Dear Member
This promises to be a long one so if you are not interested in joined-up
government (JUG) please delete now to save your time. If you are
interested then keep reading.
I have been working to assess the New Labour strategy of JUG and posted a
request for information- the response was very good with many people
pointing me in good directions. Many people asked to be kept informed and
I promised to update my last posting so here goes.
Before I do I need to say a few things; JUG is a concept- the idea to work
of working in partnership to achieve co-ordinated and integrated policy
delivery on the ground. Overwhelmingly this strategy has been implemented
through area-based initiatives (ABI) but JUG and ABI are not necessarily
the same thing. There are dozens of different initiatives spread across
all policy sectors, no comprehensive list exists, information on these
initiatives are 'siloed' that is either initiatives have their own website
or contained in a departmental site. This makes the overall picture of
Labour's JUG strategy difficult to see. Evaluation of these initiatives is
spread across small individual case studies right up to large scale
national evaluations. Most of these though concentrate on single
initiatives. The only forthcoming report I am aware of that assesses more
than one initiative together will be from the DTLR published at the end of
April and available on the website (sorry I don't have any more details).
This report covers seven of the really big ABI looking at what extent they
have achieved co-ordination and partnership. This is the closest anybody
has come to evaluating the strategy of JUG as opposed to initiatives
themselves. However much judgement of JUG clearly rests with the success
or not of the ABI since these have been the primary mechanism for
implementation. For the full list of seven see my self plug at the end but
the following is what I have found out so far:
Health Action Zones- The National Evaluation of Health Action Zones was
commissioned by the Department of Health (DH) in 1998 and began its work in
January 1999. The evaluation is being conducted by a team of researchers
led by Professor Ken Judge at the Health Promotion Policy Unit, University
of Glasgow, in collaboration with colleagues at Queen Mary College and the
University of Birmingham. Their final report is due out later this year
around September I think but don't quote me! An initial findings report
can be found and downloaded at the following website:
http://www.haznet.org.uk/hazs/evidence/national.asp The report is
called 'Building Capacity for Collaboration' (2001).
Surestart-The first phase of the national level evaluation of Sure Start
(which will run from 2000/1 to 2006/7) is being undertaken by a team of
investigators from a number of universities and organisations. The team is
comprised of a consortium of academics and practitioners, led by Professor
Edward Melhuish of Birkbeck College, University of London. Although the
work is still in it's early phase- I am not aware of any date for a final
report you can download a load of stuff about evaluation methodology by
going to the following website: www.surestart.gov.uk/InfoDocs/Summary
Education Action Zones- This is a strange one- there are rumours that EAZ
have bombed and research is not being published. I am assuming that
national evaluation is taking place somewhere but I don't know any
details. 25 of the 73 EAZ were set up in 1998 and they have been evaluated
by the National Audit Office (NAO). This is the latest national evaluation
of EAZ I know of its called "Education Action Zones: Meeting the Challenge -
The Lessons Identified From Auditing the First 25 Zones". HC 130,
Parliamentary Session 2000/2001. The full report is downloadable on the
website with a few summaries:www.nao.gov.uk look through the publications
menu.
New Deal- There are a plethora of different New Deals for various groups.
NDC (new deal for communities) is just beginning to be evaluated with the
project due to start in April. This is being led by Prof. Paul Lawless at
Sheffield Hallam University. Other evaluations of various New Deal
initiatives can be found as part of the National Centre Website or on the
employment service website. Recent statistics and some evaluation material
can be found at following website: www.dwp.gov.uk Useful literature
includes; Millar J (2000) Keeping track of welfare reform; The New Deal
programmes, York: York Publishing Services for Joseph Rowntree.
Chris Hasluck has written two overview papers - one on the ND for young
people and one on the ND for lone parents. I found these fairly easily in
my University Library.
Employment Zones (EZ) the pathfinder EZ have two national evaluations.
Check out Research Reports from what was the DfEE (now the DWP) for the
official one, then check website for centre for economic and social
inclusion for an earlier report on emerging findings, available at:
www.cesi.org.uk The fully fledged EZ are being nationally evaluated but I
don't know any details regarding universities involved and no results are
publicly available as yet.
Connexions, the new initiative for young people is not included in the
DTLR's list of seven since it started after the research was underway. It
has not been evaluated and no plans have been announced to carry out
national evaluation because it is still too new.
In addition to this there are several other sources that will prove useful
for research into JUG and ABI;
Partnerships, New Labour and the governance of welfare
Edited by Caroline Glendinning, Martin Powell and Kirstein Rummery
To be published by The Policy Press in July 2002 (TBC)
Paperback £18.99 ISBN 1 86134 339 6
Hardback £50.00 ISBN 1 86134 340 X
272 pages 234 x 156mm
Perri 6, Diana Leat, Kimberly Seltzer and Gerry Stoker, 2002, Towards
holistic governance: the new reform agenda, Palgrave, Houndmills,
Basingstoke.
ISBN 0-333-92891-1 (hbk), ISBN 0-333-92892-X (pk)
272pp
Taylor, M. (2000) Top-Down meets Bottom-Up, York: The Jospeh Rowntree
Foundation.
Last but not least is my own humble article- an introduction to JUG with
many useful sources cited (yadder, yadder!).
Clark, T (2002) New Labour's Big Idea: Joined-up government. Social
Policy and Society, vol. 1, part 2.
Hope you find this useful- I won't be doing another update to fill in the
gaps cos I have to work you know!
Thanks for your time.
Tim Clark
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