Colin Mills

Consultants, consultancy and consultocracy in education policymaking in England

The role and contribution of consultants and consultancy in public services has grown rapidly and the power of consultants suggests the emergence of a ‘consultocracy’. We draw on research evidence from the social sciences and critical education policy (CEP) studies to present an examination of the state of the field. We deploy a framework that examines functional, critical and socially critical research and theorising, and we identify the emerging interest in CEP studies. In particular, we identify the potential for consultocracy but acknowledge that there is a need for more detailed research where we argue for more attention to be given to the political sciences in theorising knowledge exchange processes.

Consultants and Consultancy in Education

This introductory chapter locates the book within education policy scholarship defined as a critical and theoretically eclectic mode of enquiry, seeking to locate the people and practices focussed on in wider historical, sociological and political contexts. Outlining some of our ‘thinking tools’, especially our drawing upon Bourdieu and Bernstein, we anchor the work within the conceptualisation of the ‘4Cs’. Consultants, consulting, consultation and consultancy are deployed to trace the structure of the book’s arguments. Connections are made to theories of government and governance to identify the underpinning of our arguments. These are centred on relationships between knowledge production and exchange, knowledge actors, and their location within the workings of the state. Our descriptions and analyses draw on our research which has focused on knowledge exchange and client relationships within diverse arenas. A strong case is made for the development of conceptual and theoretical resources in order for others to continue the ‘mapping’ and analyses of these novel power processes and re-formations of the state, public policy and knowledge production.

Consultants in Context: Knowledge Practices

This chapter studies consultants in context, providing illustrative ‘case studies’, derived from our ethnographically-informed research into consultants ‘in action’. In drawing upon this work, we aim to illustrate the ease in which knowledge practices are enacted as well as the processes whereby people are positioned as knowledgeable experts and clients. Analysis of four cases of consultants ‘marketing’ knowledge and expertise in English primary schools and training events are scrutinised in order to develop our arguments concerning the ‘logic’ of exchange relationships at work; contractualisms’ power processes; the processes at work when ‘outsiders’ enter professional contexts. Seeking not to homogenise, rather to address some of the complexities that we see as characteristic of ‘consultocracy’, we none the less draw on work from outside the arenas of schooling so as to identify key features of the ‘economisations’ of professional practice that we identify. This chapter reflects our aim of describing and analysing the ‘gritty materialities’ of consultancy in action in contemporary contexts, as well as drawing on social science perspectives to uncover power and control at play.

Consultants and Clients: Knowledge Regimes

This chapter presents a conceptualisation of ‘knowledge regimes’ to analyse the processes of power concerning ‘the who’ and the ‘why’ of the 4Cs during the rest of the book. First, consultants are positioned, and position themselves to be, ‘in the know’. This ‘knowingness’ is always located within wider contexts. Our particular focus on the 4Cs is on how, and in what ways, their knowledge is connected with matters of public policy and with capitalism. Second, our core argument concerns the modes and the power processes in knowledge production within the 4Cs. Our work involves investigating how the construction of public policies is intertwined with these ‘knowings’. Importantly, this book reveals some of the ‘close to practice activities’ that are affected by certain kinds of knowledge and its transmission and distributions. In the closing pages of this chapter we illustrate our construction of the conceptual framework of regimes of practice and we add to our analysis in illustrating how the consultancy we describe in the rest of the book is concerned with forms of practice and power.

Consultants and ‘Consultocracy’: Knowledge Politics

This chapter focuses on the relationships between consultancy and public policy based on studies of ‘hired in’ expertise and the reform of public education. We focus attention on (i) the reforming by New Labour of school leadership in England in the period post 1997 and (ii) the reforms in primary school literacy, also a totemic reflection of New Labour’s drive towards educational reform, modelled on New Public Management. Locating key agents of ‘specialised expertise’ within each of these reform movements, we identify the involvement of consultants in decision-making. Our extended case study of primary school literacy identifies the important roles of key agents and businesses in ‘reforming’ the modalities and the knowledge. Our focus in this chapter on what we term as ‘the politics of depoliticisation’ assists us in revealing how central areas of a keystone policy can be ‘outsourced’ to private consultants when policy and politics are separated, as was brought about in England post 2010.

Researchers as Consultants in and outside of Universities

This chapter focuses on the practices and contributions of those who are employed as academics, usually within Universities. Identifying them as ‘researching and claiming impacts regarding change, improvement and effectiveness’, we offer case studies of ‘consultant-researchers’ (e.g. Tooley). We acknowledge the centrality of ‘networking’; knowledge exchange and flows as well as knowledge ‘claims’. Integrating our research into individuals’ careers (e.g. Fullan; Hargreaves; Stoll; Hopkins and others) we track the major modes of knowledge production: interventions; evaluations; ‘what works’ reports; materials and advice. We examine some of the personal accounts of what ‘researcher-consultancy’ involves and we probe some of the characteristics of the developments of consultants in this field. Of particular centrality to the arguments of the book are the probings we make of identities; knowledge exchange; tensions within the dual roles of academic and ‘retailer’ of knowledge. Critical approaches of this mode of consultancy are discussed and evaluated.

Consultants and Capitalism: Knowledge Economies

This chapter focuses on the economisation of professional practice through privatised contractual exchange relationships. We draw on empirical work that we have undertaken as well as our reading into global shifts. Our evidence is drawn from schooling, though we link these shifts to wider processes of the ‘commodification’ of knowledge, and to the shifting relationships between such knowledge and the state. Our key argument in this chapter is that global processes of privatisation shift the patterns of professional practice and add complexity to the differences and distinctions between ‘values’ and value’. Data from our recent studies into the burgeoning consultancy in English schooling is drawn on so as to convey some of the ‘lived experiences’ of corporatisation. We discuss critically some aspects of this ‘creeping commercialism’ and the retailing of policy solutions. We clearly identify the key changes that are identified as constituting corporatism: changes in structures; in funding; and the increased prominence of private interests, as well as the relocation of public matters to private agendas.

Professionals as Consultants in and outside of Companies

This chapter focuses on professional consultants who have relocated their work from the public to the private sectors. They make claims to expertise thorough their professional skills, knowledge and experience. We describe and analyse what they do, and what they say they do, drawing on analysis from our data derived from interviews and observations as well as documentary study of their varied careers and career trajectories. A key focus of this chapter is on the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ of consultancy, along with an exploration of the ‘meanings’ attached to such work. These investigations result in our using our conceptual tools in order to locate issues such as the identities of consultants, as well as their dispositions towards the roles and the work they have positioned themselves within. A key theme of this chapter is the connections we make between the Governmental and the ‘privatised’ nature of their work. The policy entrepreneurship identified in this chapter is linked to forms of governance within public policy and professional practice.

Corporate Consultants in Global Companies

This chapter focuses on corporate consultants, those employed by private sector companies. What distinguishes their kind of consultancy is ‘product development, promotion and exchange in regard to a particular brand’. We illustrate this mode of consultancy through case studies of major companies (e.g. McKinsey & Company) and through studies of individuals (e.g. Mona Mourshed; Sir Michael Barber). Drawing upon our data on the role of corporate consultancy within education policy, we identify certain modes of work: agenda setting; product development and retailing; delivery and evidence collection. Working through examples of each of these processes drawn from our research into corporate actors, we draw out the meanings of such work, identifying issues of accountability and exchange relationships. We critique the embracing of corporate consultancy by education ‘leaders’. Our argument is that the entry of corporate consultants and consultancy into education signals that its ‘purchasers’ are efficient and effective, and that such interconnections between corporatisation and educational policy signifies the growth of privatisation, as well as the blending of economics with social reform strategies.