Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/80236 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
CSERGE Working Paper EDM No. 07-01
Publisher: 
University of East Anglia, The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), Norwich
Abstract: 
Joined-up government (JUG) is a major pillar of the Labour Government's Modernising Government agenda in the United Kingdom (UK). To date, however, there are still surprisingly few detailed empirical studies of how well JUG initiatives are performing. This paper takes the policy challenge of sustainable development, which incorporates economic, social and environmental elements, as a critical test of JUG. It does so by empirically examining how well sustainable development is integrated into mainstream sectoral policy making through the application of policy appraisal in the areas of energy, defence and public spending. Overall, it demonstrates that joining-up by centralized means has been unable to override the forces of departmentalism, which are shown to be deeply rooted in departments' approaches to policy appraisal. It then argues that addressing this problem will require a carefully designed package of centralised initiatives to minimize departmental discretion, and a series of more diffuse tools and administrative capacities to encourage departmental policy makers to coordinate. Without such a two pronged approach, Labour's pursuit of more joined-up policy making may be severely undermined.
Subjects: 
joined-up government
policy appraisal
policy coordination
Sustainable Development
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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