Public Policy in Britain Public Policy in Britain Edited by Stephen P. Savage Rob Atkinson and Lynton Robins M St. Martin's Press Selection, editorial matter and Conclusion © Stephen P. Savage, Rob Atkinson and Lynton Robins 1994 Individual chapters (in order) © Rob Atkinson and Stephen P. Savage; Stephen Cope and Rob Atkinson; Rob Atkinson and Stephen Cope; Fergus Carr and Stephen Cope; Mike Dunn and Sandy Smith; David Farnham and Carol Lupton; John Bradbeer; Mike Nash and Stephen P. Savage; Ian Kendall and Graham Moon; Rob Atkinson and Paul Durden; Malcolm McVicar and Lynton Robins; Neil Evans; Michael Hill; Arthur Aughey; Fergus Carr 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published in Great Britain 1994 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LT O Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-333-59597-8 ISBN 978-1-349-23444-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23444-8 First published in the United States of America 1994 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-12267-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Public policy in Britain / edited by Stephen P. Savage, Rob Atkinson, and Lynton Robins. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-12267-6 I. Great Britain-Social policy-I 979- 2. Policy sciences. I. Savage, Stephen P. II. Atkinson, Rob. III. Robins, L. J. (Lynton J.) HN39O.P83 1994 361.6'1'0941-«20 94-24880 CIP To NPS & JPS Olive and Ken SJR & MJR Contents List of Tables ix Preface xi Notes on the Contributors xiii PART I THE CONTEXT OF POLICY 1 The Conservatives and Public Policy Rob Atkinson and Stephen P. Savage 3 2 The Structures of Governance in Britain Stephen Cope and Rob Atkinson 15 3 Changing Styles of Governance since 1979 Rob Atkinson and Stephen Cope 31 4 Britain and Europe: From Community to Union? Fergus Carr and Stephen Cope 53 PART II SUBSTANTIVE POLICY AREAS 5 Economic Policy under the Conservatives Mike Dunn and Sandy Smith 77 6 Employment Relations and Training Policy David Farnham and Carol Lupton 96 7 Environmental Policy: Past and Future Agendas John Bradbeer 116 8 A Criminal Record? Law, Order and Conservative Policy Mike Nash and Stephen P. Savage 137 9 Health Policy and the Conservatives Ian Kendall and Graham Moon 162 VII viii Contents 10 Housing Policy since 1979: Developments and Prospects Rob Atkinson and Paul Durden 182 11 Education Policy: Market Forces or Market Failure? Malcolm McVicar and Lynton Robins 203 12 'A Poisoned Chalice?' Personal Social Services Policy Neil Evans 221 13 Social Security Policy under the Conservatives Michael Hill 241 14 British Policy in Northern Ireland: Between Activism and Consolidation Arthur Aughey 259 15 Foreign and Defence Policy under the Conservatives Fergus Carr 282 16 Conclusion: An Overview of Developments 301 Guide to Further Reading 312 Bibliography 317 Index 331 List of Tables 10.1 Main points of key housing legislation 184 10.2 Local authority dwellings completed in the UK, 1981-91 185 10.3 Sales of dwellings owned by local authorities and new towns in Great Britain, 1981-91 185 10.4 Housing Association dwellings built in the UK, 1981-91 188 10.5 Estimate of 'official homeless': actual and potential, 1990s, England only 193 10.6 Mortgage possession action statistics, 1988-93 (first quarter) (local authority and private) 199 ix Preface Public policy in Britain is currently at something of a cross-roads. In virtually every area of policy, but most particularly those areas which come under the umbrella of 'social policy' - health, housing, education, social security, personal social services and law and order - radical reforms are either under way or are at least on the political agenda. Fundamental shifts in the role of the state, and the redrawing of the former boundaries between 'public' and 'private' provision, are the order of the day. In an earlier publication (Savage and Robins, (eds.) 1990) an attempt was made to assess the impact of 'Thatcherism' on each of the main policy areas. On balance the conclusion then made was that, at the very least, that impact, in terms of the development of radical, New Right, policy reforms, was uneven and in some respects hardly apparent. In the contemporary political environment, however, it would seem hard to deny that radical reform is very much on the agenda. If anything the influence of New Right thought and ideology has been more in evidence since the departure of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister than before, this despite the relatively low key nature of political rhetoric which has characterised post-Thatcher Conservative leadership. The central concern of this book, therefore, is to assess the current status of public policy in Britain, against the backcloth of the political agendas of the Conservative Party as they have emerged since 1979. The book will be divided into two parts. Part I will set out the 'contexts' of policy. It will discuss the more general developments in politics and policy which have set much of the scene for policy reforms in specific policy fields. Chapter 1 will consider the broader political basis of contemporary Conservatism, and some of the key ideological influences underpinning the politics of post-1979 Conservatism. Chapters 2 and 3 will address issues of 'structures' and 'styles' of governance since 1979 respectively, and the relationship between them and the agenda for public policy which has developed under the Conservatives. Chapter 4 will assess the impact of policy made within the wider context of the European Union on the domestic political scene. Taken together these chapters should make apparent some of the common threads which have run throughout separate areas of xi xii Preface public policy, and the origins of such common threads in fundamental political developments in the governance of Britain under the Conservatives. Part II of the book will proceed to discuss in detail key issues and developments in each of the major areas of public policy, in the light of the contextual matters addressed in Part I. While each of these chapters can to an extent be treated as 'stand alone' discussions of discrete fields of policy, a fuller appreciation of each will be only possible when coupled with an awareness of the broader themes considered in Part I. Furthermore, the reader is advised to study the parallels and similarities between the various areas of policy, for example, between health reforms and educational policy, or between housing policy and reforms in the personal social services. In the Conclusion an attempt is made to draw together some of the general themes which have cut across public policy since 1979, and to place these in the context of the future of public policy in Britain. A 'Guide to Further Reading' is provided toward the end of the book which indicates some of the key references within the literature in each area covered in the book. STEPHEN P. SAVAGE ROB ATKINSON LYNTON ROBINS