Senior Ministers and the Limits of Their Influence to Resolve the Capacity Problem

Abstract

Political science has often tended to explain the outcomes of public-policy systems in terms of the ‘high politics’ involved. Rikerian notions of political strategy and manipulation, for example, are based on the implicit assumption that the success or failure of policies depend upon the ability of political elites to engineer them from the top down. Governance concepts of ‘steering’ also imply similar ‘dark arts’ of design and manipulation. The implication is that it is the politicians who are ultimately responsible for the success and failure of policy systems, and that if we want to understand the causes and dynamics behind CCS, we should look for the answers at the top of the system. Policy success or failure, we are led to believe, is a question of political leadership or lack of it.

There are deeply entrenched cultural points. If you are going to reform this or any other part of public life, you have to have an absolute driving clarity at the centre of what you are going to do. You need the officials, the professional leaders of the service, the politicians, all involved […] If there is not the coherence driving it forward, then it is terribly difficult to make the changes you need to make. (Former Labour Home Secretary)