OFFICER‐MEMBER RELATIONS IN COUNTY‐LEVEL POLICY‐MAKING FOR RURAL AREAS: THE CASE OF THE GLQUCESTERSHIRE STRUCTURE PLAN

In: Public administration: an international journal, Volume 65, Issue 1, p. 25-43

Abstract

Studies of rural planning have only recently begun to focus on concepts of policy‐making and implementation which have been developed in urban and regional contexts. Although recognizing the need for inter‐organizational frameworks, this paper investigates one particular factor in policy‐making – officer‐member relations – as illustrated in the structure plan‐making process of Gloucestershire County Council. Through a partnership between senior officers who were able to orchestrate decision‐making, and elite members who provided political support for technical policy justifications, a form of directed policy consensus was reached. The consensus in this particular structure plan was marked by the prominence of a political‐bureaucratic goal to provide policy‐responses to rural problems. This theme was diluted, however, when the plan moved from the local to the central arena of power.