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Planning and the policy cycle. “Planning is a public function. Its purpose is to promote a more convenient, attractive and equitable pattern of development than the kind of development produced through unregulated markets” (Self in Gleeson and Low2000, 217). Planning and the policy cycle.
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Planning and the policy cycle “Planning is a public function. Its purpose is to promote a more convenient, attractive and equitable pattern of development than the kind of development produced through unregulated markets” (Self in Gleeson and Low2000, 217).
Planning and the policy cycle • Government - formal institutions of public discussion, planning, decision-making and administration • Governance - the set of formal and informal institutions within and beyond government, providing the conditions for ordered rule and collective action
Structures and functions of government • Government has three official structural components • legislative, judicial, executive • The Executive • Ministerial and agency activities in chains of accountability • Cabinet function • clearinghouse • information exchange • arbitration • decisions • coordination • guardianship of strategies
Structures and functions of government • Public servants • providers of service delivery, administration, policy advice to Ministers and Parliament • ‘apolitical’ • Government also has three functional components • government as politics - politicians, parties, advisors • government as policy - goals, strategies, directions embracing wider public sector • government as administration - service delivery, law enforcement
Planning and the policy cycle Planning as domain of governance • concerned with provision of services Planning as approach to governance • seeking democratic, equitable and effective steering of state apparatus for benefit of citizens The role of public policy • course of action adopted using rational means; government; polity
Planning and the policy cycle Public policy is • intentional and designed • decisions, consequences • structured, orderly • political and administrative • dynamic • problem/process/innovation orientation • complex • value laden • created amidst uncertainty (risk)
Planning and policy actors “Policy is a discontinuous series of actions, played out simultaneously across multiple arenas, given unity only through the selection and synthesis of a narrator” (Bridgman and Davis, 1998, 27) Who is the narrator? Who speaks for whom, in what contexts, using what language, demeanour and style, to what ends and with what effects?