK. As a model it assumes a necessary collaboration across a wide variety of public and third sector agencies. And as an approach it raises a series of questions for practitioners and participants that include issues of: . defining what is partnership; . clarifying the remit and role of the partnership; . establishing who is included (and who is not); and . agreeing the criteria to assess progress and success. This latter question, itself, raises a further set of issues including the terms and limits of any evaluation, including how the differing narratives of experience are represented and understood by the evaluator. This mix of practice and theory was present in the “story” of the evaluation of a community empowerment network (CEN) in London. The author of this paper was the external evaluator. This article attempts to identify what the critical questions were for those involved and provides a commentary on the experience.

The processes of a local evaluation

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Setting a context The acceleration in “partnership working” across the UK public sector has become the “norm” since 1997. The Blair government has promoted partnerships at a local, sub-regional and regional level as a deliberate public policy choice. The rationale that underpins this model of working is, also, paralleled by the stress on multi- (or inter-) agency working at an area or neighbourhood level. This concern with a neighbourhood/area approach to urban regeneration has been partly based upon a critique of welfare and social agencies at a local level that argues that: . the complexity of “problems” at a local level are beyond the capacity of one agency alone to address; . the UK public sector has been “weakened” by professional boundary disputes or “departmentalism”; . local communities do not recognise the organisational/structural differences within and between public agencies; . local governmental institutions do not have the capacity or the resources to resolve local problems; . a “holistic” approach to urban decline requires strategic partnerships to lead neighbourhood or area renewal initiatives; and . local communities need to be included as part of these strategic partnerships (Filkin et al., 2000; Newman, 2001; Russell, 2001). In framing their response to this critique the UK government launched a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal (HMSO, 1998). In it they set out a model for local strategic partnerships (LSPs) in which local community representatives would sit as “equals” alongside key public and welfare agencies (including in the case study below the police, health authorities, education and the other key stakeholders). The government through its regional offices (Government Offices of the Regions (GOR)) provided a support network to enable these LSPs to function and they were given specific targets to achieve (in health, education, crime and housing). This particular model of partnership working also draws upon the notion of devolved or neighbourhood based delivery of services. The concern with experimenting with devolved service delivery has been a feature of UK local government for nearly 30 years. Whilst the particular organisational features of area-based working have changed over this time frame the approach has certain key features. They can include: . a single physical point of reference for the local community (“a one stop shop”); . the physical co-location of key services in the area; . the co-ordination of local services by an individual or team; . the devolution of responsibility for local or neighbourhood decision making to an individual or team; . the provision and concept of local or neighbourhood management; . the involvement of local community based organisations of tenants or residents in some joint decision making; and . the allocation of limited resources for use in the area (Burgess et al., 2001; Diamond, 2004a, b; HMSO, 1998).

From the perspective of developing a framework for undertaking a local/neighbourhood evaluation of these developments a number of issues arise. They include challenges and dilemmas that are present in any evaluation process and an indicative check list of the key ones might look like this: . What is being evaluated – the process of partnership working or specific outcomes of the process? . What timescale does the evaluation cover? . Who has been involved in deciding the purpose and structure of the evaluation? . Who is to be involved and how are they identified? . What are the criteria for selection? . What is the purpose of the evaluation? . What happens to the evaluation after it is completed?

Creative individuals – a necessary pre-condition? The received point of difference in developing and sustaining effective partnership working is the individual(s) who occupy significant roles in the delivery of neighbourhood initiatives (Williams, 2002). As Southern (2003) has argued, successful neighbourhood regeneration management requires individuals to assume a variety of roles in their work. These can include: . brokering differences between agencies and the local community; . facilitating joint work; . providing strategic leadership at a local level; . representing the needs of local initiative to regional/sub-regional agencies; . acting as the project manager for a number of varied but inter-related local initiatives; and . “fixing” local or neighbourhood differences. To this list we can, perhaps, add the following: . collating local intelligence on the needs of the area; . managing complex relationships between agencies and the local community; . promoting innovative responses to local problems; . developing the infra structure to sustain projects after their period of financing is complete; . being “entrepreneurial” in looking for solutions which are outside the received ways of thinking; and . seeking out similar individuals to provide support and guidance. As Huxham and Vangan (2000) have suggested the development of such roles and skills has the potential to achieve “collaborative advantage” for specific initiatives and projects. These individuals act as “boundary spanners” (Williams, 2002) crossing across organisational structures and professional disciplines to effect the maximum advantage for the initiative. The very nature of partnership working in the UK has


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resulted in the formation of local networks in which individuals/professionals/ community activists can meet, share ideas/information and effect change. And as Gilchrist (2004) has argued these potential “change agents” draw upon their own experiences to inform their conversations and models for effecting change within their “home” agencies. They illustrate the advantages of both “communities of practice” and “action learning”. They are, also, the likely sites of significant debates that have implications for practitioners and users beyond the relative narrow confines of single agencies. The key questions for any local evaluator remain the same, how does one engage with such networks in which issues of power and difference often remain unacknowledged (Diamond, 2002). In developing a model for evaluating a community network in South London I drew upon not only my experience, but also a model that sought to facilitate a conversation between myself and the local network. By encouraging those involved in the evaluation to “tell their story” I hoped that the emerging narratives would yield data which could make explicit sense of these differences. The use of narratives (Boje, 2001; Bond, 2002) can be a powerful means of reflecting back to a group their varied experiences and perceptions and illustrate some of the competing explanations present in any evaluation process. More significantly, it could provide the means to facilitate a process of self-reflection through action learning which might contribute to their discussions on strategy and forward planning (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002). This approach draws upon the recognition that ways of learning and understanding need to be more flexible but also open to exploring issues of power, professional roles and the construction of what is relevant. As Attwood et al. (2003) argue, drawing upon “communities of practice” is a necessary part of this process. In my own view whilst this is necessary it is not sufficient. Partnerships can conceal real differences in power, status and authority. This is very evident in the case study below. Whilst we do need to explore the practice of partnerships we, also, need to be aware of how those power differences can be played out and are made real for individuals and groups who do not share the same analysis or diagnosis of what their community needs. Challenge Any evaluation of CENs at once throws up a fascinating set of issues for any evaluator: issues of contested meaning; of unequal access to power; of competing definitions of roles and most importantly of different positioning in relation to external structures. The approach discussed below seeks to draw upon the use of narratives as a means of exploring points of difference and the way “power” and “meaning” are constructed (Czarniawska, 2004). Each source of data (whether from central government agencies such as the Audit Commission, other professionals or participating local groups) represents the outcome of a process. That process is one in which different individuals and sub-groups have a perception of and an interpretation of what information is relevant; how different types of interpretations have been reached, whose information is important and whose is less so. For example, local people will have views about how their local area has evolved, what developments have been important, how their area compares with the “next door” area. Local people in this sense will have both a historical views of their area and one that is comparative in terms of the criteria they experience as important. It will not be

one single shared view, the view which attains dominance and becomes “the local view” will represent the outcome of a competition for meaning and interpretation, one in which certain views are privileged over others by virtue of the positioning of the different roles within the context for meaning and significance. The same process occurs within each of the participating groups. The construction of “knowledge” results from internal competition about what is important, a process in which a specific view is privileged over other and becomes “the repertoire of important data”. A particular discourse emerges when different participating groups come together as part of a wider process. Each participating group brings to the wider one its internal differences of view, as well as differences between itself and other participating groups, which itself has internal differences. I am suggesting, therefore, that each group has engaged in a contest for meaning that is paralleled by the same process in each other group. It is when these groups come together a new discourse emerges, one in which the parallel processes converge and intersect, but not on an equal basis. The point of intersectionality is where the different power positions of the participating groups becomes crucial, because the power differences position each group in ways which, again, privilege certain group’s views over others. The positioning I refer to is in relation to outside structures such as structures of political inequalities; unequal access to power in the wider sense; unequal access to resources etc. The closer the group is in relation to outside power structures, the greater the likelihood that its views, its assumptions and its priorities will be privileged over others. The “playing out” of this process is the arena which the evaluator enters. Observing and listening in South London The particular experiences of one CEN in South London form the bulk of the qualitative material presented in this paper. The main fieldwork was conducted between May and October 2003. There have been a number of subsequent meetings with key officers of the CEN to reflect upon developments since (the most recent in October 2004). The author was contracted to undertake an external evaluation of the CEN and, in particular, was asked to focus on the relationship between the CEN and the LSP and the work of the CEN executive. In framing their brief for the evaluation the CEN stated that they hoped the evaluation would be: . reflective; . interactive; and . challenging. This paper draws upon the qualitative data gathered (including over 40 hours of interviews with key offices of the CEN executive, the paid staff of the CEN; local LSP officers based in the local authority; members of the CEN; members of the CEN who were elected to the LSP; senior staff at the Voluntary Sector agency (which is “home” to the CEN); offices of the Government Office for London; and the senior politician for the local authority who chairs the LSP. In addition to attending meetings as an observer of the LSP and the CEN an analysis of relevant documentary material was carried out.


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A number of themes emerged during the initial phase of the evaluation and these were followed up in subsequent interviews and discussions with members of the local CEN and with the full-time staff. The most significant of these themes was that there were quite different and competing narratives present within the CEN, which both described and analysed their relationship with the LSP and gave an account of the work of the CEN itself. It is possibly helpful to note that both this CEN and its parallel organisation (the LSP) were engaged in a number of initiatives and partnerships and the survey (November 2003) of partnership working is identified in Table I. The CEN sought to have a “presence” across all of the “themes” but could not expect to engage with all of the specific partnerships. Whilst these “partnerships” vary (significantly) in scale, remit, location and expectation the evident driver in partnership work is the local state agency. It is in this context that the CEN is seeking both to collaborate and to open up the work of the LSP to hear an alternative perspective and the unequal distribution of resources, staff and access to decision making locates the dominant discourse within the local state sponsored partnerships. The paper argues that: . there are quite different and competing narratives present within the CEN and between key actors involved in the LSP; . the local community network perceives itself as having little access to the decision making processes of the LSP; . the local network has the potential to occupy a significant role in the development of policy; . real power differences between the LSP and the CEN can be observed through the way relationships are constructed, use of language and the processes of decision making; and . a pre-condition for its success may lie in its “independence” from the LSP and its voluntary sector sponsor. In one sense these emerging themes/issues can be clustered together under the primary one of “competing narratives”. It became evident that as individuals told their “story” of their experience of the CEN (and the LSP) there were quite different narratives in place. Whilst the details of the same events were recalled in similar ways the interpretations and explanations offered were often significantly different. As Bond (2002) argues, the ways in which these narratives are played back to participants may facilitate their recognition of key moments and themes. Indeed, this author would Theme

Table I. Survey of partnership working

Health Community safety Education Employment Housing and environment Young people Area-based/cross cutting Total

Numbers of partnerships 23 10 11 8 24 12 30 118

argue that such an approach may enable the process of positioning and the consequences of intersectionality to be grasped. Indeed as Farrar (2002) so usefully explores this approach it also opens up the possibility of examining the role of the external evaluator and of encouraging those who are involved in the evaluation process to engage in a “conversation” about what is happening and why.


Interpreting the narratives In analysing the narratives present in the qualitative material compiled for the evaluation it is possible to identify four key factors that shaped the way participants responded both to the regeneration initiative and the community network. These factors were: (1) Levels of activism. (2) Space. (3) Memory. (4) Language and identity.

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Levels of activism A significant number of those people interviewed who were active members of the community network had long histories of involvement with community and third sector groups in the locality. They had been active in political struggles, tenant and resident groups and some were now paid workers in community based agencies. They had a sense of history and could recall past successes and failures. Some were able to place the current initiative on a continuum of urban regeneration initiatives going back over 20-30 years. As a consequence they were able to point to what they considered were weaknesses in the current process. They had accumulated a reservoir of local knowledge and experience that had the potential to enable them to demonstrate greater street level knowledge than those who were employed by the local state agencies. Their levels of activism and knowledge that was shaped (in part) by their direct experience also meant that they brought to their meetings with professional social and welfare groups a different analysis of need. They, also, had an understanding of how local social and welfare agencies took decisions and the processes that were used to inform their decisions. Space UK regeneration initiatives have an explicit spatial dimension. UK regeneration history has been largely based on defining specific places and neighbourhoods as sites for public sector intervention. For those active in the community network the spatial feature of the initiative raised additional challenges. A sense of geography and the powerful emotions associated with a sense of place and neighbourhood were key elements in how they framed the roles of the community network and the LSP. Those who felt that their localities had been ignored saw the new initiative as an opportunity to gain access to new projects and funds. Some felt it was “about time” that their neighbourhoods saw some gain after years of neglect. This sense of place and the spatial dimension represented a real challenge for the community network. They were attempting to articulate a “holistic” approach to

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regeneration initiatives. Yet, some key members of the network were arguing for a redistribution of resources in favour of their local space. Memory The significance for the community network of having a number of members with a long history of local activism was that they brought their “memory” to conversations. Their narratives of meaning differed sharply from those who were employed by the local partnership or governmental agencies. Whilst the latter sought to separate the present from the past the former made the connection all the time. Local activists were steeped in the history and the politics of the area whilst local or regionally based professionals stood detached (at least formally) from this history. This group of welfare/regeneration professionals saw the LSP and the community network as representing something new. As they discussed the formation of the network and its role they, also, marginalized or dismissed some members of the network by reference to them “living in the past”. They attempted to present an ahistorical account of the regeneration initiatives. And by attempting to depoliticise its significance they were seeking to assert their values over those who were active in the community network. Language and identity The use of language also gave an insight into how participants identified with their locality or with the initiative. For those who were active in the network their accounts were personal. Their picture of the locality and its needs were coloured by images of places, issues and events. They often framed their account by reference to specific places, collections of streets, particular problems associated with a defined geography and to named groups who had been excluded by the area’s history. In contrast those who were drawn from the professional agencies often used the language of “managerialism”. This language itself can be experienced by community activists as disempowering. It is often presented as too personal or emotional. As such what we are hearing and observing is a competition between participants for a definition of what constitutes appropriate or legitimate knowledge. Making sense of the narratives An essential part of the process of any evaluation is to make “sense” of what is being heard and observed. It is here that the evaluator seeks to “play back” to those involved what she/he has heard. At an early stage of the evaluation process this author presented an assessment of the perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the network. As part of this process the following issues were identified and were part of the discussions between members of the community network and the evaluator. They are set out, below, to illustrate the complex and competing interests and relationships present in these processes: . the absence of a shared narrative within the community network; . the relationships between community network “representatives” and the broader network;

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the extent to which community network representatives and the LSP board saw themselves as “delegates” or “individuals”; the roles and relationships of the paid community network staff to the broader network and the network core group; the power differences (in status, access to decision makers and resources) present between the community network and the professional staff associated with the LSP and other professional social/welfare agencies; and the absence of a shared narrative within the LSP members and staff.

These complex relationships were often observed “in play” when discussions focussed upon the priorities of the community network and/or the priorities of the LSP. And despite some reservations expressed by members of the community network that they had limited influence over the LSP there was evidence of their potential. The CEN does have the potential to occupy a significant role, at the local level, of contributing to and influencing policy for the community sector. It is able to draw together well over 200 activists and workers from the voluntary and community sector to its quarterly meetings. It has developed a role in providing and disseminating information about the work of the LSP and the CEN across the locality. It is in the process of decision making, use of language and the “style” of the meeting that the power imbalance between the CEN and some members of the LSP can be best observed. Whilst, in the UK, the emphasis on “capacity building” with the community and voluntary sector has been focussed on enhancing their capacity to sit on partnership boards there has been, relatively, little work done to enhance the capacity of professional agencies to work with local groups. There is some evidence that in small groups or in meetings with officers of the LSP the CEN and its paid staff have made progress. Relationships with officers have improved and officers from the LSP attend CEN meetings. But, these meetings (between LSP officers and CEN staff and activists) are, by their nature, small in number and private. It is in the public arena and for the public context of their relationships that most observers are likely to conclude that imbalance in power are present, or to conclude that one particular explanation of policy (the LSP view) is the more legitimate. It is, of course, appropriate to observe that it is not likely that there is a single “LSP view”. We can assume that the differences and tensions present within the CEN are played out (in a different way) in the LSP, and between officers and politicians of the local authority. Constructing and sharing alternatives By refining and discussing their narratives the CEN can articulate a vision of what they want and begin to define their own set out priorities and debate a strategic response to the LSP. The question is how to facilitate this approach? A starting point must be, in my view, to adopt a model for evaluation that is based upon: . A pluralist and participatory approach: the evaluator needs to be open about the approaches to be used setting out the limits as well as the opportunities contained within the process. There needs to be a “conversation” about what is expected and how that is to be realised. The process needs to be one where the


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evaluator “feels” accountable to the group and is willing to acknowledge the limitations of what is being undertaken. Seeing the evaluator as a “critical friend”: the evaluator needs to point to differences in meaning and experience which she/he observes. The evaluator occupies a significant role and must be honest with him/herself about this and with those they are working with. A key part of the CEN evaluation for example, was the SWOT exercise. By identifying potential threats and weaknesses I had, at the same time, to enable the group to “hold” onto the perceived strengths/opportunities. Naming the contested issues: the evaluation process can be difficult for all concerned. But, in this case the approach was helped by a willingness of key members of the CEN to “hear” difficult things and to see the evaluation as a means of learning and reflecting upon their experience. Using a variety of methods: this can include the use of biographies, story telling and then reflecting back to the group particular instances they have identified and offering alternative interpretations. This may help the group to reframe their experience and/or understanding. Unlearning our “scripts”: this is, perhaps, the most difficult to achieve. Whether we acknowledge it or not we define our relationships and actions by reference to a particular “script” which sets the context and limits to our action. In the CEN experience this was most evident in the way the competing narratives were articulated. Officers and senior politicians described the LSP/CEN experience in a particular way both by what they said and how they said it. The language used by participants in the evaluation reveals their script. In part, it illustrates differences in experience as well as meaning. The “managerialist” approach so ever-present in the NRS was seen by many community activists as a “distancing” strategy by those who used the clash between the “personal” and “professional” worlds of the LSP/NRS/CEN was real. Again this can be seen in the way individuals define their roles and seek to establish boundaries within which they work. For many community activists this resulted in frustration when they attempted to get a sense of what was going on. For some officers this felt like an intrusion into their known world.

What next? In my experience the challenge still remains to develop skills in reflection, listening and changing practice. I have to conclude that the real challenge lies with enabling professionals and policy based staff to engage in this process. At a time when the UK government is stressing the importance of enhancing the “capacity” of the community and voluntary sector to be independent and to play a more strategic role as well as assuming a greater part in the delivery of services, I remain unconvinced that the statutory actors have the capacity to engage in the conversation at the local level. Part of the concern expressed here is informed by the apparent resistance to facilitate change identified by practitioners and local activists. The emphasis on “learning by doing” or by enabling “communities of practice” to share their experiences and to reflect upon it suggests that the potential to effect change exists. The resistance to change may reflect the significance of dominant organisational cultures and the

perception held by some practitioners that their willingness to engage in innovative practice is somehow perceived as “subversive”. It may reflect another feature of observing the way agencies and organisations change which is the “time lag” between introducing changes in structures and remit and the persistence of dominant cultures which are anti-pathetic to change. Acknowledging these real barriers to change is a necessary pre-condition to develop collaborative provision. The role of external evaluators in this process is one in which they need both to navigate their way through competing and conflicting narratives and to identify ways in which individuals and organisations can reflect upon their experiences. References Attwood, M., Pedler, M., Pritchard, S. and Wilkinson, D. (2003), Leading Change, Policy Press, Bristol. Boje, D.M. (2001), Narrative Methods for Organisational and Communication Research, Sage, London. Bond, T. (2002), “Naked narrative: real research?”, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 133-8. Burgess, P., Hall, S., Mawson, J. and Pearce, G. (2001), Devolved Approaches to Local Governance, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York. Czarniawska, B. (2004), Narratives in Social Science Research, Sage, London. Diamond, J. (2002), “Strategies to resolve conflict in partnerships”, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 296-306. Diamond, J. (2004a), “Capacity building – for what?”, Community Development Journal, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 177-87. Diamond, J. (2004b), “Invisible battlegrounds”, ARVAC Research Bulletin. Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A. (2002), Management Research: An Introduction, Sage, London. Farrar, M. (2002), “The struggle for paradise”, City, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 383-91. Filkin, G., Stoker, G., Wilkinson, G. and Williams, J. (2000), Towards a New Localism, IPPR/NLGN, London. Gilchrist, A. (2004), The Well-connected Community, The Policy Press, Bristol. HMSO (1998), Britain Together: A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, Report by the Social Exclusion Unit, Cm4045, HMSO, London. Huxham, C. and Vangan, S. (2000), “What makes partnership work?”, in Osborne, S. (Ed.), Public-Private Partnerships, Routledge, London. Newman, J. (2001), Modernising Governance, Sage, London. Russell, H. (2001), Local Strategic Partnerships, Policy Press and JRF, Bristol. Southern, A. (2003), “The management of regeneration: processes and routes to effective delivery”, Local Work, Vol. 50, April. Williams, P. (2002), “The complete boundary spanner”, Public Administration, Vol. 80 No. 1, pp. 103-24. Further reading Home Office (2003), Building Civic Renewal: A Consultation Paper, Home Office, London.


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New Localism and regeneration management

Routledge Urban Regeneration Management

Globalism Localism and Identity

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Regeneration

Neural Plasticity and Regeneration

Tourism, Culture and Regeneration

Coupling, Stationarity, and Regeneration

CNS Regeneration

Uniform Behavior: Police Localism and National Politics

Baptismal Regeneration

Bone Regeneration

Public Management: Old and New

Industrial Buildings. Conservation and Regeneration

Stock Management for Sustainable Urban Regeneration (cSUR-UT Series: Library for Sustainable Urban Regeneration)

Tourism Management: New Research

Urban Regeneration Management: International Perspectives (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies)

Principles of Bone Regeneration

Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration

Self-Management and Leadership Development (New Horizons in Management)

Innovation Management And New Product Development

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