Integration in the Regions: Cross-sectoral Housing Policy Co-ordination at Regional Level

Abstract

This paper considers policy integration between housing and other sectors at regional level, focusing on Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and regional planning. Regional housing structures and policies have had only a marginal impact on other sectors and this seems to be due in part to the fragmented nature of the housing sector, in particular to limited private sector involvement in regional housing structures. RDA emphasis on economic growth over social and regeneration issues also acts as a barrier to RDA engagement with housing. Housing involvement in planning is hindered by lengthy and cumbersome planning processes. Fragmentation and lack of coordination, in fact, seem to be characteristic of the regional level in England and this acts as a general barrier to integration, along with the lack of a mechanism for dealing with conflicting priorities, pointing to a pressing need for the government's proposed directly elected Regional Assemblies.

Environmental decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts: applicability of life cycle thinking in development planning and implementation

“…In community development, sustainable planning promotes integration of programs which requires the commitment of a number of stakeholders in different disciplines [12][13][14][15]. For example, housing development and reconstruction in a disaster situation should be interlinked with relevant infrastructure, social service, and livelihood development to make the housing project sustainable in the long-run [16].…”

Is Integrated Planning Any More Than the Sum of Its Parts?

“…As distinct from policy integration in broad swath, environmental policy integration (EPI) has a more explicit normative vein. While a case for policy integration has been made from many other starting points, the normative argument underlying other efforts is not specific to the policy area in question but oriented around a neoliberal agenda of modernizing government: by fighting fragmentation, bringing certain policy areas in from the margins, and managing complexity (Slocombe 2003). Whereas no one who advocates housing policy integration, for instance, is arguing for the treatment of housing issues across all policy sectors, this is precisely the case being made for EPI: “the environment must be an integral factor of other policy areas” (Jordan 1998, 12).…”

“…The integration of new voices in planning efforts may detract from the clarity and aspirations of high-level visions, raise difficult questions for the democratic process, and unavoidably exclude certain hard-to-access values and voices. In the domain of integrating policy sectors, we echo the warning of Slocombe, studying policy integration in the housing sector in the United Kingdom: “the housing sector is weak because it ‘speaks with many voices.’ It is difficult for a sector which is not itself integrated, to achieve integration with other sectors” (Slocombe 2003, 240). Regarding learning, the importance of social and context-specific learning remains typically unaddressed and unsupported, efforts to measure and evaluate are rare, and even rarer is the effective use of these efforts where they exist.…”