Narrating Policy - How Narratives Inform Policy (Panel) (1/16/2017)

Narrating Policy - How Narratives Inform Policy (Panel) *Policy Narratives and the Creation of City Technology Colleges Programme* - Dr Elizabeth Cookingham Bailey (LSE) This paper looks at the language and ideas used by policymakers surrounding the creation of the City Technology Colleges policy in 1986. This paper explores how policymakers drew on broader 1980s conservative narratives regarding secondary education in England, particularly regarding ideas of choice and diversity, the aims and purposes of education, and funding and management. This paper also considers the influence of narratives used by external interest groups on internal Conservative Government policy discussion. The elements of the policy and the ideas referenced by actors are examined to determine how they reflected the narratives used in contemporary thinking. This paper draws on archival materials and published documents as well as a select number of interviews with key policymakers. The findings of this paper underscore the consistency of narratives used by conservatives throughout this period, including those that underlay this policy. *A Forward View of Better Care: Analysing the Narrative Content and Structure of English Policy on Integrated Care* - Dr Gemma Hughes (University of Oxford) Demand for improved health and social care services in England is increasing, at the same time as public expenditure on these services is reducing. A key health policy response to this conundrum is the creation of new models of integrated care to reduce demand, including hospital admissions, through organisational changes. However, evaluations of integrated care programmes are yet to show that providing care ‘closer to home’ can consistently reduce hospital admissions, and therefore costs. I draw on an ethnographic case study of the experience and practice of integrated care within its organisational, social, political and policy context to answer the question of how the policy of integrated care has such resonance, despite a lack of supporting evidence. Informed by interpretive policy analysis, I examine the narrative content and structure of policy documents to find an over-arching narrative about integrated care that acts to reconcile conflicting pressures, and, in its optimism, negates findings of empirical studies. 'Narrating Policy: Exploring Narrative in Policy and Policy Analysis' was a one-day symposium held at the University of Leeds, organised by James Beresford and Ashley R. Bullard, doctoral researchers in the School of Sociology and Social Policy. The day was dedicated to the various and variegated ways narrative and narrative analysis informs policy and policy analysis. The symposium was sponsored by the Leeds Social Science Institution and the Sociology and Social Policy’s Policy Research Cluster.

Dr Elizabeth Cookingham Bailey

1/16/2017 10:21:29 AM