New Political Spaces? Enhancing the Legitimacy of Delegated Agencies

This research project will examine how to improve the legitimacy of delegated agencies. Examples of delegated agencies range from Non-ministerial Departments like the Forestry Commission, to Non-departmental Public Bodies such as the Environment Agency, and European agencies like the European Banking Authority. These agencies or 'quangos' offer a range of practical benefits such as meeting long-term policy commitments, instituting expertise in policymaking, and helping to reduce overload on central government. At the same time, however, they often suffer from problems relating to their democratic legitimacy, as they cannot claim the same electoral mandate as politicians. This research project will examine ways in which the legitimacy of agencies can be improved, or made more robust, and hence how the benefits they have for governance can be maximised. In particular, the research looks at how legitimacy can be enhanced via external engagement with stakeholders, the media, and the wider public, focusing on six delegated agencies at the UK and EU levels in three policy areas (health technology regulation, disease control and prevention, and food safety). Through a mixture of surveys of stakeholders, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of media coverage and agency documents, the research will examine what strategies agencies have for engaging with the public, and whether those strategies help improve trust and confidence in the agencies. The project will then produce recommendations for how agencies may adopt improved strategies for engagement to enhance public trust and confidence and increase their levels of legitimacy. Workshops with agencies and policy documents will be produced to help agencies implement the recommendations from the project. Moreover, the PI will engage more widely with the public by holding a public event, writing online blog posts, and producing a factual documentary on the issue of legitimacy in contemporary governance, translating the specific academic themes of the project into broader topics of discussion for enhancing public knowledge and understanding of complex forms of delegated governance.

In order to achieve impact the project will pursue strategies in both the policy and wider public realms, as follows (see pathways to impact):

Firstly, in order to enhance impact and facilitate the aims of institutional learning across policy spheres and levels of governance, three workshops will be held in Sheffield bringing all agencies involved in the study together to: discuss initial research design; receive feedback and suggestions on survey questions, provide results of an initial analysis and discuss issues raised and collect comments on findings, and discuss the policy document produced by the PI. These workshops will provide an initial base for achieving impact, and can then be 'rolled out' to address stakeholder engagement in other delegated agencies at the national and European levels. In order to facilitate this 'rolling out' of findings to other agencies, the PI will draw on contacts within the UK Cabinet Office, in particular Ross Neilson, at the Efficiency and Reform Group, who has expressed interest in developing measures of stakeholder engagement for the Cabinet Office's independent 'What works' Institutes. In particular, the PI will produce a document detailing the methodology used to measure external legitimacy, which will provide a framework for delegated agencies to track their own levels of trust and confidence from stakeholders and can be distributed via the Cabinet Office. To enable dissemination at the EU level and internationally, the PI will draw on an international network (see Case for Support), for example, presenting findings at the Notre Europe think tank (headed by Renaud Dehousse) and the Utrecht School of Governance (where Mark Bovens is Chair of Public Administration), which has close links to European civil servants.

In terms of wider public relevance of this project relating to the broader issue of legitimacy, the PI will use general insights from the study to generate an impact in three distinctive and innovative ways. Firstly, the PI will develop an innovative and original proposal for a documentary to be screened at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival (Doc/fest). Doc/fest is an internationally renowned showcase for documentary films and will create vast opportunities for impact and engagement previously unavailable to an academic project of this kind. The specific documentary proposal will be entitled 'Who Runs Europe?' and will seek to inform the audience in an easy and accessible manner about the roles, responsibilities and competencies of delegated agencies, as well as raising broader debates about the nature of accountability, responsibility and legitimacy in a multi-level political system. In order to develop the skills necessary to make the documentary, the PI will hire a documentary mentor, provided by Doc/fest, to run four two hour one-to-one sessions over three months. The PI will report on his experience of documentary making via the Political Studies Association's blog and newsletter, and suggest how other political scientists may use documentaries as an impact tool. Secondly, the PI will seek to write a column in the Guardian Public Leaders Network on stakeholder engagement and legitimacy. Thirdly, the PI will hold an event open to the public entitled 'A New Politics', to discuss new ways of improving the local and national political system and improving accountability and legitimacy. The one day event will be based at Firth Court and will invite members from up to 30 local community groups (such as youth organisations, religious bodies, and campaign groups) to a discussion with local politicians and academics from the University. This event will be run in conjunction with, and partially funded by, the PSA special group on Anti-politics and Depoliticisation, co-founded by the PI. In order to achieve these aims the PI will have the substantial backing of the newly established Crick Centre at Sheffield Politics Department.