The spaces of modernisation: Outcomes, indicators and the local government modernisation agenda

Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011 www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

The spaces of modernisation: Outcomes, indicators and the local government modernisation agenda Gareth Enticott a

a,*

, Tom Entwistle

b

Centre for Local and Regional Government Research, School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, United Kingdom b Centre for Local and Regional Government Research, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom Received 11 July 2005; received in revised form 11 December 2006

Abstract The modernisation of local government has attempted to reinvent central–local government relations by offering freedoms and flexibilities to facilitate the governance of local issues. At the same time, a shift to outcome focussed targets as a new form of governmental rationality allows central government to delimit these opportunities. Drawing on aspects of governmentality and actor-network theory, the paper explores the tensions between these modes of government. It argues that outcome focussed targets circumscribe the limits of local governance by offering a despatialised technology of government. Using a case study of Local Public Service Agreements, the paper highlights the problems 10 English rural local authorities have experienced in their attempts to construct and negotiate a series of local policy targets with central government. The paper shows how the spatial limitations of statistical governance conspire against the construction of targets which reflect local policy priorities. In conclusion we consider the extent to which these limitations are a deliberate act of control and consider the implications for agency within networks of governmentality. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Governmentality; Targets; Local government; Central–local relations; Performance management; Public services reform

1. Introduction ‘Modernisation’ has been a theme of the New Labour government since its election in 1997. In particular, the institutions of local government within the UK have been targeted as in need of urgent ‘modernisation’ in order for government to achieve its objectives (Blair, 1998). The so-called ‘modernisation agenda’ – which deploys the practices of the New Public Management and its neoliberal values of cost control, regulation, performance indicators and quasi-markets (Hood, 1991) – both reflects and builds upon other attempts to construct ‘entrepreneurial government’ across the globe (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). In the UK, the immediate impact of this ‘modernisation agenda’

*

Corresponding author. E-mail address: enticottg@cardiff.ac.uk (G. Enticott).

0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2007.01.009

for local government was the launch of myriad new initiatives, reforms and policies. Of primary concern was a commitment to the improvement of public services by encouraging innovation and creativity within the public sector. This has included the devolution of power to local managers to encourage swifter and better decision making; systems of incentives – financial and bureaucratic – to promote innovation; and the use of targets, indicators and performance management systems (OPSR, 2002). These reforms have implications for the wider landscape of local government and its relationship to central government. By recognising the creative potential of local government actors, the modernisation agenda at least apparently signalled an acceptance that new modes of central–local government relations were needed if new solutions are to be identified and delivered within emerging networks of local governance (Stoker, 1999, 2000). Partnership and negotiation were key elements to this new relationship.

1000

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

Yet, at the same time, these reforms have been accompanied by a suite of managerial technologies which suggest the continuing power of central government to ‘act at a distance’ (Power, 1994). Sometimes though, these distinct elements can be woven together in an attempt to make local government more ‘entrepreneurial’. Osborne and Gaebler (1992) for instance, argue that targets and performance indicators are vital for ‘results-oriented government’. Whereas performance indicators are often framed in terms of inputs or outputs, when services are funded by results or outcomes, public managers become ‘obsessive about performance’ promoting structural changes, contracting and new management arrangements (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992, p. 139). Targets and their performance indicators – where they reward outcomes – therefore have the power to achieve considerable change both within the mindset of local authority managers and in terms of the quality of public services. These reforms nevertheless continue to tread a delicate balance within central–local relations, promising both central control and local autonomy. The extent to which this tightrope can be successfully negotiated is the focus of this paper. We question whether the ‘creative space’ offered to local authorities under modernisation policies is more illusory than real. Critically, it asks to what extent have the promises made to local government within these new modes of central–local relations been undermined by competing technologies of government. Where they have, precisely how has this arisen? To do this, we explore the case of Local Public Service Agreements (LPSAs). This modernisation initiative allows local authorities to identify for themselves their local priorities for improvement, innovative policy solutions and then negotiate financial rewards with central government in return for improved performance against a set of targets reflecting these priorities. We focus on LPSA’s use of outcome focussed targets as an emerging technology of government within the modernisation agenda. In particular, we explore their technical and managerial limitations by focussing on local authorities’ negotiated constructions of targets reflecting local circumstances in order to reveal the inherent spatialities of result-oriented policy agendas. Whilst targets and performance indicators may represent objective evidence, their universality may undermine the existence of spatial difference (Scott, 1998). In other words, targets and their performance measurement may reflect embedded institutional geographies and problematizations of policy issues at national rather than local levels. Any attempt to construct targets for policy issues which cross-cut these institutional geographies or which reflect geographical differentiation, may find that the existing governmental numerical infrastructure creates inescapable ‘lines of force’ which circumscribe what can and cannot be governed (Murdoch, 2000). We begin by analysing the new modes of central–local government relations and its instruments that have emerged within the modernisation agenda. In order to analyse the potential compatibility of negotiation and target

setting, we then explore LPSAs through a Foucauldian governmentality perspective. The paper then turns to an examination of the LPSA process within 10 rural local authorities to highlight the technical limitations and inherent spatialities of target regimes which determine the negotiation of local priorities. In conclusion, we assess whether this was an intended or foreseeable consequence. 2. Power and control within central–local government relations 2.1. New modes of governance and the emergence of local public service agreements The conventional account of English central–local relations describes a process of creeping and at times rampant centralisation. Central government is accused of stripping local government of its powers and responsibilities, constraining its finances and controlling the delivery of policy through an elaborate system of targets and inspection (Robson, 1966; Loughlin, 1996). This national system of local governance, where the relationship between central and local authorities is defined in terms of the principal and its agents leaves little room for local difference. Little wonder then that the local authority associations have spent the last 20 years or so campaigning for a reformulation of central and local relations that might re-empower local authorities and allow then to meaningfully govern their areas (Entwistle and Laffin, 2003). Advocates of reform talk loosely about the need for a partnership between central and local government where local authorities enjoy their own clear sphere of competence and an influential relationship with central government in the policy process. Paradoxically, whereas practitioners criticise command and control for its success in exercising control and constraint, academic commentators criticise it for its ineffectiveness, they argue indeed that the centre’s dependence on command and control is incompatible with the modern context of government. The prevailing academic orthodoxy describes the transformation from local government to local governance in which services are increasingly provided by networks of public, private and third sector organisations (Stoker, 1999, 2000). According to Rhodes, the new networks of governance ‘resist government steering, develop their own policies and mould their environments’ (Rhodes, 1997, p. 46). Using hierarchy ‘with its command operating code and instructions, fuels noncompliance and recalcitrant conflictual behaviour’ (1997, p. 48). Both the local government and academic communities are then largely agreed, albeit for very different reasons, that the centralising policy instruments which have defined the central–local relationship are prone to a host of dysfunctions. The academic literature recommends that officials should wean themselves off the old bureaucratic instruments of control. ‘Instruments’ as de Bruijn and Heuvelhof

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

explain ‘need to fit into the structure within which they have to function’ (1997, p. 123). Network type settings call for ‘second generation governance instruments such as covenants, contracts, communicative planning, parameters and incentives’ (de Bruijn and ten Heuvelhof, 1997, p. 123). Network instruments require those at the centre – both politicians and officials – to ‘search for new interesting solutions’ rather than a single right path; in place of control over delivery, politicians should create the conditions for learning between solutions (Klijn, 2002, pp. 161–162). Network management, according to Rhodes, calls for diplomacy – persuasion and negotiation – rather than command and control (1997). On the face of it Local Public Service Agreements contain many of the elements of ‘the second generation’ policy instruments called for by de Bruijn and ten Heuvelhof, (1997, p. 123). LPSAs are contracts in which local authorities endeavour to deliver a series of improved outcomes in return for improved budget allocations – up to 2.5% of an authority’s annual budget. LPSAs have therefore been described as ‘performance pay for councils’. The LPSA framework provides a ‘creative space’ for local authorities to target and improve the performance of poor services using innovative means. In practice this requires local authorities to agree 12 performance targets and related indicators with central government. These targets are ‘stretching’ – they are over and above performance levels that would usually be expected of an authority. Target areas can theoretically relate to any service area or desirable outcome within the reach of a local authority. Government departments assist local authorities with target setting, although final negotiations and agreement is with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). Local authorities also receive pump-priming money to kick-start targets and also the ability to negotiate freedoms and flexibilities from restrictive practices and bureaucratic hurdles. The ‘first generation’ of LPSAs (LPSA1) were negotiated between 2000 and 2003. Following their success, the government has now embarked on negotiation of ‘second generation’ LPSAs. LPSA1 required local authorities to choose seven targets from a list of preset national targets which matched government priorities. Authorities were given free-reign over the remaining five targets. Second generation LPSAs have no restrictions: the choice of all targets is subject to individual local authorities, thereby expanding their creative opportunity to improve services. Local authorities were also given complete freedom over how they would attempt to meet their chosen targets. However, recent guidance encourages the creation of partnerships to meet targets, particularly between County and District councils (ODPM, 2004). 2.2. The governmentality of central–local relations In the UK, the LPSA process is therefore unique in its marriage of targets, devolution, rewards and contract negotiations. In doing so, it also raises the question of

1001

how we can best understand the effectiveness of these new modes of central–local governance. The traditional account, described very briefly above, turns on the measurement of the ‘legal and financial competence’ of local authorities (Fleurke and Willemse 2006, p. 71). The greater the legal and financial resources enjoyed by local authorities the greater local government’s autonomy is assumed to be. There are, of course, a number of difficulties with this approach. A lack of formal resources may be more than compensated for by informal resources. Indeed, Rhodes (1988) famously questioned the assumptions of the traditional model pointing to the dependence of central government on local government’s expertise and delivery capacity. Instead, what is required is a more nuanced account of power relations which goes beyond the formal analysis of local government’s constitutional position in order to examine the degree of autonomy enjoyed by local authorities (Fleurke and Willemse, 2006). Previous studies emphasise the importance of analysing the ways targets come to be constituted and interact with the network of actors responsible for delivering them. For example, in their analysis of the US Government Performance and Results Act, Kravchuch and Schack (1996, p. 352) show how flexibility is overridden by the emergence of ‘cybernetic-decision management’ which renders managers insensitive to information unless it comes through the highly structured channels of the performance management system. In doing so, managers are able to buffer themselves from the ‘overwhelming complexity of the internal and external environments’ which may also impact upon the validity, scope and diversity of the performance measurements in question. This example demonstrates that in seeking to understand new modes of governance, a good starting point is with those mundane technologies, such as targets and statistics (Miller and Rose, 1990). They allow a subtle reshaping of interests, motivations and decision making of subjects and organisations in ways which reflect and maintain the desires of central government through a more distant and indirect means of control – an inherent commitment within neoliberalism (Miller and Rose, 1990). Explanations of this numerical ‘microphysics of power’ have drawn largely on Michel Foucault’s governmentality thesis. According to Foucault, liberal states face limits to their power in shaping the conduct of civil society, yet how this can be achieved remains a fundamental question (Rose, 1993). Governmentality proposes that the answer lies in the view that rather than possessing pre-given powers, the state becomes powerful. This shifts attention away from the institutions of the state to ‘ask how state power is constituted and consolidated’ (Murdoch and Ward, 1998, p. 308). Foucault’s attention is thus shifted to the ‘activity’ of government. Within liberal democracies, these activities are ‘characterised by a particular way of ‘thinking’ about the kinds of problems that can and should be addressed by various political authorities’ (Miller and Rose, 1990, p. 2). In particular, this way of thinking or ‘mentality’

1002

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

involves building up a stock of knowledge and expertise in relation to the state’s territory in order to ‘problematize’ life within its borders and act in response to the resulting ‘problematizations’ (Rose and Miller, 1992). The aim of the governmentality approach is to therefore ‘understand how the state becomes a centre, or, more accurately, an ensemble of centres that can shape, guide, channel, direct and control events and persons distant from it in both space and time. In short governmentality refers to the methods employed as the state both represents and intervenes in the domains it seeks to govern, and how territorial integration is thereby achieved’ (Murdoch and Ward, 1997, p. 308). Foucault treats government as an ‘art’ and the state as constituted from a loose assemblage of various rationalities and techniques (Gordon, 1991) within which power is articulated through diffuse networks. The state, and the form it takes, can therefore only exist through these practices that facilitate intervention in society (Gordon, 1991). For the state to control other actors, relationships within these networks need to be durable: from the outset, all actors need to be enrolled into these networks through common acceptance – willingly or otherwise – of whatever form of governmental rationality advocated (Callon, 1986). Forms of statistical calculation have played significant roles in establishing such durable linkages in power relations, allowing a precise problematization of public/private territory (Rose, 1991, p. 676). The rationality of calculation allows governments to see what they have and what they need to govern. It turns a qualitative world into information rendering it amenable to control (Rose, 1991, p. 677). Statistics represent what Latour (1987) calls ‘inscription devices’ – information which is highly mobile, stable and combinable. Thus, according to Rose and Miller (1992, p. 185), ‘the accumulation of inscriptions in certain locales, by certain persons or groups, makes them powerful in the sense that it confers upon them the capacity to engage in certain calculations and lay claim to legitimacy for their plans and strategies because they are, in a real sense, in the know about that which they seek to govern’. Thus, as governments collect statistics to problematize their territory, the mobility of these figures characterises government as a ‘centre of calculation’ allowing government to ‘act at a distance’ (Latour, 1987). Statistical inscriptions act as technologies of government, allowing governments to assess civil society, speak for those represented within them and intervene where representations are abnormal (see Miller, 1990; Miller and Rose, 1990). These interventions may take several forms. Firstly, interventions may be direct. Networks with statistical inscriptions and other durable materialities articulate spatial and temporal formations with their own unique modes of behaviour (Hetherington, 1997). Where these networks

are tightly aligned, they create ‘spaces of prescription’ (Murdoch, 1998, p. 363) which demarcate ‘formalisms’: ‘specific rules of behaviour for the entities which comprise their networks’. The durability of certain rationalities means that these formalisms are difficult to escape from. Only where network relations are not completely durable or negotiable do chances to resist or deviate from the roles prescribed by their socio-material infrastructure open up. Secondly, they may be disguised as ‘free choice’. Hacking (1990, p. 2) observes that figures articulate norms to which people will conform because ‘few of us fancy being ‘‘pathological’’, so ‘‘most of us’’ try to make ourselves normal’. The governmentality approach can therefore highlight the particular forms of subjectivity which the state might view as particularly desirable, such as entrepreneurialism (Rose, 1999). In other words, governmentality allows an analysis of the ways in which subjects remain free but come to calculate themselves in terms of the tools and techniques of governmentality (Murdoch and Ward, 1997, p. 312). 2.3. The spaces of modernisation: the geography of modernisation rationalities The governmentality approach raises a number of questions in respect of the modernisation of local government. Firstly, it suggests that whatever central government might say about the rights and abilities of local government, its use of calculation has one effect – to control the limits of local government. The subtle power of statistics and targets can ensure the domination of local government such that its actors are rendered docile to the demands of central government (Foucault, 1991). For some, however, the domination of technologies and modalities is too much and ignores the ‘interactive’ status that human actors possess within these networks of power (Hacking, 1999). In other words, by themselves statistics do not act but the situation of humans within social, economic and political relations means their interpretation of statistics cannot be guaranteed (cf. Jessop, 1990) manifested in the uneven impact of managerial technologies (Clarke and Newman, 1997). This denial of agency within the governmentality literature (Bevir, 1999) therefore has the potential to mask the potential of local government actors to subvert networks of governmentality and creatively transform them. Nevertheless, the constant reinvention of managerial technologies questions the limits to agency and resistance. Whilst the modernisation of local government has the potential to free up creative spaces, the competing tension with centralised objectives means that new technologies of government may subtly reinforce central government’s position. Thus, whilst governmentality assumes the continued presence of hierarchical control from central to local government, an outstanding question is the extent to which it remains possible for the centre to exert influence over its local counterpart. Where the centre has sought to modernise local government, to what extent have these

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

new technologies been able to create prescribed identities for local government and its managers or merely negotiated spaces in which hierarchical power has seeped from these networks? In short, what have the governmentalities associated with the modernisation of local government achieved? Geography appears to be a central factor in answering these questions. Murdoch (2000, p. 506) suggests that local conditions have the potential to intrude and disrupt the flow of governmental networks. This occurs as a result of tension between the generality of statistics and their application to local contexts. As Murdoch (2000, p. 506) points out, ‘if the local is to retain any meaning it must differ from the general in some significant respects’. The dislocation of standardised meanings encoded within statistics is enough for governmental networks to become distracted by the significance of geography. Scott (1998), for example, describes how measurement as a form of ‘statecraft’ gave rise to new spatial formations and meanings in 18th century France. At the same time however, Scott shows how local understandings and contexts potentially undermined the creation of new modes of ‘statecraft’. Local customs, codes of behaviour and local measurements based in the logic of practice created illegible and incomparable codes. Attempts to aggregate them were meaningless and obliged the state to ‘grope its way on the basis of sketchy information’ compromising attempts to ensure food security (Scott, 1998, p. 29). The ability of local actors to disrupt networks may also be crucial here. In this respect, a spatial distribution of managerial opportunity and contextual misfortune is commonly invoked to explain why managerial technologies appear to work better in some areas than others (Clarke and Newman, 1997). Lowe and Murdoch (2003, p. 761) conclude therefore, that the implementation of environmental policies must be set within local economic, political and social conditions as they can ensure considerable variation in modes of environmental governance. Whilst these literatures suggest that governmental technologies are modified by spatial differentiation, we might also consider that they are imbued with spatialities which legitimate certain policy discourses whilst eliminating others. Just as networks of governmentality can come to prescribe certain modes of behaviour (Murdoch, 1998), so can forms of calculation come to prescribe which policy issues are within the realm of government. And in determining what falls within the scope of local government, so these prescriptions can undermine local variations by specifying issues at generalised scales or which do not fit local priorities. Thus, in discriminating against certain spatial typologies, the failure of some governmental technologies to deliver performance improvement in some locales may not be a function of local actors or circumstances. Instead, it may be the result of those biases and discriminations, spatial or otherwise, which are inbuilt into the technologies themselves and which determine what is workable and durable within policy implementation (Higgins, 2004). In defining the terms of debates implicitly within chosen

1003

technologies, central government may therefore continue to act from a distance upon local government. Certainly, networks of statistical governance have the potential to render the governance of specific policy issues and spaces problematic. For a start, the ‘infrastructure’ of statistical governance will reflect those issues that have historically been important to measure (cf. Hacking, 1999). Whilst some issues may feature prominently in these collections of performance indicators, others may feature less so making their government less visible and more problematic. For example, the achievement of sustainability through a paradigm of ecological modernisation is dependent on the existence of indicators of sustainability. However, successive investigations have found how difficult the task of constructing these indicators is (Blowers, 2002; Bell and Morse, 1999). Other policy areas too face problems of turning policy issues which appear more qualitative into quantitative information. Without doing so, these issues are at risk of marginalisation within the policy process (Cloke, 1996). The statistical visibility of policy is therefore crucial in determining the limits of local government but this is compounded by imbalances in expertise of calculation such that competing rationalities are often easily sidelined (Abram et al., 1998). In these cases, statistical rationalities appear imbued with an undifferentiated geography: local issues and priorities are sidelined as a result (Scott, 1998). Indeed, it is only by specifying localised spatial variations within statistical rationalities that they can be effectively challenged (Murdoch, 2000). In other policy areas, the collection of statistics appears to be biased to particular local contexts. For example, Cloke et al.’s (2001) analysis of the enumeration of homelessness reveals how differences in the collection of homeless data renders comparisons between local authorities meaningless. At the same time, the experience of homelessness is shown to vary widely between urban and rural contexts. As a result, the technologies for assessing the extent of homelessness in rural areas is likely to underestimate the problem, thereby affecting its policy visibility. Likewise, Murdoch (2004) reports how technologies aimed at housing planning have been questioned in rural authorities because of perceived urban biases within their methodology. Similar worries are felt in relation to other modes of government. Little (2001) for example questions the extent to which the emergence of new institutions, such as partnerships, are ‘urban-based’ such that their translation into rural governance can become problematic. Little et al.’s (1998, p. 139) analysis of the Rural Challenge programme, for example, suggests that whilst a ‘competition culture’ might be applicable for urban governance, in rural areas an inherent lack of potential voluntary and private sector partners make its implementation fraught with difficulty. These spatialisations of statistical calculation therefore presents a subtle means by which central government can continue to exert influence within central–local relations. Firstly, existing statistical infrastructures – borne out of

1004

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

the institutional geography of government departments – will render some issues more visible and therefore more governable than others. Whether these truly reflect local spatial contexts though is questionable. Secondly, where statistical calculations do manage to accommodate issues that cover a range of spatial contexts, the extent to which they provide useful information on geographical sub-units may be governed by technical limitations. In these cases, it becomes more difficult to include them into targets which focus on local priorities. In each case, targets may therefore over-ride local contexts and focus on policy issues that are not local priorities. The remainder of this paper examines the extent to which these spatialisations have impacted upon local target setting within rural local authorities. Our key question is, do targets and their performance measurements discriminate against rural issues, rural people and rural places? 3. Constructing local priorities: targets and geography within LPSAs 3.1. Methods In order to explore issues affecting the LPSA process, data were drawn from a range of sources as part of an analysis of the rural dimensions to LPSAs for the Countryside Agency during 2004. Given that our questions relate to the construction of numerical targets, our methodological approach attempted to trace the interactions and negotiations between those network actors that come to construct LPSA targets (cf. Callon, 1986). To do this, we firstly interviewed those local government officers responsible for overseeing the LPSA process as well as with individual target ‘owners’ – those officers responsible for the day to day management of one or more targets. In total 38 LPSA officers were interviewed from 10 rural local authorities.1 Local Authorities were selected on the basis that they were they broadly representative of those local authorities in rural areas in England. The sample therefore included authorities from different types of council (County Councils, Metropolitan District Authorities and Unitary Authorities); different geographical regions of England and differing degrees of rurality as judged by the Countryside Agency’s ranking of rural councils. Three authorities (Cornwall, Cheshire and Norfolk) were selected as ‘critical cases’ because they had attempted to pursue targets reflecting key rural policies identified by DEFRA and the Countryside Agency. Data was also drawn from interviews and focus groups involving other rural government stakeholders. This included 20 individuals from agencies such as the Local Government Association, the Improvement and Develop1

These included: Bradford Metropolitan District Council; Buckinghamshire County Council; Cheshire County Council; Cornwall County Council; Cumbria County Council; Essex County Council; Herefordshire Council; Lancashire County Council; Norfolk County Council; Surrey County Council.

ment Agency, Countryside Agency as well as government officials responsible for LPSA. All interviews were conducted in strict confidence and anonymity provided to all participants. We have ensured that direct quotes in the following sections cannot be attributed to any of the Local Authorities to maintain confidentiality. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, coded and analysed using qualitative analysis software. Analysis is structured as follows. Firstly, it highlights the creative space of LPSA and the extent to which it has encouraged entrepreneurialism within rural local authorities. It then provides an analysis of the extent to which local freedoms have been undermined by the spatial characteristics of performance indicators. 3.2. Targets and the creative space of LPSAs For some authorities, the freedom to define for themselves which policy areas were their priorities was liberating. Rather than be tied down to central government policies or the stringencies of other external grant funding streams (e.g., European structural funds), the freedom in LPSA provided more scope to address what authorities perceived to be their real priorities. LPSAs provided local authority officers with the ability to: ‘pick up and be very clear about the uniqueness of [local authority area]. . .in a very proactive way rather than having to do something which fits someone else’s guidelines which for us is crucial. It’s the difference between chasing money and. . .actually saying ‘no this is our priority’. What we are trying to do much more of is saying this is what we want to do and trying to find the ability and mechanisms or funding or whatever to do it. LPSA has given us the freedom to do things we couldn’t otherwise do, its not restrictive in that way.’’ In other councils, this freedom was quickly seized upon to deliver a particular political vision. In other words, politicians as well as managers viewed LPSAs as an entrepreneurial vehicle for particular political objectives which would otherwise have been extremely difficult to pursue. For example, LPSA negotiations for one of our case study councils followed a return to Conservative control and the immediate aftermath of the Foot and Mouth crisis. The incoming administration were particularly sensitive to these problems and directly pursued policies aimed at rural recovery. This led to a rural recovery action plan out of which came a desire to have a dedicated rural target within the LPSA to fund new activities which would not have otherwise been funded. For the officers in charge, the political decision to use the LPSA to pursue rural objectives was a welcome change as it provided money ‘to do something, to try and prove that [what we are doing], you know, it’s good value’. Whilst some councils used LPSA to try out new initiatives, others used the LPSA process to address the ways

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

they were delivering existing services. Often this meant changing the ways particular services were actually delivered. New partnerships feature heavily in this respect. For example, one authority used an LPSA target to focus on promoting independent living for older people – an existing policy objective within social services. The target was pursued through a unique partnership with the Fire Service which was concerned to reduce deaths and injuries sustained in accidental fires. The resulting partnership saw firemen trained by social services to deliver home care visits whilst also conducting their own fire safety assessments. Of course, the credit for these types of partnership working cannot solely come from the creative space provided by LPSAs. They feature as key delivery mechanisms in most modernisation policies. However, this should not undermine the ability of targets to encourage new ways of thinking. After all, ODPM left authorities to decide for themselves on the appropriate delivery mechanisms. Ultimately, then, the ability to innovate rested with local authority managers. Some of these were extremely enthusiastic about the possibilities about LPSA. For example, some managers saw LPSAs as a ‘‘new way of doing something. . .that was really about putting [our] house in order. . .for us, LPSA has been a real opportunity, one which we’ve jumped at and grabbed with both hands’’. In many cases, this enthusiasm is linked to a service’s Cinderella status and the opportunity for fresh financial resources. But for others, where managers have adopted a longerterm vision, the target setting process has lead to considerable innovation in the ways services are delivered. 3.3. Over-riding local contexts: the spatialisation of performance indicators Whilst some of the local authority managers were positive about the advantages surrounding target setting, others were less enthusiastic. They cited a range of problems which severely curtailed their ability to construct targets which reflected their local priorities all of which revolved around the spatialisations inherent in the target setting process. The two spatialisations which had most impact revolved around the institutional geography of performance indicators and the relevance of geographical difference amongst outcomes. These are detailed below. 3.3.1. Indicators and institutional geographies One way in which spatial aspects to the construction of local targets was felt was in the institutional availability of performance information. Targets rely on the availability of statistical information to assess current performance and project future performance. Without it, realistic targets cannot be identified. However, this proved to be the first obstacle facing local authorities seeking to address rural issues through LPSAs. LPSAs demand that all authorities justify why they have chosen their targets as local priorities. This can be achieved either through existing performance indicators (e.g.,

1005

BVPIs) and inspection judgements (e.g., CPA). Whilst this may provide information on functional policy areas like education, social services and crime, other areas – either specific or cross-cutting – are absent. This means identifying certain targets as priorities is practically impossible. Instead, they are emergent from measurements and calculations that have become embedded in the machinery of government. For example, authorities seeking to target their environmental performance face a particular problem from the lack of a biodiversity performance indicator amongst the statutory set collected annually, despite recent emphasis given to local biodiversity action plans as part of meeting DEFRAs own biodiversity PSA target. To justify a biodiversity target, local authorities have had to resort to their own measurement. However, these can prove costly and for those authorities without the financial resources can mean that no evidence is available or that it is completely out of date: ‘‘We’re still struggling to get a programme in place for resurvey and the last information that I had was if we employ somebody to do it would take them 20 years. . .’’ Secondly, authorities face the challenge of drilling down into standardised authority-wide statistics to pull out the priorities facing rural communities. Confusion over what parts of an authority counted as ‘rural’ often meant that these statistics were not disaggregated in order to uncover whether performance was actually worse in rural areas. To be sure, this rural proofing exercise did result in some targets focussing on poorly performing rural areas. Meanwhile, the new rural definition (ODPM, 2004) may stimulate more interest in rural proofing existing performance indicators. However, even where statistics have been disaggregated, local authorities suggested that they would still be unable to identify themes because they would miss pockets of hidden deprivation even at the smallest unit of analysis: ‘‘One of the big problems is around geography and being able to pull up themes, particularly in a rural area where you don’t get big neighbourhoods and estates – you can have a multi-millionaire living in a farm house next to a farmer on £7000 a year and you cant pick up that deprivation’’ These official statistics were therefore unlikely to provide sufficiently rigorous data with which to judge the success of LPSA targets. Reliance on those statistics which used surveys (e.g., Workforce Labour Survey) was particularly risky because of the sampling procedures and low numbers of respondents at a local level rendering the success or failure of targets as an artefact of methodology. The establishment of a rural statistics unit may help to resolve these problems (Hill, 2003), but current LPSAs have had no option but to follow existing statistical institutional geographies.

1006

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

Alternatively, authorities can seek to justify what constitutes a local priority through consultation mechanisms with the public and other stakeholders. Whilst these mechanisms are not uncommon, their regular use in a way which could provide robust data from which to accurately predict performance trends was less evident. More often, surveys were used irregularly due to lack of finance, had poor samples, and/or were too general to provide anything other than broad information for particular issues (cf. Sanderson, 2001). The consequence of lack of investment in data collection is that local priorities are more likely to be defined by existing statistical discourses. However, official statistics are also likely to align these priorities to institutional geographies and interests. Performance indicators are therefore related to the activities of services like social services, waste management or education. However, of increasing concern within the modernisation agenda has been an emphasis on cross-cutting working within local authorities. This style of joined-up governance is consistent with forms of partnership working between local authorities and other government agencies. Rural issues fit particularly well within this agenda given that problems of service delivery are often related to poor access and low service density. Joining-up services into mobile one-stop shops has often been adopted as means of overcoming the barriers to rural service delivery (see DEFRA, 2004). The logic behind these modes of governance is that joined-up delivery is more effective and efficient. Yet, the multiple demands for joined-up working are undermined by continuing departmentalism within Whitehall (Cowell and Martin, 2003). The result is that where issues crosscut these departments, measures of performance are few and far between. Indeed, the need to justify departmental PSA targets to the Treasury reinforces a departmental approach to performance indicators (Cowell and Martin, 2003). Where advances in cross-cutting working have been made within central government, these have usually related to aspects of social inclusion, health and crime. The institutional geographies of statistics therefore falls short in two respects: the historical infrastructure of statistical rationality circumscribes the range of topics that can possibly be constructed as a local priority, whilst the demand for cross-cutting information is subverted by government institutions own reluctance to engage in partnership working. The result is that identifying targets becomes highly challenging. For rural authorities, given the cross-cutting nature of rural issues, these challenges are particularly apposite. For example, cross-cutting approaches to developing social inclusion have often revolved around the importance of volunteering (Home Office, 2004). Indeed, volunteering has long featured as a key governmentality of rural space (Murdoch, 1997). Yet, there are few historical records of the extent of volunteering within local authority boundaries and government departments themselves were often unable to help identify accurate measures. For example,

one authority in south-west England was keen to have a target relating to local purchasing to achieve environmental and economic outcomes. In attempting to construct the target, it was unclear which government department should deal with this target. However, the main sticking point was the lack of accurate baseline data, the absence of which means that for many cross-cutting issues, projecting a target becomes an exercise in guess-work. The unrealistic and risky nature of these targets means they would be unlikely to be agreed. As such, these issues make way for other more functional interests with long traditions of performance measurement: ‘‘if you go down that route you don’t do anything and all you do is you focus your LPSA on your services and things you can specifically count which may not actually be what you want to focus on in the first place. We had a debate in the team and someone said ‘its not necessarily what you count that counts’ and vice versa and so it is quite a restrictive thing and I think if we didn’t have that we would certainly be including some areas in there which we are not currently including or in different ways particularly when you get down individual indicators which may not pick up what you are wanting and your priority areas’’. 3.3.2. Institutional and undifferentiated outcomes The institutional geographies of performance indicators also impacts upon the availability of outcome-focussed indicators. LPSAs negotiations threw up countless examples where the intended policy objectives could not be easily conceived of in these terms. Two problems existed: firstly, their absence; and secondly, the undifferentiated nature of outcomes. Few of the officially collected performance indicators and statistics meet the outcome requirements for LPSAs (Boyne and Law, 2005). Again, the absence of decent performance measures is particularly stark when it comes to cross-cutting issues, often because of the technical difficulty of capturing intangible outcomes (Alcock, 2004) or a continued focus on departmentalism within Whitehall (Cowell and Martin, 2003). Amongst rural indicators, the picture is no better. The Countryside Agency’s annual State of the Countryside Report or DEFRAs key rural performance indicators – a logical starting place for rural authorities attempting to identify relevant performance indicators – reveals few outcome related indicators. Those that do are likely to suffer from reliability problems or be unrealistic to target within LPSAs. These institutional geographies again ensure that certain issues are ruled out from rural governance, whilst traditional functional interests are very much in. Volunteering and biodiversity protection fail the outcome test in this respect. Local authorities have approached the outcome problem for volunteering in a number of ways. Some have addressed issues of local governance at a parish level using,

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

for example, DEFRA’s quality parish mark in an attempt to build capacity to deliver effective community governance. Other authorities have attempted to develop targets more generally around encouraging volunteering to develop capacity within various sectors and thereby improve service provision. However, in each case, their efforts were rejected because of their lack of outcomes: ‘‘[ODPM] said, you know, much as I think these are really wonderful things to do, in the context of this LPSA I just don’t think they’re a runner. . .I think he felt they weren’t outcomes. So the fact that your parish council had a trained parish clerk wasn’t, you know, so what?’’ ‘‘The volunteering one, ODPM have said actually even if we could get the data on volunteering, volunteering in itself isn’t an outcome. Increasing volunteering or increasing activity in communities, they don’t see that as an outcome whereas we feel it’s important. . .but we can’t actually have a target around the voluntary sector because it’s not outcome based’’. To a certain extent, these failed attempts suggest that local authorities have not fully developed the entrepreneurial mindset associated with outcome focussed targets: they are still looking at outputs. However, in many cases, the fact that these policy objectives could not be incorporated within LPSAs was seen as a failure of outcome-related policy. For cross-cutting policy areas like volunteering, managers expressed the belief that outcomes depended on ‘where you’re standing’ or were ‘grey areas’ which should not discount their inclusion within LPSAs, particularly where they linked to wider government objectives. However, with ODPM defining what counted as an outcome, a less parsimonious approach seemed unlikely meaning that these policy areas would not feature in many rural authorities LPSAs: ‘‘And I think we have been a bit frustrated by the kind of ‘outcome, outcome, outcome’ from ODPM but I understand why they’re doing it but they maybe need to be a bit, you know, be a bit more pragmatic about it really.’’ Environmental targets faced a similar set of hurdles in respect of defining outcomes which had both value and were realistic. A simple view that more threatened species (e.g., sky larks) could count as an outcome was questioned by ODPM for not representing an outcome. Where it was argued that greater species diversity was a good proxy indicator for the state of the rural economy, ODPMs response remained: ‘‘if the outcome of improved biodiversity is more tourism, then measure changes in the tourist economy’’ In other instances, the achievement of some outcomes within the three year timescale was simply unrealistic for

1007

some issues such as rural economy and misunderstood the nature of conservation work: ‘‘[ODPM said] we want something a bit more measurable than that. These sites, say for example where you’ve got a site with Skylarks on, we want you to count the Skylarks now and tell us how many there’ll be in three years time... that’s impossible for us to sign up to that kind of target ‘cos there are so many external factors’’. A spatially undifferentiated view of outcomes within LPSA created particular problems for targets relating to rural accessibility. Access to services is a key rural policy objective for DEFRA (2004) and bodies like the Countryside Agency. However, a limitation of these foci has been viewing the problem of access to rural services in terms of promoting access rather than considering the outcomes of that access. Key performance indicators therefore measure the existence of key facilities, the distance to them, the presence of an hourly bus service and the time taken to reach certain services (CA, 2004). In all cases, these indicators represent output indicators. With these government departments not thinking about access to services in terms of its outcomes, it is perhaps hardly surprising that local authorities had difficulty in conceptualising what an outcome from the provision of rural transport. The only way authorities could focus on accessibility was by targeting the patronage of community transport and flexible transport schemes such as dial-a-ride. As outputs, these targets only slipped into the first round of LPSAs as an acknowledged failure to work out any outcomes on the part of ODPM and DoT. The absence of outcome indicators continues in the second generation of LPSAs but its stronger emphasis on outcomes has worried many community transport providers thinking of further transport targets. This outcome focus would mean justifying transport provision in terms of the benefits it would bring, rather than just providing it for its own sake. However, providers of community transport argued that these benefits were inherent in any journey undertaken because they were from particularly vulnerable groups: ‘‘From my experience of community transport, I would say that probably every journey an individual or group member makes, impact on their actually at best level, impact on their health because they’ve actually got out of their four walls, they’re maintaining their sanity, and they are having the same choice that you and I have of being able to get out and about’’. Outcomes from transport, it was argued, are too qualitative to calculate into a single indicator of quality of life to measure progress against a target. Indeed, actually identifying what these outcomes were was a difficult job in itself. Alternatively, a spatially undifferentiated view of outcomes dissuaded many from considering rural proofing

1008

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

targets by providing transport in relation to specific targets with separate outcomes (e.g., drug treatment). However, a key issue here related to the value for money test of outcomes in rural locations. The value for money calculation is defined as the number of benefits (i.e., outcomes) divided by the potential reward grant. LPSA targets are therefore ‘‘not based on what it costs to do something; they work on the basis of benefits of what the benefits achieved are worth’’ (ODPM interview). In this sense it differs from a traditional costs-based grant which might reflect the additional access costs of rural services. However, in LPSAs the only grounds for giving more reward grant for a rural authority compared to an urban one would be if there were sufficient grounds for arguing that the value of the benefits differed between the two parts. In short, applying a ‘‘rural premium’’ to LPSA targets mistakes costs for benefits, the value of which are likely to be similar whether they are in an urban or rural authority: ‘‘For example, is the value to a rural citizen of the prevention of a burglary to their home greater than the value to an urban citizen? Is the value to a rural pupil of achieving 5 GCSEs greater than the value to an urban pupil of achieving 5 GCSEs? It seems likely to be very rare that the case can be made that any given benefit has a greater value in a rural area than an urban one. Without such a case, there is no basis for justifying a differential level of reward grant’’ (ODPM correspondence) For most managers responsible for LPSA targets, this value for money calculation was far too simplistic, ignoring the realities of rural living and costs of delivering rural services. If these costs could not be met from other budgets, pumppriming money could be used. However, achieving outcomes by spending on transport was generally seen as a lottery and a waste of pump-priming money. This ‘lottery effect’ applied to targets relating to health, economic (e.g., employment) or educational outcomes. In these cases the link between ends and means was subject to so many other pressures that hitting the target was too risky to make the target worthwhile: ‘‘I am reluctant to sign up for something that I don’t think we can deliver and then held to account for it.’’ In fact other policy areas too suffered from the inability of outcomes to take into account local contexts. Low population densities often meant that on paper, the number of benefits for any policy area looked too thin to be acceptable or realistically reflect performance improvement rather than luck. Equally, variations in local geography and resources could not be accommodated within outcomes. In negotiating the final stretch, these limitations could theoretically be addressed. However, there was little sign of the geographical differentiations within outcomes being taken into account: ‘‘We’re a bit cheesed off that they are not appreciating our local circumstances and they’re not appreciat-

ing we’re a small county and we haven’t got big car parks with CCTV – our proportion of car parks like that is very small – they don’t take any of that into account, its pure value for money’’. In short, there appeared no way of incorporating rural accessibility into LPSA targets on the terms prescribed by ODPM. For those rural authorities wishing to pursue accessibility targets, these problems mean that the resulting targets are more likely to disincentivise those responsible for them. These local priorities have therefore often not been addressed within LPSAs because attempting to justify them would prove just too difficult. Simply, LPSA’s value for money calculations appear to discriminate against rural issues to the extent that the construction of rural outcomerelated targets is virtually impossible: ‘‘if you’re calculating journeys, in rural Norfolk they can look extremely expensive on paper. . .we might as well have sent them in gold plated taxis’’ ‘it felt like that whilst it was cloaked in some of the language of locality and freedom and recognition of local differences, in actual fact there was a lot of central prescription both around the. . .negotiation of the more local targets. I think in terms of some of the performance standards – the stretch expectations – they reflected a fairly metropolitan understanding of cause and effect’ Alternatively, these problems have instead led towards ‘gaming’ strategies to maximise potential rewards. Thus, the target of increasing bus patronage in LPSA1 led to a geographical focus within the urban areas of rural counties as it was here where patronage could be easily improved. This occurred at the expense of developing better transport solutions for those rural populations away from these main corridors: ‘‘In terms of where you can make the biggest gains for LPSA, then it’s the core network. . .Our target is to get more people on buses, so it makes sense to focus on where the larger amounts of population arethe really rural districts which at the end of the day aren’t, you know, give us bums on seats aren’t going to help towards the PSA target’’. Whilst benefits to the core network might filter down to other rural communities, attempts to improve their services fell outside the remit of LPSA and were pursued through other mechanisms, avoiding the pitfalls of outcome identification. Thus, whilst LPSA represents a cutting-edge form of governance, for some, it has proved instrumental in replacing local with national priorities. 4. Conclusion: discriminating against the rural? The starting point for this analysis of LPSAs was the extent to which managerial technologies could frustrate the construction of targets reflecting local priorities. Was

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

the shift to more flexible forms of local government and reliance on outcomes conducive to local agency? This analysis suggests that these promises were illusory. Instead, the spatial qualities of statistical calculations have ensured the continued dominance of national rather than local interests within rural LPSAs. Firstly, the institutional spaces of statistics conspired to render local targets unworkable. The distribution of statistical infrastructure within government locked up statistical information within functional service departments. Their high visibility meant they were unavoidable as targets whether they were local priorities or not. Equally, the lack of connections within this institutional geography meant that cross-cutting targets would find it hard to feature as local targets. Rural policy often cross-cuts functional domains, largely as a result of accessibility problems. These institutional geographies therefore act to restrict the coverage of local rural priorities within LPSAs. Secondly, the requirement for targets to be outcomefocused added another layer of spatial complexity to these problems. Outcomes were defined in a way which recognised standardised rather than differentiated space. Benefits were of equal value wherever they are accrued. However, this standardisation meant that accounting for accessibility problems or geographical differentiation was impossible. As a result, value for money calculations for rural outcomes often fell well short of the mark required for targets to be agreed. This second spatiality of statistics therefore ensured that local priorities were substituted for other priorities when agreeing rural LPSAs. In short, the spatiality of statistics, for LPSAs at least, ensures the continued domination of the centre over the local. In constructing local priorities, local government simply has no option but to follow the spatialities within these statistical networks. This conclusion, however, raises a subsequent question: to what was this control meant or was it merely an accidental artefact of statistical geography? In other words, did the LPSA discriminate against the rural? In conclusion, we offer two alternative perspectives, both of which raise questions relating to agency within governmental networks. Firstly, it is possible to conceive of these problems as accidental. ODPM officials were certainly open to negotiating targets which benefited rural areas, as one put it: ‘We have no vested interest in what they do – rural, biodiversity, health – we don’t care. What we care is that they follow the process properly, that the evidence they’ve put forward stacks up’ Indeed, ODPM were keen to see that the absence of statistical evidence within individual government departments was resolved as quickly as possible. In this respect, the experience of LPSAs in these rural authorities might be considered as a congenital failing of government (Miller and Rose, 1990). Indeed, an important conclusion from this research is for a more comprehensive statutory evaluation of local authority performance in which a range of

1009

desirable outcomes can be tracked. Statistics need to be respatialised so that cross-cutting agendas join up priorities at local and national levels. It seems nonsensical, for example, that whilst the preservation of biodiversity is deemed a national priority, the absence of any sort of statutory indicator means it is impossible to judge progress against this priority (EFRA, 2004). This accidental interpretation has implications for agency within governmental networks. It suggests that in fact that government has lost control of its technology and it is the constitutive elements of these networks that determine the limits to government. In other words, this accidental interpretation conjures the image of governmental actors at local and central levels struggling to get statistical technologies under control, and in this case, ultimately losing to the policy direction embedded within them. The only way for government actors to control these spatialities is to retreat from outcomes to outputs, as witnessed in LPSA1. This brings a new dimension to the agency debate and signals the importance of focussing upon the subtle technologies within governmental networks. An alternative reading of these failings is that the spatiality of statistics rendered LPSAs to be both workable and durable. In short, whilst the governmental technologies underpinning LPSAs were compromised at the outset, they allowed central government to deliberately define what local governments should and should not be governing (cf. Higgins, 2004). For a centralising government intent on targeting resources on what matters, the over-riding of local with national priorities should not be surprising. Thus, whilst ODPM were nominally open-minded about rural dimensions to LPSAs, they appeared only in favour of this where they related to traditional services like education which performed poorly in rural areas. Moreover, officials suggested that ‘traditional’ services were more likely to be viewed as candidates for LPSA targets. Whilst there was ‘no presumption against biodiversity targets’ it was ‘not on high on the list’. Neither were officials prepared to ‘put a large bet on biodiversity making it as a target’ because set against crime or education it ‘clashed with instincts’ as to what local government’s priorities should be (all ODPM interviews). Indeed, when faced with the problem measuring issues like biodiversity, ODPM believed that issues like biodiversity were ‘rarely the most important thing going on in a particular authority – our hope is that no one ever proposes it’ Other evidence of an ODPM ‘secret list’ of local priorities came from local authority officers whose negotiations with ODPM often revealed this hidden subtext to LPSAs: ‘‘ODPM have already, I think, got a list of ideas they want to see included because the reaction to our draft submission document was, even though we said in it that this is a county council priority. . .The ODPM wrote back saying ‘‘I’m not quite sure why you should want to do this, we don’t see it as a priority’’. Now if things are like that, when they’ve said it was

1010

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011

about focusing on local priorities, you know, hey come on chaps where are you coming from here?’’ The enforcement of this ‘secret list’ benefited from ODPM’s ability to set the terms of the negotiation. Short lead-in times to the negotiation of targets meant that local authorities were restricted in their ability to select targets or research the availability of alternative evidence which might be used to construct targets which more accurately reflected rural local priorities. In fact, even where authorities had attempted original research to demonstrate a local priority, a ministerial steer away from survey findings meant that this evidence was ruled out. This suggests that LPSAs do demonstrate the continued power of central government actors to deliberately delimit policy priorities such that the local is dominated by the national. Central government actors defined the limits of governance, resistance to which was rendered futile by the fortunate coincidence of statistical spatialities. Whilst local actors may not have agreed with these representations, their only form of resistance could be in the form of passive ambivalence (cf. Wynne, 1992). The opportunity of performance related pay appeared too significant for any local authority to altogether pass up their LPSA, whether they agreed with its treatment of the local or not. In conclusion, by focussing on the objects and subjects of government, this analysis has revealed how the spatialities of statistics have facilitated central government control over local government’s priorities. The extent to which this local delimitation was deliberate, however, raises fundamental questions over agency within governmental networks, but confirms the need to focus on the materialities of government in order to understand policy implementation and central–local relations. Indeed, whilst LPSAs are in the vanguard of outcome-focussed government, a wider movement to outcome focussed government may mean these problems become more widespread. As a result, careful consideration should be given to the spatial and policy discriminations embedded within new and emergent technologies of government. Acknowledgement This paper is based on research funded by the Countryside Agency. Interpretation of results rests with the authors. References Abram, S., Murdoch, J., Marsden, T., 1998. Planning by numbers: migration and statistical governance. In: Boyle, P., Halfacree, K. (Eds.), Migration into Rural Areas. Theories and Issues. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, pp. 236–251. Alcock, P., 2004. Targets, indicators and milestones. What is driving areabased policy action in England? Public Management Review 6 (2), 211–227. Bell, S., Morse, S., 1999. Sustainability Indicators: Measuring the Immeasurable? Earthscan, London.

Bevir, M., 1999. Foucault, power and institutions. Political Studies XLVII, 345–359. Blair, T., 1998. Leading the Way. A new vision for local government. IPPR, London (352.14092B). Blowers, A., 2002. Political modernisation and the environmental question: the case for strategic planning. Local Government Studies 28 (2), 69–87. Boyne, G., Law, J., 2005. Setting public service outcome targets: lessons from Local Public Service Agreements. Public Money and Management 25 (4), 253–260. Countryside Agency (CA), 2004. State of the Countryside Report, 2004. Countryside Agency, Cheltenham. Callon, M., 1986. Some elements of a new sociology of translation. In: Law, J. (Ed.), Power Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 196–233. Clarke, J., Newman, J., 1997. The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare. Sage, London. Cloke, P., 1996. Rural Lifestyles: material opportunity, cultural experience and how theory undermined policy. Economic Geography 72 (4), 433– 449. Cloke, P., Milbourne, R., Widdowfield, R., 2001. Making the homeless count? Enumerating rough sleepers and the distortion of homelessness. Policy and Politics 29 (3), 259–279. Cowell, R., Martin, S., 2003. The joy of joining up: modes of integrating the local government modernisation agenda. Environment and Planning C 21, 159–179. De Bruijn, J.A., Ten Heuvelhof, E.F., 1997. Instruments for network management. In: Kickert, W.J.M., Klijn, E.H., Koppenjan, J.F.M. (Eds.), Managing Complex Networks Strategies for the Public Sector. Sage, London, pp. 119–136. DEFRA, 2004. Rural Strategy. DEFRA, London. Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA), 2004. Conserving the Jewels of England’s Natural Heritage. The Stationary Office, London. Entwistle, T., Laffin, M., 2003. The multiple strategies of the Local Government Association: partner, player and think-tank? Policy and Politics 31 (1), 37–50. Fleurke, F., Willemse, R., 2006. Measuring local autonomy: a decision making approach. Local Government Studies 32 (1), 71–87. Foucault, M., 1991. Governmentality. In: Burchell, G., Gordon, C., Miller, P. (Eds.), The Foucault Effect. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, pp. 87–104. Gordon, C., 1991. Government rationality: an introduction. In: Burchell, G., Gordon, C., Miller, P. (Eds.), The Foucault Effect. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London. Hacking, I., 1990. The Taming of Chance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hacking, I., 1999. The Social Construction of What? Havard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Hetherington, K., 1997. Museum topology and the will to connect. Journal of Material Culture 2 (2), 199–218. Higgins, V., 2004. Government as a failing organisation: regulating administrative conduct at a distance in Australia. Sociology 38 (3), 457–476. Hill, B., 2003. Rural Data and Rural Statistics. DEFRA, London. Home Office, 2004. Change Up: Capacity Building and Infrastructure Framework for the Voluntary and Community Sector. Home Office, London. Hood, C., 1991. A New Public Management for all seasons. Public Administration 69, 3–19. Jessop, B., 1990. State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in their Place. Blackwell, Oxford. Klijn, E.H., 2002. Governing networks in the hollow state. Public Management Review 4 (2), 149–165. Kravchuch, R., Schack, R., 1996. Designing effective performance measurement systems under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. Public Administration Review 56 (4), 348–358.

G. Enticott, T. Entwistle / Geoforum 38 (2007) 999–1011 Latour, B., 1987. Science in Action. Open University Press, Milton Keynes. Little, J., 2001. New rural governance? Progress in Human Geography 25 (1), 97–102. Little, J., Clements, J., Jones, O., 1998. Rural challenge and the changing culture of rural regeneration policy. In: Oatley, N. (Ed.), Cities Economic Competition and Urban Policy. Paul Chapman Publishing, London, pp. 127–145. Loughlin, M., 1996. Legality and Locality: the Role of Law in Central– Local Government Relations. Clarendon, Oxford. Lowe, P., Murdoch, J., 2003. Mediating the ‘national’ and the ‘local’ in the environmental policy process: a case study of the CPRE. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 21, 761–778. Miller, P., 1990. On the interrelations between accounting and the state. Accounting Organisations and Society 15 (4), 315–338. Miller, P., Rose, N., 1990. Governing economic life. Economy and Society 19 (1), 1–31. Murdoch, J., 1997. The shifting territory of government: some insights from the rural white paper. Area 29 (2), 109–118. Murdoch, J., 1998. The spaces of Actor-Network Theory. Geoforum 29 (4), 357–374. Murdoch, J., 2000. Space against time: competing rationalities in planning for housing. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25, 503–519. Murdoch, J., 2004. Putting discourse in its place: planning, sustainability and the urban capacity study. Area 36 (1), 50–58. Murdoch, J., Ward, N., 1997. Governmentality and territoriality The statistical manufacture of Britain’s ‘‘national farm’’. Political Geography 15 (4), 307–324.

1011

ODPM, 2004. LPSA 2G: Building on Success. A Guide to the Second Generation of Local Public Service Agreements. ODPM, London. Office of Public Services Reform [OPSR] 2002. Reforming Public Services: Principles into Practice. Cabinet Office, London. Osborne, D., Gaebler, T., 1992. Reinventing Government. Plume, London. Power, M., 1994. The Audit Explosion. Demos, London. Rhodes, R.A.W., 1988. Beyond Westminster and Whitehall. Unwin Hyman, London. Rhodes, R.A.W., 1997. From marketisation to diplomacy: it’s the mix that matters. Australian Journal of Public Administration 56 (2), 40–53. Robson, W.A., 1966. Local Government in Crisis. Allen and Unwin, London. Rose, N., 1991. Governing by numbers: figuring out democracy. Accounting, Organisation and Society 16, 673–692. Rose, N., 1993. Government, authority and expertise in advanced liberalism. Economy and Society 22, 283–299. Rose, N., 1999. The Powers of Freedom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Rose, N., Miller, P., 1992. Political power beyond the State: problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology 42, 202–223. Sanderson, I., 2001. Performance management, evaluation and learning in ‘modern’ local government. Public Administration 79 (2), 297–313. Scott, J.C., 1998. Seeing Like a State. Yale University Press, London. Stoker, G. (Ed.), 1999. The New Management of British Local Governance. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Stoker, G. (Ed.), 2000. The New Politics of British Local Governance. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Wynne, B., 1992. Misunderstood misunderstanding: social identities and public uptake of science. Public Understanding of Science 1, 281–304.