Felicity Matthews

The capacity to co-ordinate – Whitehall, governance and the challenge of climate change

The issue of government capacity is at the heart of the governance narrative, and the emergence of an increasingly fragmented policy arena has been seen to result in a process of ‘hollowing-out’. Yet, despite nearly two decades of scholarship, the disjuncture between the increasing intricacy of the policy landscape and effectiveness of governments’ institutional responses suggests that the focus upon complexity and fragmentation within governance discourse risks neglecting the institutional continuity that continues to characterise the structures of government. This article addresses this lacuna by eschewing a focus upon exogenous factors to instead highlight the relationship between intra-government capacity and the resultant capacity of governments to steer the broader policy terrain through a case study of the Labour governments response to climate change. Climate change cuts across traditional bureaucratic lines and challenges established ways of working, and embodies many of the challenges associated with the governance narrative. However, this article presents a range of evidence to suggest that the governments intra-government approach to climate change has been incoherent, with tools being mapped onto existing governing structures with seemingly little consideration for institutional fit, which reflects the prevailing influence of traditional governing norms. This article therefore argues that an ‘intra-governance cycle’ has emerged, as the unwillingness of the government to fundamentally appraise the extent that its institutional structures are fit-for-purpose vis-à-vis the challenges of modern governance has rendered these challenges without adequate resolution, and with the potential for governance failure.

Are Public Bodies Still ‘Male, Pale and Stale’? Examining Diversity in UK Public Appointments 1997–2010:

There has been a notable surge in research on the shift from elected government to appointed governance. As the work of public bodies and the decisions made by their board members can impact upon the everyday lives of citizens, the extent to which their boards are both representative and diverse is of great salience. Focusing on the boards of public bodies in the UK, this article explores whether the Labour governments ambition to improve diversity in public appointments was achieved over its three terms of office, and seeks to explain why public boards have remained ‘male, pale and stale’.

Constitutional stretching: coalition governance and the Westminster model

This article seeks to examine how the emergence of coalition governance within the UK poses fresh challenges not just to the politicians and officials who must govern through a new pattern of relationships, but also to scholars who must develop new tools of political analysis in terms of concepts, theories and methods. It is in this context that article examines the changing nature of governance in the UK and particularly how political and administrative actors are responding to the challenges of ‘coalitionisation’ within what has traditionally been conceptualised as a power-hoarding majoritarian democracy.

The watchdogs of ‘Washminster’ – parliamentary scrutiny of executive patronage in the UK

The role of legislatures in scrutinising executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executive–legislature dynamics more broadly.

Governance, Governing and the Capacity of Executives in Times of Crisis

The issue of executive capacity is at the heart of the governance narrative, and the perception of an increasingly fragmented and crowded policy arena has been seen to result in its erosion. Yet at the same time, it has been argued that in focusing on the fluid and dynamic exchanges in policy or governance networks, theories of governance have overlooked the ways in which governments have actively sought to assert itself upon governance networks. Resultantly there remains unresolved, and fundamental, tension within the literature regarding the extent to which the state has been ‘hollowed-out’, or whether the response of governments to the challenge of governance constitutes a process of ‘filling-in’ (Matthews forthcoming). This chapter develops the governance debate by drawing on ideas and themes within the crisis management literature to consider the implications of crisis for the contemporary capacity of executives and their role in governance transactions. In particular, it explores a common assumption within the literature that crises constitute critical windows of opportunity (Hermann 1963, Keeler 1993, Rosenthal and Kouzmin 1997), analysing the extent to which instances of crisis have opened up space for renewed government intervention and the reconfiguration of key bureau-political and socio-political relationships.

Rebuilding Strategic Capacity? Multi-Level Governance, Leadership and Public Service Agreements in Britain

The spread of new-public management inspired initiatives across advanced liberal democracies in the 1980s and 1990s were driven by a desire to increase the economic efficiency of state systems - to get ‘more bang for each buck’ to use Osborne and Gaebler’s well known phrase (Osborne/ Gaebler 1992). The disaggregation or deconstruction of large multi-purpose bureaucratic structures into quasi-autonomous single purpose bodies combined with where possible the introduction of market principles would, so the theory suggested, lead to greater specialisation, customer focus and transparency. As the work of the OECD (OECD 2002) has demonstrated in detail, this farreaching wave of administrative reform led to the rapid ‘unbundling’ (PoUitt/ Talbot 2003) or ‘unravelling’ (Hooghe/ Marks 2003, p. 233–243) of the state with a concomitant growth in what has become known as ‘distributed’ or ‘delegated’ public governance (Flinders 2004a, 2004b; Flinders/ Thiel/ Greve 1999) - the location of key state responsibilities beyond the direct control of elected politicians and their officials. The creation of a dense and administratively complex tier of delegated governance within the topography of most state systems has created both political and leadership challenges. From the political perspective the key challenge lies in designing and implementing new mechanisms of democratic accountability through which this ‘fugitive power’ (Morison 1998) can be scrutinised and ‘blame games’ between organisational leaders and politicians avoided (Hood 2002; see also Flinders 2004c).

Ensuring the Capacity to Deliver ‐ New Labour and the Public Service Agreement Framework, 1997‐2007

Since 1997, the Labour Government sought to respond to the dilemmas and consequences of the earlier New Public Management reforms, according to the two principles of joined‐up government and public service delivery. A key aspect of its reform programme has been the public service agreement (PSA) framework, a target‐based performance regime that acts as a vehicle for the majority of spending and policy decisions across government and on the ground. Analysing its implementation and success, the article suggests that, in theory, the PSA regime provides an important example of steering at a distance as a form of political leadership, wherein the role of the centre is to provide the strategic framework for policy delivery. However, there are several structural constraints that have impeded the effectiveness of the framework, such as the pervading Whitehall departmental culture, and the tensions between top‐down performance management and devolved autonomy on the ground.

Does decentralisation make a difference? Comparing the democratic performance of central and regional governing systems in the United Kingdom

Decentralisation is frequently justified in terms of representation and participation, with its advocates emphasising the capacity of regional institutions to remedy the democratic deficiencies of the centre. Yet empirical examinations of the democratic performance of regional governing systems are scarce, and there is no analysis that systematically compares the operation of different tiers within the same state. This article responds to this significant lacuna. Drawing upon the tools of cross-national comparison, it develops an analytical framework that evaluates the effects of regional and national institutions on the dispersal of electoral payoffs. This framework is applied to the United Kingdom, to compare the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales with Westminster. Through this analysis, the article provides important empirical insights regarding the difference wrought by decentralisation and, in turn, contributes to a burgeoning body of literature that offers a more critical assessment of the relationship between decentralisation and such democratic goods.

Whose mandate is it anyway? Brexit, the constitution and the contestation of authority

Over the past year, a seemingly relentless barrage of Brexit-related challenges has besieged the British constitution, which together have called into question the legitimacy of the political system. Yet, although it is tempting to regard the decision to hold a referendum on Britains membership of the European Union as precipitating an acute constitutional crisis, this article argues that political and democratic dilemmas arising from Brexit are symptomatic of a wider constitutional malaise, the roots of which extend far beyond 23 June 2016. Flowing out of this, the article contends that the current crisis is one of ‘constitutional myopia’, fuelled by decades of incoherent reforms and a failure to address adequately democratic disengagement; and that the EU referendum and its aftermath have merely exposed the extent to which the foundations of the constitution have been eviscerated.

Letting go and holding on: The politics of performance management in the United Kingdom:

This article analyses the politics of performance management in the United Kingdom, focusing on the extent to which a highly centralised Westminster majoritarian polity has encouraged the top-down control of public services. It does so by comparing the approaches to performance management that prevailed under the Labour Governments (1997–2010) and the Coalition (2010–2015) to demonstrate the degree of continuity that exists between the ostensibly divergent approaches that each sought to develop. In particular, the article reveals that despite various promises to ‘let go’, successive governments have instead sought to ‘hold on’ to the detail of delivery, which has resulted in a burgeoning disconnect between ‘managers’ and ‘the managed’. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of original empirical research, this article is therefore of significance for theories of performance management, and illuminates the connection between macro-level ‘patterns of democracy’ and meso-level ‘patterns of public administration’.