Thatcherism and Planning

The Case of Simplified Planning Zones

Philip M. Allmendinger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138344242
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429797552
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

First published in 1997, this volume explores how, seventeen years after the election of the first Thatcher government, it is clear that despite the attacks, land use planning has survived. Talk during the 1980s of the death of planning and a bonfire of controls seem in hindsight distant and alarmist. Planning now has a new lease of life and is once again firmly on the government's agenda. So what happened during the 1980s? How did planning come to experience such a radical change in fortune? Philip Allmendinger explores the impact and influence of the New Right's intentions for planning through arguably the most Thatcherite approach of all: Simplified Planning Zones (SPZs). In doing so he identifies the contradictions and confusion at the heart of Thatcherism that led to vague legislation and objectives allowing localities to interpret Thatcherism for themselves often using policies such as SPZs for reasons very different than those intended.

1 Introduction

There is little agreement on the impact and influence of Thatcherism upon public policy during the 1980s (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). Land use planning is no exception to this. Nevertheless, as Savage and Robbins (1990, p. 1) suggest:

...virtually all would agree that the politics and policies which have emerged since 1979 constitute a distinctive phase in the history of postwar British politics.

Marsh and Rhodes (1992, p. 1) believe that in many cases such assessments are not based upon any thorough analysis of the content or effect of Thatcherism. They argue that most of the previous literature overestimates the degree of change because it concentrates on legislative rather than policy outcomes. Studies concerning the changes to planning during this period have tended to follow this approach (e.g., Ambrose, 1986, 1992, Ravetz, 1986, Thornley, 1988, 1991, Montgomery and Thornley, 1990). The only comprehensive account of what happened to planning during the 1980s is Thornley (1991, 1993). What Thornley attempted to do was collect all the changes introduced by the Conservative governments and categorise them into either modifying the system, by-passing the system or simplifying it. As well as some fundamental problems with the approach to categorisation that Thornley uses, the work assumes an automatic implementation of policy and overlooks the significance of localities and distinctive policy processes. However, some recent works have examined policy outcomes in their assessment of policy change during the Thatcher years. On the whole, these works have demonstrated that the government had, at best, a mixed bag of results (Healey et al., 1992). For example, Imrie and Thomas (1993, p. 19) in their assessment of the policies and practice of Urban Development Corporations conclude that they have not been successful at translating investment into jobs, have made only a marginal difference in the investment climate and have been slow to show any results.

Two areas of research that seek to explain this lack of ability to translate policy into practice are now being increasingly investigated. The first concerns the role of localities. Brindley, Rydin and Stoker (1989, p. 2) believe that:

While central government has attempted to change the framework of planning policy and legislation, within this framework local authorities and local communities have continued to pursue their own, with different goals.

Bagguley et al. (1990, p. 210) conclude that there is undoubtedly scope for autonomous local politics but quite what makes the difference between places is not easy to explain.

The second area of work has concentrated on the approach of the Thatcher governments to policy implementation. Marsh and Rhodes (1992) point to the 'top down' implementation perspective of the Thatcher governments that ignored interests groups in its 'conviction politics' (Bulpitt, 1986). This approach

...either failed to recognise, or chose to ignore, known conditions for effective implementation in its determination to impose its preferred policies (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992, p. 9).

This was, in effect, a self inflicted implementation gap.

A combination of these two areas of theory provides a powerful explanation of the Thatcher governments' variable results. As Bagguley et al. (1990, p. 218) argue, the 1980s saw changes in central-local relations which served to emphasise the role of localities and focus political tensions on local government. The executive nature of local government (Sharpe, 1979) has allowed central government to dictate policy though has left its implementation to the local level. One of the main preconditions for effective implementation of the 'top-down' approach according to Sabatier (1986) are clear and concise policy objectives. Although the Thatcher governments gave the impression of having clear purpose (Kavanagh, 1987) they actually had to contend with two dependent though contradictory philosophical strands within the party (Gamble, 1988). Liberalism, with its emphasis on the individual and minimal government, had to be reconciled with authoritarianism whose corresponding emphasis was on strong government and disciplined society (Belsey, 1986). Although the contradictions of these two strands involved a distinctive set of policies that broke with the postwar social democratic consensus they also resulted in the need to avoid clear objectives for policy to enable both strands to be accommodated within a general approach to government (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). Examples of this include privatisation (Marsh, 1991), environmental policy (Ward and Samways, 1992) and health care (Wistow, 1992). This frequent lack of clear objectives and the executant nature of local government gave local authorities considerable scope to use central government policy for reasons at variance with its Thatcherite objectives.

This work attempts to examine the impact and influence of the Thatcherite changes to planning by assessing the outcome of policy. To do this it identifies a distinctly Thatcherite approach to planning, Simplified Planning Zones, and seeks to answer the two questions which are the focus of the study, namely:

1. What has been the influence of a distinctly Thatcherite approach to planning at the local level? If Brindley, Rydin and Stoker's (1989) claim that local communities have continued to pursue quite different approaches regardless of changes made during the 1980s then this has important implications for the assessment of planning during the 1980s.
2. How have SPZs been used at the local level and how does this compare with their Thatcherite aims? If flagships of the Thatcherite approach to planning such as Simplified Planning Zones have been used at purposes at odds with their original aims then the assessment of planning during this period may have underestimated the influence of locality and overestimated the influence of Thatcherism.

The study examines four Simplified Planning Zones in detail; Birmingham, Derby, Slough and Cleethorpes and concludes that local authorities have substituted their own objectives for the zones and used them for a variety of reasons all at variance with their Thatcherite aims. The considerable scope for autonomous local politics came about because of the discretion offered by the zone legislation and the approach to implementation followed by the government. This work therefore backs up the implementation perspective of Thatcherite policy failure pursued by Marsh and Rhodes (1992). In terms of the six preconditions for effective 'top-down' implementation set out by Sabatier (1986) Simplified Planning Zones show an implementation deficit in all.

The work concludes that this policy orientated perspective has significant implications for the analysis of the wider Thatcherite changes to planning. In particular:

1. It backs up the conclusions of other studies that examine policy outcomes in their assessment of policy change (e.g. Imrie and Thomas, 1993, Brownill, 1990, Healey et al., 1992).
2. It demonstrates that it is not enough to associate legislative changes with policy outcomes.
3. That there is significant local variation in the implementation of government policy.
4. There is considerable scope for autonomous local action.

The work is divided into ten chapters. Chapter 2 locates the research within a theoretical debate regarding implementation of policy and the scope for autonomous local action.Chapter 3 explores the philosophical basis of Thatcherism, its inherent contradictions, how such a philosophy was translated into policy and how these have affected policy implementation. Chapter 4 assesses whether there has been a distinctly Thatcherite approach to planning and the extent to which any Thatcherite objectives were achieved. The historical development of Simplified Planning Zones which had their origins in Enterprise Zones is explored in chapter 5. Chapters 6 to 9 detail the four case studies andchapter 10 draws the work together by addressing the two main research questions in the light of the research.

2 Implementation and the scope for autonomous local politics

Introduction

This work assesses the impact and influence of a distinctly Thatcherite approach to planning and as such is located within two dynamic areas of research. First, it forms a small part of what is an increasing literature that questions the change in public policy during the 1980s from an empirical and retrospective standpoint (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992). Second, it is part of a wider debate which believes that the form and content of politics and policy making in particular places cannot be 'read off' in some automatic fashion from the nature of processes operating on a broader scale (Pickvance, 1990). As such, we need to locate the research within a theoretical debate regarding implementation and the scope for autonomous local politics. These aspects of the theoretical debate have been chosen to answer two questions relevant to this work:

1. How do political projects at a national level get put into practice at a local level?
2. Is there scope for autonomous local politics?

The overall argument of this chapter is that there is not an automatic transmission of policy into practice - bureaucracies, local political pressures and the influence of localities mean that what happens to a policy when attempts are made to implement it is open to question. Marsh and Rhodes (1992) believe that many studies of the impact of Thatcherism have assumed an automatic implementation of policy. I do not intend (nor is there space) to review in any great depth the debates and theories of implementation which others have already done (see for example, Pickvance, 1990, Marsh and Rhodes, 1992, Cloke, 1986). What I intend to do is simply to raise a question mark over the assumption that policy is implemented automatically. The second aspect of this chapter relates to why there are distinctive policy processes. The strain of argument here is simple; that the uneven spatial development of capitalism influences and creates distinctive social structures which in turn influence local politics.

The Implementation of National Policy

In the field of planning, the UK central government is basically non-executant and local government is in turn executant - i.e. central government issues policy guidance and local authorities make policy (e.g. in development plans) (Sharpe, 1979, Kavanagh, 1990). Consequently, local government has political legitimacy through its elected status to implement policy, it has expert and professional staff and, most importantly, it has considerable discretion. This last situation arises through the vague and ambiguous nature of the advice and guidance from central government on the services to be provided or the level of provision (Pickvance, 1990). The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act contained no explicit aims for the service nor of the policies to be pursued, and subsequent planning Acts have continued in the same vein. Although there is a theoretical distinction between mandatory legislation (a service which a local authority must provide) and permissive legislation (a service they can provide) the difference in practice is not so clear. Much permissive legislation is still vague to account for local variations and sometimes does not specify a level of service that must be provided. As Davies (1969) concludes, the organisation of activities at the centre sets the contexts for, but does not necessarily predetermine, decision making at the field level where very different tasks are performed and very different problems have to be solved.

A study of the impact or influence of a particular policy initiative requires a review of existing theories of implementation. As Ham and Hill (1993) and Marsh and Rhodes (1992) point out there are two basic approaches to the study of implementation. The 'top-down' approach (characterised by a separation of the implementation and policy making processes) which developed from studies in the United States during the 1970s (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973) has been widely criticised especially in relation to experience in the UK. An alternative 'bottom-up' approach was proffered because it treats implementation as a political rather than managerial problem (Barret and Fudge, 1981, Elmore, 1982, Sabatier, 1986).

According to Marsh and Rhodes (1992) the most influential book on implementation in recent times has been Pressman and Wildavsky (1984) who define implementation as 'a process of interaction between the setting of goals and actions geared to achieving them' (1984, xxiii). As Ham and Hill (1993) point out the starting point in this approach is the identification of a policy and involves a distinction between policy making and implementation. This approach and others that take a similar line (e.g., Van Meter and Van Horn, 1975) stress the importance in successful implementation of linkages between organisations and departments at the local level. If these links are not close to perfect then 'implementation deficit' may occur. The transfer of this concept to the study of the UK administrative system was undertaken by Hood (1976) who discusses the limits to administration concentrating not so much on the political processes that occur in administration but on controls that limit complex administrative systems. Further, work by Dunsire (1978) develops these ideas into an abstract model of the problems to be faced by persons attempting 'top-down' control over the administrative system. The tendency to prescribe preconditions for successful implementation is characteristic of the 'top-down' approaches. Hogwood and Gunn (1984) set out ten such conditions:

1. That circumstances external to the implementing agency do not impose crippling constraints.
2. That adequate time and sufficient resources are made available for the programme.
3. That not only are there no constraints in terms of overall resources but also that, at each stage in the implementation process, the required combination of resources is actually available.
4. That the policy to be implemented is based on a valid theory of cause and effect.
5. That the relationship between cause and effect is direct and that there are few, if any, intervening links.
6. That there is a single implementing agency which need not depend upon other agencies for success or, if other agencies must be involved, that the dependency relationships are minimal in number and importance.
7. That there is complete understanding of, and agreement upon, the objectives to be achieved; and that these conditions persist throughout the implementation process.
8. That in moving towards agreed objectives it is possible to specify, in complete detail and perfect sequence, the tasks to be performed by each participant.
9. That there is perfect communication among, and coordination of, the various elements involved in the programme.
10. That those in authority can demand and obtain perfect obedience.

Ham and Hill (1993) conclude that such an approach seeks to provide advice to those at the top on how to minimise implementation deficit and in this spirit Sabatier and Mazmanian (1979) have four preconditions of their own:

1. Ensure that policy is unambiguous.
2. Keep links in the implementation chain to a minimum.
3. Prevent outside interference
4. Control implementing actors.

Lowi (1972) develops this approach by classifying these preconditions into a typology of policy types; distributive, redistributive and regulatory. As Hargrove (1983) points out the assumption behind this is that categories can be used as a basis for predicting the implementation process within each category. Mountjoy and O'Toole (1979) link this approach of policy specification with inter-organisational networks and the problems that might arise for successful implementation. Nixon (1980) in his study of inter-organisational relations between central and local government in the UK has stressed the role of communication and emphasises the need for clarity and consistency in the communication of policy.

Criticism of the 'top-down' approach has been on a variety of grounds (Rhodes and Marsh, 1992). First, too much attention is seen to be given to the objectives and strategies of central actors and too little emphasis on the role of others in the process (Lipsky, 1978). Second, the conditions for successful implementation are seen by some as unrealistic - there is always a scarcity of resources (Barret and Fudge, 1981). Third, discretion is inevitable in all organisations - the activities of 'street level bureaucrats' will lead to implementation deficit (Elmore, 1981). Fourth, the 'top-down' approach focuses on the identification of policy and therefore ignores the unintended consequences of government action (Hjern and Hull, 1982). Fifth, some policies do not have, nor were they intended to have, explicit objectives - they grow and evolve over time - and therefore lack benchmarks by which to measure them (Hogwood and Gunn, 1984). Finally, the theoretical distinction between policy formulation and implementation cannot be sustained in practice because policies are made and remade in the process of implementation (Sabatier, 1986, Barret and Fudge, 1981).

The thrust of these criticisms have led to a focusing on individual actions and actors who respond to choices or issues (Elmore, 1981) and the view of implementation as a policy/action continuum (Barrett and Fudge, 1981). This approach typifies the 'bottom-up' view of implementation which, as Ham and Hill (1983) point out, is relatively free of the predetermining assumptions of the 'top-down' alternative. Barret and Fudge (1981) and Hjern and Porter (1981) see the basic unit of analysis of implementation as being the service delivery network - implementation is seen as a negotiating process in which individual actors pursue their disparate objectives through multiple strategies (Marsh and Rhodes, 1992, p. 7). As opposed to the benchmar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Implementation and the scope for autonomous local politics
• 3 Thatcherism
• 4 Thatcherism and planning
• 5 The origin and evolution of Simplified Planning Zones
• 6 The Birmingham SPZ
• 7 The Slough SPZ
• 8 The Derby SPZ
• 9 The Cleethorpes SPZ
• 10 Conclusions
• Bibliography