Part IV
MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE:
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS ABOVE
AND BELOW WHITEHALL AND
WESTMINSTER 1
Part III of this book has concentrated almost
exclusively on British central government –
government and politics around the world of
Whitehall and Westminster. As far as older books
on British government were concerned, this was
almost all that mattered. After all, the United
Kingdom was a unitary state, and the
Westminster Parliament was deemed sovereign.
Although there was local government, this was
clearly subordinate, constitutionally and in reality,
to central government. In terms of the
constitution, and it appeared in terms of real
power, there was little below Whitehall and
Westminster and nothing above.
However today British government and
politics appear far more fragmented, multi-
layered and complex. Fragmentation in
government and policy making has taken place
across two dimensions, vertical and horizontal.
First, there is now a substantial and increasing
input into British government and politics
from both above and below Westminster and
Whitehall – most conspicuously from the
European Union (Chapter 15) on the one hand
and from devolved national and regional
governance (Chapter 16) and local governance
(Chapter 17) on the other. Policies that affect
the people of Britain are now made at a
number of levels, even if the UK level remains
much the most important.
But besides this obvious vertical fragmentation of
the policy making process, there is secondly also a
horizontal fragmentation which cuts across each
layer of this new multi-level governance.
Government at each level no longer appears
singular and monolithic (Whitehall or the
council) but diverse and fragmented, with a mass
of departments, quangos, executive agencies
competing and cooperating. Increasingly the label
‘governance’ is preferred because it encompasses,
not just government institutions, but the whole
political process which surrounds decision
making. Much of this process requires cooperation
between various government departments and
agencies, the private sector, voluntary bodies and
community interests. Sometimes it involves
formal public–private partnerships or elaborate
policy networks. Moreover these levels of
governance are overlapping and interdependent. It
is generally impossible to divide up neatly services
and policy areas and assign them exclusively to a
particular level of government.
Today a new British state seems to be in the
process of emerging, yet its final shape is far from
clear. Nor has it altogether yet displaced the
traditional framework of British government
outlined in Part III. In Chapter 19 we explore the
complexity that is modern British governance,
and examine various ways in which this new
emerging state might be characterised.