Evaluating the governance of design in the built environment - the CABE experiment and beyond

From its creation to its demise, CABE fronted a national drive for better design in the built environment. It was a unique organisation (worldwide) and a full understanding of its work and impact will be of international significance. This proposal, however, goes much further. It aims to use the experience of CABE as a means to illuminate some fundamental questions about the role, nature and legitimacy of design as a public policy tool and whether, how and to what degree the state should engage in such concerns in the future. Four key lines of enquiry will be traced:

o The toolbox - CABE represented an attempt, through 'active government', to address a perceived (although contested) failure of the market to recognise the importance of good design. But, given the absence of any statutory powers, CABE could be seen as the 'David' of design against the 'Goliath' of the property market. Despite this, CABE was able to deploy a range of potentially powerful tools to achieve its desired ends, including: evidence, publicity, information sharing, guidance, improvement tools, assistance, monitoring, persuading, coalition building, education, and evaluation. Each tool encompasses a complex set of endeavours and determining the relative significance, challenges and impact of such tools will provide valuable incites into the effectiveness of design governance processes and to where public policy and investment in this area should be focused in the future.
o Shifting governance - CABE's work was situated within a belief that by understanding the processes of design, generic principles might be derived to optimise the performance of players. CABE itself was also embedded within wider political and governance trends, demonstrating how evaluation of design governance needs to be situated within an understanding of this wider context. Today, as this context shifts, an understanding of recent episodes of design governance will throw light on potential future models in an area of public policy to be delivered across lower tiers of government, directly by communities, and with a less direct steer from the centre.
o Political context - The contemporary effort to address questions of design through public policy began in the mid-90s. This 'design agenda' prospered throughout the New Labour years, whilst in the run-up to the 2010 election the Conservatives re-committed themselves to the same goals, although not to CABE. Understanding this history, the motivations of those involved and the political consensus surrounding design, as well as it's fit within the evolving urban policy landscape will be critical to understanding the potential and likely trajectory of the design agenda in the future and how, to stay relevant, the practice of design governance will need to evolve with it.
o Design problematics - As the role, influence and size of CABE grew, so did criticisms; underlining the challenging nature of public policy in this area, and how design is different from many 'big ticket' policy remits in critical ways. Today, as urban policy moves to a localism agenda, design is likely to come increasingly to the fore, although now without a strong national voice to assist in the process. Evaluating the unique public policy characteristics and problematics of design in the built environment and how they have been addressed (or not) in the recent past will be critical to understanding how design might be addressed in the age of austerity and localism as well as to understanding the wider moral / societal case for such intervention in the future.

An inductive research methodology is proposed that journeys from the specifics of practice to a broad theory of design governance. Building on a completed pump-priming phase that safeguarded evidence prior to CABE's demise, a multi-dimensional impact analysis is now proposed in four stages: analytical framework; organisational interrogation; first-hand opinions; and impact & legacy analysis.

Capturing the CABE experience
The demise of CABE in 2011 and its replacement by the much smaller and more focussed Design Council CABE provides an important moment for a fundamental look at the design agenda, and an opportunity to use the experience of CABE as a window through which to illuminate the wider subject. The pump-priming project provided an opportunity to safeguard important documentary evidence, start to map programmes, outputs, etc., and to establish systems for retaining contact with key stakeholders to continue a dialogue. A first major impact of the research will simply be to understand the role and legacy of CABE and to safeguard knowledge of the CABE experiment for the future. Without a full and critical evaluation of its work, knowledge of this unique experience will be quickly lost.

Understanding design as a public policy tool
In tackling the two detailed evaluative questions, the empirical work will offer the opportunity for a dispassionate interrogation of the theoretical and pragmatic case for public sector engagement with the design agenda as represented in the two fundamental research questions. As such, the research will examine and critique a political accord on the importance of good design in the built environment shared by Governments since at least the mid 90s. Yet this has been an agenda that has also been notoriously difficult for policy makers to frame, or through which to reliably measure a tangible impact. An in-depth examination of the diverse programmes of CABE will provide an opportunity to examine the nature of design in public policy and to gauge which types of programmes are most effective at influencing outcomes. The evidence will help shape national, local and international policy in the future.

Learning the lessons to better influence design quality
Under Design Council CABE, national work on design review and some aspects of enabling will continue to be funded to the tune of £3 million a year. The devolved administrations also have their own arrangements for delivering on this agenda. Moreover, in spite of cut backs in local government, ongoing processes of design review and enabling will continue to attract many millions in public funding year on year, with all parts of England (except London) covered by a Regional design review panel, and over 50 local authorities having their own panels. Learning the lessons from the most wide-ranging experiment in methods and processes for influencing the quality of the built environment will therefore be critical to understanding the impact of these services and maximising their effectiveness in the future. In the context of the localism agenda which aims to empower community groups to prepare neighbourhood plans, the lessons will be all the more relevant.

Extending the knowledge to related fields
As well as a direct impact in the field covered by this research, the lessons from CABE have the potential to influence practice in a range of allied areas where similar processes of evidence, publicity, information sharing, guidance, improvement tools, assistance, monitoring, persuading, coalition building, education, and qualitative evaluation are underway. These include the heritage area, regeneration, evaluation of lottery / charity projects, architectural competitions, major infrastructure assessments, and other design-related programmes, such as those elsewhere in the Design Council.

Building on the Bishop Review
In 2011 the quick-fire Bishop Review was published, launched to efficiently scope the field and establish a strategic direction for Design Council CABE. Its recommendations cover the future potential of Design Council CABE and go far beyond. A compelling case is made, for example, to build a much stronger and longer-term research agenda in this field. The current proposal responds to that recommendation and in a more fundamental manner will continue the investigation that the Bishop Review began.