Recession, Climate Change and the Return of Planning

As the global financial crisis emanating from the United States shuts down world markets, can globalization survive? Will the resurgent intrusion of the state—and thus politics—into the market lead to protectionism and collapse, as was the case in the early 20th century? Or will the new interconnectivity of climate change and mutual economic dependence—especially between China and the US—deepen global links? The former mayor of Shanghai, legendary Nobel economist Paul Samuelson and Third Way guru Anthony Giddens ponder those questions in this section.     

Is Renewable Energy Planning Blowing in the Wind?

This paper presents the results of a survey of English and Welsh local authority planning departments which asked planning officers their views with respect to planning and renewable energy. National government dictates national policies. Local authority planners, however, feel uncoordinated and lacking when making decisions about such developments. Often battered by sophisticated assaults unleashed within the adversarial planning system arena, planning professionals are often left without the ability to compose counter-arguments with which to promote environmentally less damaging proposals in line with 'the greater good'. This has led to the rise of NIMBYism, lack of innovation and is a barrier to successful national renewable energy policy aims.     

Joint Planning across the Health/Social Services Boundary since 1946

This article reviews the development of post-war policy on the joint planning of health and social services for older people in the context of broader theoretical ideas about inter-organisational collaboration. It identifies the lack of organisational homogeneity and the absence of domain consensus across the health/social services boundary as the main obstacles to progress. However, the article hrther suggests that, if these problems are to be properly understood, the broader policy context within which joint planning took place must also be investigated. In this regard, the article suggests that central government's attempts to encourage joint planning since the 1960s have repeatedly been hampered by distrust among local agencies of its more general policy intentions in this area.     

Planning, Performance And Public Services

The policies of the Labour government in the UK place renewed emphasis on rational planning in the public sector. The government’s assumption is that this approach to decision making will lead to improvements in performance. Although the theoretical costs and benefits of rational planning have been widely debated in the public administration literature, no systematic empirical research on the impact of planning on the performance of public organizations has been conducted. By contrast, the relationship between rational planning and the success of private firms has been investigated extensively. A meta‐analysis and critical review of this evidence suggests that planning is generally associated with superior performance. However, important questions remain unresolved. For example, under what circumstances does planning work best, and which elements of planning are most important? Therefore, although it may be appropriate to encourage public agencies to consider carefully the potential benefits of planning, rational processes should not be imposed upon them.