《Delivering joined–up government in the UK dimensions》.pdf

ARTICLES DELIVERING JOINED-UP GOVERNMENT IN THE UK: DIMENSIONS, ISSUES AND PROBLEMS TOM LING In the UK, joined-up government (JUG) was a central part of the first Blair govern- ment’s programme for public sector reform. It remains a pivotal, if more muted, feature of the second term. We will identify the range of disparate activities that have been branded as ‘joined up’. We then look at the variety of official guidance coming from the centre of government to highlight the overlapping and competing strategies that underpinned the implementation of joined-up government. Various competing strategies have been advocated and implemented at any one time. There- fore the situation was more fluid and more contested than might be inferred from the use of the homogenizing term ‘joined-up government’. We conclude by briefly considering what this implies for our understanding of intra-state relationships, of the relationships between public agencies and civil society, and the relationship between JUG and the politics of the Third Way. INTRODUCTION For the first term of the Blair Government, joined-up government (JUG) was a central objective of public sector reform. Much was expected of it and much was claimed on its behalf. The agenda of public reform is now moving on to a focus on ‘delivery’ and ‘quality services’ rather than ‘mod- ernizing government’. However, joined-up government continues to play an important part in this new wave of public reforms. Therefore, both in relation to assessing the early stages of ‘Third Way’ public sector reform and also in assessing future reforms, this is a timely moment to reflect on the meaning and implications of the term ‘joined-up government’. Tom Ling is Senior Research Fellow, National Audit Office in the UK and Reader in Public Policy, Anglia Polytechnic University. Public Administration Vol. 80 No. 4, 2002 (615–642)