Externalising policy advice within subnational governments

Abstract

The concept of policy advisory systems (PAS) has been applied almost exclusively at national level. This article demonstrates that it can also be employed to analyse the development and dynamics of policy advice in a subnational government. Our empirical study of the externalisation of policy advice by the Welsh Government shows that it has been shaped by distinctive historical, institutional and political factors, and its impacts are different to those reported by studies of out-sourcing national policy advice. In our case study, external policy advice was seen as complementing rather than competing with the civil service. Instead of deinstitutionalising policy advice – that is, dislocating it from the usual sites where knowledge for policy is produced – new formal routes have been established for external sources of expertise to influence policy decisions. Contrary to the findings of some previous studies, externalising policy advice has not been a centralising force. Nor has it fundamentally challenged existing assumptions and values or increased politicisation of the policy process. These findings demonstrate that the PAS concept is useful across a range of settings, not just at national level. We show that applying it to a broader range of contexts, including subnational polities, can challenge, strengthen and expand existing theories of policy advice and policymaking.