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Delivering Public Services: Locality, Learning and Reciprocity in Place Based Practice
Author(s) -
Marsh Ian,
Crowley Kate,
Grube Dennis,
Eccleston Richard
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.12230
Subject(s) - reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , corporate governance , indigenous , locality , public administration , principal (computer security) , repertoire , political science , policy learning , general partnership , public relations , wicked problem , sociology , economics , computer science , law , management , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , machine learning , anthropology , acoustics , biology , operating system
Policymakers across myriad jurisdictions are grappling with the challenge of complex policy problems. Multi‐faceted, complex, and seemingly intractable, ‘wicked’ problems have exhausted the repertoire of the standard policy approaches. In response, governments are increasingly looking for new options, and one approach that has gained significant scholarly interest, along with increasing attention from practitioners, is ‘place‐based’ solutions. This paper surveys conceptual aspects of this approach. It describes practices in comparable jurisdictions – the United Kingdom, the EU, and the United States. And it explores efforts over the past decade to ‘localise’ Indigenous services. It sketches the governance challenge in migrating from top‐down or principal‐agent arrangements towards place‐based practice. The paper concludes that many of the building blocks for this shift already exist but that these need to be re‐oriented around ‘learning’. Funding and other administrative protocols may also ultimately need to be redefined.