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Rsa newcastle presentation draft 2
This document summarizes a research paper about how the planning system in London is addressing shortages of school places. It discusses the tensions that have arisen between central and local governments due to education reforms that have increased central control over schools while local governments still have control over spatial planning. A case study of the London Borough of Bromley found that while local education authorities are finding new ways to fulfill their duty to provide school places, better balance is needed between central and local responsibilities and resources to prevent shortages.
Rsa newcastle presentation draft 2
- 1. How is theplanning system addressing the shortage of school places in London? The example of the London Borough of Bromley David Kingman PhD Researcher, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
- 2. Introduction “…a combination ofrising pupil populations, spiraling building costs and lack of available land is putting increasing pressure on London boroughs to provide places for pupils” London Councils (2014) 3,302 3,993 2,884 3,282 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,500 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Projected number of pupils at state-funded primary and secondary schools in England, 2009-2024, thousands Primary Pupils Secondary Pupils
- 3. Theoretical Framework –“New Institutionalism” Key concept: The “Organisational Field” – a complex problem affecting multiple stakeholders to which they each bring different beliefs, approaches and goals (Hoffman, 1999) Powell (2008) argued that the explanations for how different actors within an organisational field behave can be sorted into three groups: • Coercive – i.e. based on formal rules and laws; • Normative – i.e. based on dominant attitudes and patterns of behaviour within each institution, and; • Cultural – i.e. instilled by the fundamental design or purpose of an institutional structure.
- 4. Institution Function Policies Central Government– The Department for Education • (Pre-2010) Distributes funding to LEAs; formulates national education policy • (Post-2010) Provides direct funding for new schools and school places; approves or rejects proposals for new schools; supplies land and buildings for new schools • 2010 Academies Act • 2011 Education Act • Permitted Development (PD) rights allowing the conversion of almost any other type of building into a free school for its first academic year, and permanent conversions of offices, hotels, residential institutions and community facilities into permeant free schools without full planning applications Local Education Authorities (LEAs) • (Pre-2010) Legal duty to provide a school place for each child; responsible for day-today funding and operation of most schools; directly builds new schools • (Post-2010) Legal duty to provide a school place for each child; no formal role in approving or running free schools or academies • Differing degrees of acceptance towards the Academies and free schools agenda Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) • (Pre-2010) Plans for social infrastructure within local area by creating a Local Plan; grants planning permission for new schools and school expansion • (Post-2010) Same functions as previously, but authority is constrained by central government permitted development rights • Set out local development policies in the Local Plans covering each area, including allocating sites for schools Education Providers • (Pre-2010) Day-to-day running of individual schools, mostly under direct control of local authorities • (Post-2010) Many schools freed from local authority control; encouraged to be entrepreneurial • Almost 4,500 existing schools convert to academy status by 2015 • 318 new Free Schools created by 2015
- 5. Literature Review: “laisse-fairelocalism?” (Hodgson and Spours, 2012) Maps showing the administrative geography of Regional Schools Commissioners (left) and Local Education Authorities (right)
- 6. Methodology • 8 semi-structured,face-to-face qualitative interviews with key individuals in the main case study area • Expert or “elite” interviews (Dexter, 1970) - 8 individuals were all representatives of the 4 key institutions who comprised the organisational field • Data from interviews were coded in accordance with Powell (2008)’s classification of factors which explain institutional behavior • Methodological triangulation (Bryman, 2011) was employed by assessing what the interviewees said against my analysis of a set of official documents and datasets to test its degree of subjectivity
- 7. Case Study: TheLondon Borough of Bromley Maps showing the Bromley’s position in relation to the rest of the UK and London (left) and the area of Bromley which is covered by either Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land (right)
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- 11. Conclusions/Recommendations • Post-2010 planningand education reforms contain several fundamental tensions which have led to increased conflicts between different institutional actors: 1. Between central government control of creating new schools and local government control of spatial planning; 2. Between the idea of comprehensive spatial planning which predominates within LPAs and the normative belief in improving public services through competition which predominates in central government; 3. Between local governments’ statutory duty to provide school places and central government’s monopoly on approving new schools 4. Between the idea of decentralising power over running schools to local communities and the way that this has been achieved by increasing the powers of central government and markets at the expense of elected local governments. • The case study of Bromley suggested that LEAs are finding new ways of working with other institutions to fulfill their statutory duties, but the division of responsibilities and resources between central and local government needs to be better balanced in order to prevent a shortage of school places from occurring.
- 12. • Bryman, A.(2011) “Triangulation” In: Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. and Liao, T. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Social Science Research Methods Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications • Clarke, N. and Cochrane, A. (2013) “Geographies and politics of localism: The localism of the United Kingdom's coalition government” Political Geography, 34, 10–23 • Dexter, L.A. (1970) Elite and Specialized Interviewing Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press • Education Select Committee (2015) Academies and free schools: Fourth Report of Session 2014-15 London: House of Commons • Feigin, J. R., Orum, A. M., and Sjoberg, G. (1991) A case for case study Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press • Hodgson, A. and Spours, K. (2012) “Three versions of ‘localism’: implications for upper secondary education and lifelong learning in the UK” Journal of Education Policy, 27, 2, 193– 210 • Hoffman, A. (1999) “Institutional Evolution and Change: Environmentalism and the U.S. Chemical Industry” The Academy of Management Journal, 42, 4, 351-371 • London Councils (2014) Do the Maths 2014 London: London Councils • March, J. and Olsen, J. (1984) “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life” The American Political Science Review, 78, 3, 734–749 • Powell, W. (2008) “The New Institutionalism” In: Clegg, S. and Bailey, J. (eds.) International Encyclopaedia of Organization Studies London: Sage, 977–978 • Rodriguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2003) “The global trend towards devolution and its implications” Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 23, 333351 • Schoolsweek (2015) Regional Schools Commissioners: your guide to who, what and where... London: Schoolsweek • Servillo, L.A. and Broeck, P. (2012) “The Social Construction of Planning Systems: A Strategic- Relational Institutionalist Approach” Planning Practice & Research 27, 1, 41-61 References
Editor's Notes
- #2 Originally written as MSc dissertation project Addresses a number of important questions in relation to planning for urban infrastructure and the power relationships within urban governance networks The relationships between different actors were explored using a New Institutionalist framework
- #3 - Since early 2000s, England (especially London) has experienced a substantial ”baby boom” which is putting increasing pressure on English local authorities to deliver new school places A 2015 Department for Education (DfE) forecast of pupil numbers in England shows that between 2009 and 2024 they expect pupils attending state-funded schools at primary level to rise by 691,000, and at secondary level by 398,000 Key point: Rise in pupil numbers has coincided with dramatic changes to government policy covering both planning and education, which have significantly altered the division of powers, responsibilities and resources among the assemblage of actors which is responsible for creating new school places
- #5 - A regime of four key institutions were identified which have to interact within the “organisational field” for the delivery of new school places within England; Key point (1): This organisational field has been severely disrupted since 2010 by the passage of the 2010 Academies Act, which created academies and free schools – schools would no longer be funded and operated directly by local government, but would instead be funded by central government and have a much higher degree of autonomy, following a logic of stimulating market competition in school provision Key point (2): Processes of decentralisation tend to divide resources and responsibilites unevenly between different tiers of governance (Rodirguez-Pose & Gill, 2002); following these reforms the legal duty to provide enough school places remains with local authoriites, but the power to create new school places now rests with central government
- #6 © Parliamentary Copyright & Crown Copyright Key Point (1): The main theme emerging from a review of the existing policy and academic literature was the apparent tension between centralism and localism which appears to characterise post-2010 education and planning policy; free schools were marketed by the government as part of its broader agenda of decentralization and returning powers to civil society at the grass-roots scale, for example by enabling to take over their local schools; however, the specific tools which central government has used to achieve these aims has led to its agenda being dubbed “laisse-faire localism” because they are explicitly designed to devolve power to markets rather than representative institutions of local government (Clarke and Cochrane, 2012) Key Point (2): This tension is manifested especially in the governance of the physical environment; previously local authorities would have allocated sites where new schools would be located as part of planning comprehensively for social infrastructure, whereas now central government effectively decides where they will go as it selects and purchases sites for them; local authorities effectively retain sovereignty over granting planning permission for schools within their areas, but the government’s new permitted development rights for free schools have greatly undermined their capacity to dictate where they can and can’t go; this suggests an important shift has occurred in the balance of power over planning in favour of central government which appears to be in tension with the government’s wider advocacy of devolving power to local communities This is illustrated by the different geographies of governance which are used by central and local government to run schools
- #8 The London Borough of Bromley was chosen as the case study because it presented an interesting combination of problems which are fairly typical of other London boroughs (a significant need for extra school places and a shortage of potential sites) alongside additional sui generis factors, such as the borough’s large amounts of protected green open space and its particularly rapid adoption of the academies and free school agenda Bromley Council acts as both the LEA and the LPA within Bromley, but these two functions are delivered by separate teams of officers and operate within different legislative and policy contexts Planning context: ”Bromley Paradox" – largest borough by area but one of the smallest totals of developable land because of Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land Education context: LEA policy closely follows national policy; rapid adoption of academies and free schools and heavy political priority placed on offering marketised school choice to parents
- #9 Key Point (1): The main finding which hadn’t been anticipated by the Institutionalist theoretical framework was that all the interviewees considered dominant public attitudes within Bromley to be extremely hostile towards any new development, particularly housing and schools; it was a widely-held belief that affluent older residents use Bromley’s powerful Residents’ Associations to dominate the local planning system through their elected councillors; this goes back to another aspect of New Institutionalism, Servillo and Broeck’s (2012) “Institutional Frame” - a background influence which affects decision- making for all the institutions and impacts on their relationships; Key Point (2): As anticipated, the interviews did reveal that the different institutions within this organisational frame are influenced by a range of different factors (summarised in Venn Diagram); major tension between Bromley LEA (driven by coercive pressure of statutory duty to provide a school place for every child), Bromley LPA (driven by a cultural belief in comprehensive spatial planning) and Conservative political actors at both the central and local levels (influenced by normative beliefs about the superiority of market-based competition in school education)
- #10 Key Point (3) – Spatial governance has become the key locus of the tensions between the different institutions; chart above shows the formal roles of different governance actors within the system of creating free schools; next chart indicates informal roles which have emerged during the initial phase of the new policy
- #11 Key Point (4) – The planning system has enabled the London Borough of Bromley to retain a much greater influence over the creation of new schools than the central government had intended because both education providers and the central government often consults with them on finding new sites, including ones under Council ownership (as indicated within chart). However, they can only influence the location of new schools indirectly, and have few formal powers which would enable them to force a new school to locate in an area where there is a shortage of places or prevent a new one from being located where there is an over-supply.