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PLANS AND PRACTICE: THE PARTICIPANTS' VIEWS
Author(s) -
GLENNERSTER H.,
KORMAN N.,
MARSLENWILSON F.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9299.1983.tb00520.x
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , pessimism , politics , perception , local authority , public relations , public administration , political science , psychology , sociology , law , philosophy , epistemology , neuroscience
This article is the result of some extensive and lengthy interviews with officers in local and health authorities in two London boroughs. It focuses on their attitudes to resource planning and inter‐authority collaboration in the provision of services for two priority groups — the elderly and the mentally handicapped. The interviews were undertaken in 1980, in the aftermath of the tighter financial climate that followed the 1979 election, and fieldwork continued until 1981. Officers’ views were tested against models of inter‐authority activity drawn from varied literatures. Most officers turned out to have drawn extremely pessimistic conclusions from their experiences. The bureaucratic politics paradigm predominated. Very few participants had come to terms with what planning could mean in a period of declining resources. Most still thought of planning as what to do with the increment and saw little point in planning if there were no increments. However, there were interesting differences between the perceptions of NHS staff and local authority officers, and between those in different kinds of post.