OFFICER-MEMBER RELATIONS IN COUNTY-LEVEL POLICY-MAKING FOR RURAL AREAS: THE CASE OF THE GLQUCESTERSHIRE STRUCTURE PLAN |
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Authors: | PAUL CLOKE JO LITTLE |
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Affiliation: | Paul Cloke is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Saint David's University College.;Jo Little is Lecturer in the Department of Planning, Essex Institute of Higher Education. |
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Abstract: | Studies of rural planning have only recently begun to focus on concepts of policy-making and implementation which have been developed in urban and regional contexts. Although recognizing the need for inter-organizational frameworks, this paper investigates one particular factor in policy-making – officer-member relations – as illustrated in the structure plan-making process of Gloucestershire County Council. Through a partnership between senior officers who were able to orchestrate decision-making, and elite members who provided political support for technical policy justifications, a form of directed policy consensus was reached. The consensus in this particular structure plan was marked by the prominence of a political-bureaucratic goal to provide policy-responses to rural problems. This theme was diluted, however, when the plan moved from the local to the central arena of power. |
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