My research into policy practice was motivated by the problem I had both reflecting on, and talking about, what I did as a local government mid-level official in England, UK.

It therefore came as a great relief when I read this quote in Beryl Radin’s US-based book about policy analysts:

“They seem to need a language to describe what they do and to convince themselves – as well as others – that they contribute to the process” (Radin, 2013, p. 221)

It seemed I wasn’t alone.

I have now read a lot of conceptual and research literature.  Between 2016 and 2018, I also carried out primary research in the form of an action research study in England, UK.  I now have a deeper understanding and a language to talk about policy practice, what influences its enactment, and how it does, or should, develop.

This site aims to share the language in anticipation that it helps to reflect on practice, generate conversations between practitioners, and, explain that practice to others.

What I mean by local policy practice

In a sense, this is what the whole website is about!  But, just in case you want to know if it is worth engaging further….

Local policy practice is the practice that is enacted by people I refer to as local policy practitioners.  By this, I do not only mean people who have the word policy in their job title or team name.  Lots of people can enact policy practice even though they do not necessarily explicitly call it that.

I am focussed on those people who:

• work at a local government level, whether in the local authority, other public organisations, the third sector, or, the private sector.
• engage in policy processes as part of their paid employment in a professional capacity
• are in non-partisan roles
• work at a mid-level

So in drawing that boundary I am excluding:

• those who wholly work at sub-national or national government levels
• those who are engaging in policy processes in an unpaid way as social activists
• local politicians
• senior officials, and, front-line staff.

I fully recognise that these people are vital policy participants, it’s just that, for now, I would like to shine the light on the policy practice of those mid-level, non-partisan, paid practitioners who tend to get overlooked.

Both the terms policy and practice are elusive terms which are subject to multiple, potentially conflicting perspectives, but that is for the rest of this website and the ongoing conversation.

Helen Wilding, July 2020

Reference

Local policy practice by Helen Wilding is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.