In my recent interviews on the PV industry in the UK, it became clear that the “government” could refer to any number of departments. For industry though, government is widely taken to be unified actor capable of taking almost any action once the appropriate decision is made. Respondents therefore concluded that poor progress on microgeneration can be blamed largely on a lack of committment in Whitehall.
There’s certainly an element of truth to this but reading I’ve been doing on “joined-up goverment” (JUG) makes it clear that even if one department (or the executive) wanted to push ahead with microgeneration, it would still have to convince a number of other agencies within government, each with their own concerns and priorities. It’s not simply a matter of calling up the relevant department and saying “please”.
However one of the promises of New Labour was that government would be transformed into a lean, mean, multi-tasking machine capable of addressing this kind of cross-cutting issue with ease. Unfortunately this hasn’t really happened in energy policy (or other areas of policy) with the exception of the creation of SEPN. 1
In the case of microgeneration, industry respondents indicated three possible policies that could lead to significant growth in the microgeneration sector. As the table below shows, each policy requires the cooperation of at least one other department even if the DTI decided to push ahead.
| Policy | Department |
|---|---|
| Feed-in tariff | Ofgem, Treasury |
| Large grant programme | Treasury |
| Building regulations2 | ODPM |
There will be other parties involved as well but it’s important to note the central role of the Treasury: as Exworthy and Powell put it, ‘not just first among equals, but the sun around which other spending departments revolve’. Arguably this is where lobbying efforts should be directed rather than talking to other departments which may already be committed in principle.
1 For the more academically minded out there, the following are good analyses of joined-up government in the UK:
- Exworthy and Powell (2004) Big windows and little windows: implementation in the congested state. Public Administration. 82(2): 263-281
- Munton (1997) Engaging sustainable development: some observations on progress in the UK. Progress in Human Geography. 21(2): 147-163.
- Butler (2000) The Third Way project in Britain: the role of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit. Politics. 20(3): 153-159.
2 See this post for a recent obstacle to the building regulations approach.
