Policy Studies and Social Policy in Britain

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe recent debate about the establishment of a ‘British Brookings’ involved a number of fundamental issues which were not brought out. In fact the idea that the British policy-making process should be made more ‘rational’ through the development of what are sometimes called policy studies is not new. It has roots in the Heyworth Report on social studies, which recommended greater use of social research in policy-making, and in the Fulton Report on the civil service, which argued for more policy-planning. These two approaches may now be seen as basically the same, and the problem as one of changing the relationship between social science and (social) policy. However, past analyses of this relationship attribute difficulties to quite different causes and hence yield a variety of prescriptions for reform. It is argued here that the policy studies which are needed must avoid the disciplinary fragmentation of the social sciences as well as that of the current administrative structure, that they must encompass research both for policy and on policy, and that they must seek their own conceptual structure, and in addition that certain organizational requirements follow from this.