The ‘filling in’ of community‐based planning in the devolved UK?

Abstract

Political devolution in the UK has afforded opportunities for studying policy differences and similarities in relation to local‐level community‐based planning initiatives in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Organised around the concepts of ‘lesson‐drawing’ and the ‘filling in’ of local governance, this paper critically considers aspects of policy design and development associated with community‐based planning within and between the devolved UK polities. In practice, policy instruments vary with respect to their institutional, scalar and organisational rationalities. A policy mobility perspective may enable a relatively more critical understanding of how local governance arrangements are being externally and internally shaped in the respective devolved nation‐regions.

Recentralization and vertical alignment in the French health‐care system

“…There has been an international movement toward focal agencies run at arm's length of the government. The British National Health Service (NHS) embraced spin‐outs for the delivery of more responsive welfare services (Hall, Miller, & Millar, ) and opted for a greater reliance on community‐based planning for its devolved policies (Pemberton, Peel, & Lloyd, ). Limitations were naturally reached.…”

Neo-advocacy for neo-liberal times: Planning Aid and the Advocacy Project in England

“…Progress in extending participation in planning to those ends has been limited and while there are many examples of ideas and tools in circulation geared to enable participation (e.g. Brownill and Parker, 2010;Pemberton et al, 2015), there are numerous critiques of initiatives aimed at extending participation (e.g. Eversole, 2012;Sager, 2011;Miraftab, 2009;Bengs, 2005;Krumholz, 1994).…”

Introduction to devolution and the geographies of policy

“…Given the inherent desire of geographers to compare places, all papers in this issue involve some element of comparison between two or more territories of the UK with respect to a particular policy area, ranging from community planning (Pemberton et al . ) and spatial planning (Clifford and Morphet ) to urban regeneration (McGuinness et al . ), the voluntary sector (Woolvin et al .…”

“…Given the inherent desire of geographers to compare places, all papers in this issue involve some element of comparison between two or more territories of the UK with respect to a particular policy area, ranging from community planning (Pemberton et al 2015) and spatial planning (Clifford and Morphet 2015) to urban regeneration (McGuinness et al 2015), the voluntary sector (Woolvin et al 2015), and economic development and health policy (MacKinnon 2015). The UK model of devolution is permissive of divergence in policy design and implementation compared with many other models internationally, with weak inter-governmental institutions and no central written constitution.…”

“…1-2). Such comparison may be driven by constrained resources and expertise in some territories, by the need to respond to policy 'spillovers' between territories (partially driven by the media), a sense of shared values amongst policymakers, or by 'harried' policymakers liking the assurance of what has appeared to work elsewhere (Rose 1991, in Pemberton et al 2015.…”