Introduction

This chapter offers a general overview of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's education policy (2010–15) and attends to some specific features and trends. It has not been possible to comment directly on early years, further and higher education as our emphasis here is on the compulsory sector. However, the main trends and emphases with coalition policy were played out in those other sectors in specific ways. We also point to some of the relationships between coalition education policy and that of the Conservative government elected in May 2015 and offer some initial thoughts on the first 100 days of the new government.

One of the key things that we emphasise is continuity and change, that is, how coalition policy both built upon the policies of New Labour and also shifted the rhetorical and discursive problem-space of policy along some different lines. Related to this, we also address some of the continuing tensions within education policy that, while long and fraught, in the current context, can in part be traced back to the ‘landmark’ Conservative education reforms in the 1980s, and the Education Reform Act 1988 in particular.

One way of thinking about continuities and changes is through the notion of the ‘policy ratchet’ (Ball, 2008). This refers to the small and incremental moves whereby certain modes of policy thinking and practice become naturalised and necessary, the ways in which policy is colonised and informed by logical rationalities in which certain discursive and practical possibilities are opened up, embedded and intensified, with the consequence that what may have once seemed impossible or simply unthinkable becomes sensible, obvious and inevitable. This colonisation of thought is not simply epistemological; it is also a material process whereby certain voices and educational purposes are attributed value and legitimacy over and against others, and includes the posing and enactment of particular policy solutions for tackling social problems. These social problems are themselves mediated discursively, and a general election is one ‘event’ where ‘policy windows’ (Kingdon, 1995) are opened for new ideas and new trajectories, but also for further ratcheting. Indeed, the ratcheting of policy is perhaps never more apparent than around the time of a general election, although what was significant this time around was that education was not a key battleground for political positioning and point-scoring, and not a key arena over which the election was fought.

In this chapter we will draw together some of the main themes and issues addressed in the previous chapters and return to some key questions and difficulties signalled previously. In particular we seek to answer, or at least tackle, the very basic questions invested in the object of this analysis – network governance. That is, can we make a case for the shift from government to governance, at least in relation to education, and thus can we distinguish between networks and network governance (Parker, 2007, p 114)? Concomitantly, can we specify the work of network governance in relation to the examples presented? In other words, how does governance get done? Our research and analysis work has sought both to trace networks – their social morphology – and identify networking – the work within and of networks. Börzel (1997, p 1) says that that is what ‘a theoretically ambitious policy network approach’ must do. Crucially, as Parker suggests, ‘in order for networks to be regarded as a form of governance they must play a role in steering, setting directions and influencing behaviour’ (Parker, 2007, p 114). We believe that we have been able to offer plenty of evidence in our examples of all three (see below). Parker (p 115) goes on to elaborate the grounds for identifying ‘networked governance’ in Table 6.1.

Sharing, connectivity, reflexivity, density, breadth and trust are the key indicators here of functioning governance networks. We will discuss these and other factors in relation to the networks and social relations we have outlined. We will also return to the issue of the changing role and modalities of the state and changes in its steering capacity and think again about how ‘new’ all of this is. Finally, we argue here that a more nuanced and precise and analytically sophisticated representation of the specificities of network governance is offered by the concept of heterarchy.

Sharing, connectivity, reflexivity, density, breadth and Trust

In the final analysis it is you, the reader, who must decide whether we have made a plausible case for network governance. Nonetheless, we would assert that the existence of new, dynamic and evolving policy networks has been made clear enough.

• • Jon Aisbitt (New Philanthropy Capital; Goldman Sachs; The Man Group)

• • Adrian Beecroft (Apax Partners)

• • Peter Bull (HSBC Global Education Trust)

• • Jo Clunie (KPMG Foundation)

• • John Copps (New Philanthropy Capital)

• • John Craig (Innovation Exchange Director)

• • Peter Englander (Apax Foundation)

• • Charlie Green (Private Equity Foundation; Candover Equity)

• • Jean Gross (Every Child a Chance)

• • Richard Hardie (UBS)

• • Mike Kelly (KPMG)

• • Peter Lampl (Sutton Trust)

• • Sophie Livingstone (Private Equity Foundation)

• • Harris Lord (Harris Federation)

• • Paul Marshall (ARK; Marshall Wace LLP)

• • Harvey McGrath (New Philanthropy Capital)

• • Jim O’Neill (SHINE; Goldman Sachs)

• • Peter Ogden (Ogden Trust)

• • Alec Reed (Reed Foundation; The Big Give)

• • Anthony Salz (N.M. Rothschild)

• • Stephen Shields (SHINE)

• • Amanda Spielman (ARK)

• • Lorraine Thomas (HSBC Global Education Trust)

• • Peter Wheeler (New Philanthropy Capital; Social Impact International; Standard Chartered)

• • Brett Wigdortz (Teach First)

The focus of this book is on ongoing and related changes in education policy, policy networks and governance in England; in particular, the increasing participation of philanthropy and business in policy and service delivery. In this chapter we will sketch out the conceptual terrain across which our analysis moves and introduce some of the key ideas that we draw upon and deploy later. However, this is neither an exhaustive review of the literatures on policy networks and network governance nor an attempt to engage in the arcane and internecine debates and struggles with which the governance research literature is riven. Rather, we will outline a position that we take up in relation to this literature and its disputes, as seems constructive to understanding what is currently going on in English education policy. Our focus is substantive and analytical. We are interested in exploring how educational governance is being done and by whom. We are interested in this as indicative and illustrative of what seem to be more general shifts and changes in governance methods and mechanisms. We also consider some of the effects and consequences of these changes, but that is not our primary purpose here. The book draws on research that was focused particularly on the roles of philanthropy and businesses in education policy, and these have become increasingly significant and topical in current education and social policy. We will return to a discussion of some of the general issues of governance in the final chapter.

What to read first?

This chapter focuses on issues of governance theory and network method and their relationship. We begin by introducing the contrast and move between government and governance, which has been used extensively in recent political science to address changes in the form and modalities of the state, and we identify some key features of what is called network governance. This involves a discussion of some rather slippery, confusing and contested concepts. Specifically, we begin to explore the ‘work’ of network governance that is done in the social relations and exchanges within policy networks – those communities of social actors and organisations concerned with and engaged in policy conversations, policy influence and service delivery in the public sector.

In this chapter we will trace some of the developments and changes in forms of governance in England as these relate to the public sector, and specifically education through New Labour (1997–2010) and into Coalition policy (2010–): that is, from the ‘Third Way’ to the ‘Big Society’, from government to governance. These changes are multifaceted and multi-scalar and they work at different levels and move at different speeds. They rest upon both structural reconfiguration, the displacement of some actors and organisations and the introduction of others, and the introduction of new working relationships, incentives and subjectivities. They replace bureaucracy with management and leadership, service with ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’, professionalism with enterprise and, importantly, ‘commitment’ with contract. They are moves towards a ‘differentiated polity’ (Bache, 2003). They restructure the organising principles of social provision right across the public sector. That is to say, the forms of employment, organisational structures, cultures and values, systems of funding, management roles and styles, social relationships and pay and conditions of public welfare organisations are all subject to generic changes. Heuristically these changes may be situated as a part of the transformation that Jessop (1994) represents as from the Keynesian Welfare State to the Schumpeterian Workfare State (SWS).

According to Jessop this transformation replaced the Fordist discourse of productivity and planning with a post-Fordist rhetoric of flexibility and entrepreneurialism. The SWS ‘goes beyond the mere retrenchment of social welfare to restructure and subordinate it to market forces’ (pp 27–8).

This chapter will return to some of the issues signalled in Chapter One as we attempt to visualise and actualise policy networks, to get inside them and examine how they work. As noted, one of the key issues in research on policy networks is the exercise and effects of ‘influence’. That is, how do we map and specify relations of power in policy networks? How do we capture asymmetries of power within networks? This chapter will concentrate on the actors and interactions within and across a set of philanthropic networks and look at ‘opportunities’ within them for influence on the policy process. In particular we address the work of boundary spanners and the examples of the KPMG Foundation and the Every Child a Chance Trust in an attempt to explore the dynamics of networks, the ‘networking’.

The chapter will also consider policy networks as discourse communities. Philanthropies and corporate philanthropies, in particular, are integrated in education policy networks and are being invited to work with government or agencies or in partnerships of various kinds in attempts to solve intractable and ‘wicked’ social and educational problems. Participation in these policy networks structures and enables the circulation of ‘new’ policy ideas, while at the same time working to simplify the policy process by limiting actions, problems and solutions. Such networks, as indicated in previous chapters, are part of a move, albeit halting and partial, towards a more interactive, fragmented and multi-dimensional form of policy making, involving the participation of a new mix of state and non-state actors. Across the terrain of education policy activity there is now a ‘coexistence of multiple cross-cutting networks of varied length and durability’ (Whatmore and Thorne, 1997, p 302), within which there is a recurrence of particular companies, organisations and people, related to particular kinds of education policies and discourses.

Multiple points of access, opportunities and their Limits

As discussed in Chapter One, the central logic of the shift from government to governance is a reframing and rescaling of the state (Jessop, 2002 ) that involves a more interdependent, deconcentrated and flexible form of policy making (Stoker, 1998) done through network relations.

Introduction

In this chapter we will explore some of the contemporary entanglements of ‘new’ philanthropy with social and education policy and, concomitantly, some of the ways in which:

The chapter is a pot pourri organised around the theme of enterprise and the discourse of enterprise: enterprise in philanthropy, philanthropy and the enterprise curriculum, and philanthropy and social enterprise. The latter pursues the relationships between philanthropy, the Third Way and the Big Society indicated in the previous chapter. We also hope to illustrate more of the connections between philanthropy, education policy and governance, and the social and interactive density of the philanthropic community itself. We argue that the discourse of enterprise in its various forms is a crucial component, both as a reforming narrative and as an effective infrastructure, of network governance.

As indicated in the previous chapter, the boundaries between philanthropy, business and the public sector are being moved and blurred, the public sector generally is being worked on and reworked by new policy actors, from the inside out (endogenous change) and the outside in (exogenous change). This is happening in particular through the dissemination of the values and practices of enterprise and entrepreneurship and the transposition of the ‘international discourse of managerialism’ (Thrift, 2005, p 33) and its metaphors, that is New Public Management, into the public sector and through attempts to embody those metaphors in the public sector workforce. New values and modes of action are thus being installed and legitimated and new forms of moral authority established, while others are diminished or derided.