Life is a lottery: New Labour's strategy for the reform of devolved governance

Drawing on insights from grid–group cultural theory the article argues that New Labour's approach to government units beyond Westminster and Whitehall rests on a fatalistic reading of its environment that specifies its key features in terms of low–trust relationships and a lack of predictability about the success of a range of potential reforms. New Labour's response in these circumstances resembles that of strategy based on the principles of a lottery. The strategy has allowed a plethora of decentralization units and reform initiatives to find favour but none to dominate. The article explores the nature of this strategy, how it was established and the prospects for its maintenance. The key point is not that New Labour's polices have been ad hoc or even that they have been confused. Rather, its policies are a chosen course of action aimed at searching for the right reform formula and creating a dynamic for change by encouraging instability but also space for innovation among the institutions of devolved governance. The strategy is aimed at an overarching goal of developing an enabling state form. The adoption of the strategy, in addition, reflects political contingencies. Moreover, the lottery strategy has helped New Labour sustain its coalition of supporters and manage tensions between different reform approaches.     

Whatever Happened to Stakeholding?

In 1996 Tony Blair declared in a speech in Singapore that stakeholding would define New Labour's programme in office. This speech provoked much interest in the UK among a centre-left keen to forge a 'third way' alternative to state-centred social democracy and free markets. Conservative politicians, however, subjected New Labour to a barrage of criticisms. Startled by the scale of the negative reaction, Blair stopped referring to stakeholding. A common judgement is that stakeholding got no further than the starting block. This paper challenges this, contending that the progress of stakeholding has not in fact been halted under New Labour. Policies such as Network Rail, foundation hospitals and the Child Trust Fund indicate that stakeholding remains a part of New Labour's approach. Recognizing the stakeholder dimension to policy is important because it opens up a new front in the reform of public services in Britain.     

TRANSFORMING NEW ZEALAND'S PUBLIC SECTOR: LABOUR'S QUEST FOR IMPROVED EFFICIENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Since its election in July 1984 the fourth Labour government in New Zealand has embarked upon the most radical and systematic reorganization of the state sector since the creation of a unified, non-partisan, career-oriented service in 1912. The reforms include the commercialization of many of the goods and services provided by state agencies, the turning of public trading enterprises into corporations, major administrative changes and the overhauling of state pay-fixing arrangements. This article examines the theoretical assumptions underpinning Labour's strategy and assesses the extent to which the new arrangements are likely to achieve their intended purpose of improving the efficiency, flexibility and accountability of the public sector.     

POLICING WITH A SMILE: NARRATIVES OF CONSUMERISM IN NEW LABOUR'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY

A recurrent theme in New Labour's public service reforms has been a tendency to orient services to the user as a consumer or customer of those services. However a consumerist approach – and particularly the 'customer is always right' imperative – appears problematic in relation to criminal justice. This article uses content analysis to explore the use of consumerist narratives by selected members of the UK criminal justice policy network (Prime Minister, Home Office and local government). It finds that the terms customer and consumer are used less in relation to criminal justice than they are in relation to other public services. When used, it is 'law-abiding citizens', particularly victims and witnesses, that are the priority customers of the service. Customer-orientated policing is primarily about standardizing services and encouraging more coproductive behaviours. The language of choice and personalization, which has come to characterize New Labour's approach to public service reform, has as yet had little penetration into criminal justice. However, the policy network is fragmented, with different narratives of consumerism emerging from Tony Blair (the then Prime Minister), the Home Office and local government, demonstrating the contingent ways in which policy-makers draw on historical traditions.     

Political marketing and traditional values: 'Old Labour' for 'new times'?

Is New Labour a party with values or a skilfully manufactured entity designed to win elections? Considerable debate currently surrounds this question. This article argues that New Labour adopted a market-oriented model to gain voter support and examines whether this necessarily means a rejection of underpinning values. Analysing New Labour discourse, the authors argue there is a clear ethos underpinning New Labour even though the policies developed from its foundation are designed to have electoral appeal.     

REFORMING PUBLIC SERVICES IN THE UK: BRINGING IN THE THIRD SECTOR

In the UK, the government continues its project to reform public services. Earlier projects have focused on the modernization of public sector organizations; in the latest round of reform, New Labour has focused on widening choice and the personalization of services. To this end, the government has been working with Third Sector (TS) organizations to expand their role in shaping, commissioning and delivering public services. The government’s vision is predicated on a normative assertion, that, unlike traditional public sector organizations, TS bodies create public value by being more innovative, are inspired by altruistic aims and values, and have greater commitment to their clients. This paper reviews recent policy and questions whether the government’s policy is flawed, contradictory and risks damaging the attributes of the TS admired by New Labour.     

Local Government Modernisation in England: A Critical Review of the LGMA Evaluation Studies

New Labour has subjected English local government to an unparalleled period of reform. This article reviews the Local Government Modernisation Agenda evaluation studies commissioned by central government. The review identifies valuable insights from the studies into the contemporary state of English local government, central government and central–local relations. However, the studies also illustrate the need for research on public service reform to include analyses of the political origins of reform policies and the political–bureaucratic issues involved in their implementation. It is also argued that future research needs to rediscover the value of studying local politics ‘in the round’, the impact of socio-economic and non-local factors on local policy outcomes and the role of new sources of policy influence in the channels of central–local relations.     

EMBRYONIC ASSOCIATIONALISM: NEW LABOUR AND URBAN GOVERNANCE

This article considers the role of ideas in New Labour’s approach to the governance of urban regeneration and characterizes this approach as ‘embryonic associationalism’. This approach contrasts with the economic rationalism of previous Conservative governments and leads to a more determined effort to empower local community groups within the policy process. We analyse the effects of this shift in approach in practice through a comparative case study of changing patterns of governance in different areas of the English city of Sheffield over a ten‐year period. We conclude that while other factors are important in shaping the nature of community empowerment, New Labour’s approach has promoted a political environment in which it is increasingly difficult for local state actors to ignore the voice of local communities. However, while we refer to this as ‘New Labour’s approach’, we are clear that this relates to a tradition of ideas that is far from new in Labour thought.     

The reform of welfare and the way we live now: A critique of Giddens and the Third Way

The Third Way has been put forward as a framework of political understanding and commitment which transcends the division between the 'old left' and the 'new right' and provides the basis for a renewal of social democracy. This article critically examines the Third Way as a framework for understanding the problems faced by the welfare state and as a model or programme for welfare reform. The main focus is the recent work by Anthony Giddens as a leading exponent of the Third Way. Reference is also made to the ideas of Tony Blair and the discourse of New Labour, and the relationship between these versions of the Third Way is examined.     

Learning from defeat: reform,revolution and the problem of organization in the first New Left

Within the contemporary anti-capitalist movement a debate concerning the most effective forms taken by political organizations has opened. However, few of the contributions to this debate include an adequate historical component: indeed, while many have labelled the anti-capitalist movement a new left, few draw any lessons from the first British New Left of 1956–62. This article addresses this lacuna through an analysis of the debate over the question of political organization as it was articulated within the first British New Left. It is argued that the New Left’s critique of Leninism was underpinned by the political reformism that many of its leading members inherited from the Communist Party, and suggested that this left-reformist strategy informed its collapse in the early sixties. It concludes that contemporary radicals should learn the dangers associated with both a too close relationship to the Labour Party, and from the New Left’s failure to begin the process of building a political organization that could have begun to act as an alternative to Labour.     

ISSUE FRAMING AND SECTOR CHARACTER AS CRITICAL PARAMETERS FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING‐OUT IN THE UK

This article shows that variations in how two UK governments justified contracting‐out (issue framing), combined with shifting sector‐derived incentives for union activism (sector character), can help explain the extent of contracting‐out. Janitorial service, an activity of the UK government that should have been ‘low hanging fruit' for its prolific reformers, proved difficult to contract‐out for Thatcher's New Right Conservatives, but easier to contract‐out for Blair's New Labour. The New Right government framed contracting‐out narrowly, as merely an improvement in operational efficiency, and its reform faced unions that stood to lose a great deal from movement of janitorial jobs to private firms. In contrast, the New Labour government framed contracting‐out broadly, as a means to efficient social justice, and faced unions with low stakes in government janitors. As a consequence, UK government units could expect lower benefit and higher cost from contracting‐out janitors under Thatcher than they would under Blair.     

POLICY AS NARRATIVE: NEW LABOUR’S REFORM OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

Beginning with a brief review of the governance literature, a definition of governance in the National Health Service of England and Wales (NHS) is offered. This introduces an analysis of NHS reform, as presented in the recent policy literature. Using narrative theory, I critique this literature with reference to three key actors: the new organizational form of the ‘Foundation Trust’, NHS staff, and NHS patients. For each actor, a motif is identified and examined: ‘freedom’ for Foundation Trusts, ‘clinical governance’ for staff, and ‘choice’ for patients. Each of these motifs is instrumental in the narrative on NHS reform, whose main themes are emancipation, progress and duty. These are common to other political projects. This critique makes the rhetoric underpinning the recent policy literature more explicit, and underlines the created, contingent nature of New Labour’s account of NHS reform.     

A NEW EPOCH OF INDIVIDUALIZATION? PROBLEMS WITH THE ‘PERSONALIZATION’ OF PUBLIC SECTOR SERVICES

The paper discusses the role of the concept of ‘personalization’ in New Labour policy on the reform of public sector services. The analysis points to the contradictory ways in which the concept has been used in both policy statements, in the work of various authors, and in the think tank Demos, which has been closely associated with the diffusion of the concept. The correlative uncertainties with respect to implementation are discussed and related to the use of ‘epochal’ forms of argument in the justification of this latest instalment of public sector reform in the United Kingdom.     

Balancing revisability and robustness? A new institutionalist perspective on local government modernization

This article focuses upon one particular aspect of new institutionalist thinking – that which analyses the scope for, and constraints upon, deliberate interventions in institutional change. New institutionalist insights are used to illuminate the challenges faced by the British Labour government in its programme for modernizing local government. The focus is upon two core concepts: robustness and revisability – a pairing which highlights the potential contradictions that exist within the new institutionalist approach to design. It is argued that New Labour struggled to achieve a balance between these key design criteria during its first term, with revisability increasingly sacrificed in favour of robustness. In its second term in office (since June 2001), Labour has sought to rebalance robustness and revisability, largely through the principle of 'earned autonomy'. In this context the values informing the institutional redesign of local government have become less clear and more contested, and there has been a progressive shift from commitment-based to control-based strategies for change.     

Germany: a good model for Labour Party renewal?

The policy debate within the British Labour Party after its traumatic electoral defeat in 2010 has been marked by a concern with Germany's system of economic governance as a potential model for renewal. The desirability of emulating key aspects of its institutions of economic democracy (codetermination) has been a particular subject of debate. This article analyses the source of Germany's attraction for many would-be reformers in the Labour movement. It then examines whether emulating German codetermination is either a feasible or appropriate strategy for Labour reformers whose goal is to rebalance power between capital and labour. Codetermination is deeply embedded in a wider set of governance institutions that have been subject to substantial reform in recent years. It concludes that effective institutional borrowing from Germany would require a far broader and more radical set of economic governance reforms than Labour reformers appear to recognise.     

POLITICAL DISCOURSE AND PATH SHAPING IN PUBLIC POLICY: COMPARING PENSION REFORMS IN GREECE AND ITALY

Which factors account for successful policy reform and what role does discourse play in the process? This article examines this empirical puzzle with reference to the issue of Greek reform failure. A matched comparison with Italy in the area of pensions reveals the salience of path shaping and the use of political discourse in narrowing down reform options and facilitating change. The Greek case of limited public information, incoherent preparation of the problem, and inner‐circle decision‐making, is contrasted with the Italian government's information‐sharing and consensus‐building campaign for the establishment of a pro‐reformist discourse. Findings confirm the salience of institutional conditions but suggest that pure institutionalist accounts premised on rational choice thinking and the power of veto players should be complemented with more agency‐driven accounts of public policy.     

TAMING THE ‘AWKWARD STATE’? THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPEAN POLICY‐MAKING UNDER BLAIR

This paper analyses the important changes to the European Union (EU) policy-making process within the UK core executive introduced by the Blair government between 1997 and 2007. Employing a strategic-relational network framework, it sets out to map the changing face of policy-making within the Whitehall EU network, and to evaluate and explain the impact of adaptation. The article argues that Labour's reform strategy has been double-edged: day-to-day coordination of EU policy has become increasingly informal, ad hoc and delegated downwards to departmental players while the role of the centre has been greatly strengthened in order to provide more effective strategic direction and political leadership. Despite these seemingly coherent reforms, however, many critical features of the process have been potentially detrimental to the projection of a more constructive European policy.     

FRONT-LINE WORKERS AND 'LOCAL KNOWLEDGE': NEIGHBOURHOOD STORIES IN CONTEMPORARY UK LOCAL GOVERNANCE

One of the aims of this special issue is to 'decentre' a key facet of governance, namely networks. This article considers in particular the concept 'networked community governance', a key part of New Labour's reforms in local governance and, in particular, around neighbourhood-based working. This article draws on interpretive methods and analysis to explore the everyday work of front-line workers in contemporary local governance through their own stories. The article is based on empirical work in the neighbourhood management system developed in Salford, a local authority in the North West of England. Key to facilitating 'networked community governance', is front-line workers' own 'local knowledge', understood as the mundane, yet expert, understanding front-line workers develop from their own contextual experiences. The article explores the difficulties that front-line workers perceive themselves to face in their everyday work and how they use their 'local knowledge' to develop responsive, entrepreneurial strategies.     

Chalk and Cheese: A Comparative Analysis of Local Government Reform Processes in New South Wales and Victoria

A substantial empirical literature exists on the consequences of local government reform programs. However, much less effort has been directed at examining how reform processes affect the outcomes of reform programs and little work has been invested in the comparative analysis of local government reform processes. To address this neglect in the literature, this article provides a comparative analysis of the contemporary municipal reform initiatives in the New South Wales and Victorian state local government systems. It is argued that the much more deliberative and inclusive Victorian approach represents a superior approach to the hurried “top-down” New South Wales method.