The challenge of population balance: mapping Scotland's institutional and intervention landscape

Chapter 4: Implications for policy coherence and effectiveness

In the preceding chapters we have attempted to map out a systematic overview of the policy “machine” through which the Scottish Government, together with a range of public and third sector actors seek to address the issue of the geographic balance of population development. It has been helpful to separately consider three “layers”, or subsystems, interventions, actors and intervention logic. This careful disaggregation has helped us to identify a range of strengths and weaknesses associated with the orchestration of multiple policies towards the goal of population balance. The analytical framework raises questions about gaps in our knowledge regarding existing interventions and has potential as a starting point for a more systematic approach to policy coherence. It is to these that we turn in this final section of our report.

Establishing a Baseline

One aspect of the review of policy literature relating to population balance provided in chapters 1-3, which is particularly evident in the comparison of LOIPs, is the absence of standardised indicators and statistical definitions. There is no standard benchmark equivalent to – for example- the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Each policy actor tends to pick out the statistical indicator and definition of population balance which seems appropriate to the context. The distinction of the Population Strategy’s second and third challenges (ageing and balance) often becomes blurred.

It is proposed that a standardised definition and a limited number of statistical indicators should be agreed (perhaps) by the Population Roundtable in consultation with NRS, and that such indicators be regularly published at a council area level. Consideration should be given to the potential to develop indicators which go beyond simple demographic counts, by assessing intermediate outcomes which contribute to the wellbeing and ‘liveability rights’ as experienced by local populations. To some extent this implies a need to temper our reliance on ‘hard data’ with perspectives from more qualitative forms of information.

However, there are also opportunities to explore quantified approaches based on GIS analysis. Given that the majority of policy levers relate to service provision, measurements of service accessibility - such as those which already form the basis of the SIMD’s Geographic Access to Services domain^[16] - or comparisons with critical population thresholds for various kinds of service delivery points, should be explored.

Guidance on the production of CPP LOIPs^[17] could recommend the use of these standard comparable indicators.

In addition, careful consideration should be given, informed by inputs from local third sector organisations, to the development of appropriate indicators for smaller areas, especially for councils such as Highland, within which there is much diversity. In terms of geographic units, an updated version of travel-to-work areas, with their functional area rationale, would make sense from a local economic development perspective, having the advantage of minimising commuting across boundaries. Intermediate areas or wards might also be candidates.

Buzzwords and equifinality

The fact that the Scottish Government has a Population Strategy, and that it contains three clearly stated challenges, is a strong starting point for policy. The Government has rightly sought to give the Strategy an influential profile, underlining its wide ranging implications across many elements of the policy landscape. However, in the perceived priorities at a local government level, “balance” jostles with a range of other objectives (inclusion, wellbeing, the place principle, community wealth building). Sometimes it is misunderstood. Often the interrelationships between these very different concepts are difficult to operationalise in real world local contexts, and there is always a danger that they will be reduced to buzzwords, without the capacity to deliver real change.

Population balance presents particular challenges as a policy goal, because as an outcome it should be relatively simple to measure, but it can be delivered or enhanced by a wide range of socio-economic processes. In systems theory this characteristic is termed “equifinality”. This opens up a very extensive and potentially confusing menu of possible interventions. Different policy actors select approaches as best suits their area of expertise, the local or regional context and so on. We have sought to provide a simple analytical framework for these approaches, distinguishing mitigation from adaptation, and attraction/retention from wellbeing and capacity building.

Application of the Verity House Agreement subsidiarity principle (“local by default, national by agreement”) to policy in support of population balance, would seem to imply a national agreement on baselines and goals, but local discretion on choice of response.

Words and deeds

The straightened public expenditure context of recent years perhaps explains the tendency (across Europe, not just in Scotland) to repackage existing interventions and expenditure in the support of new, or revised, priorities. The importance of aspirational planning and goal setting is not in question. However, their value may be compromised if they are not accompanied by proportionate activity, and inevitably, adequate expenditure. Strategy-writing is just the beginning, not an ‘end in itself’. It is wasted if not followed by carefully calibrated, evidence-based, and appropriately funded interventions. In particular guidance could be issued to CPPs (by the Improvement Service) to include in their LOIPs more specific detail on policy responses and how they are to be resourced.

Understanding impact

As we have already argued, it is an inevitable consequence of equifinality that it is very difficult to attribute impact to individual interventions. Hard quantitative neoliberal value-for-money exercises are not appropriate in this context. A softer, qualitative but objective approach, informed by a holistic awareness of the interrelationships between the various individual policy elements, but “tracking” their separate contributions to population balance, would be a very powerful tool.

Such routine impact monitoring would only be feasible and effective, if some of the key knowledge gaps were addressed. For example, it would be very helpful to have some understanding of the relative effectiveness of interventions derived from the different ToCs described in Chapter 3. We know very little about how the activities of different governance actors (public and third sector) interact – whether they reinforce, compete, or even undermine each other. It is even potentially feasible that adaptive approaches negate mitigative interventions within the same area.

Valuable research is already being funded by the Scottish Government through programmes such as RESAS (Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services). Direct lines of communication to those responsible for devising and managing policy in all parts of the policy landscape are crucial to ensuring that lessons are learned.

However, given the multiplicity of interrelated policy interventions, the impacts of which are impossible to disentangle, the conventional linear approach, plotting a simple path from expenditure to impact is probably not appropriate. Instead, we would suggest that the evaluation question (“what impact does this intervention have?”) should be reframed as “which of the multiple interventions has the most robust and strongly evidenced chain of intermediate outcomes, supporting the goal of population balance?” This question can only be answered through an investigation at a local community level. Ideally this investigation would involve both policy professionals and individual citizens.

Complexity of Governance

The sheer complexity of the institutional machine which is tasked with implementing the goals of the Population Strategy generally, and population balance in particular, is daunting. It is hard to escape the conclusion that there is a risk of “the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing”, and of confusion in terms of impact attribution. However, given the “equifinality” characteristic of population balance, a degree of complexity is inevitable.

The potential for simplification of the institutional landscape is probably limited – it is much easier to create new actors than to merge or close them. The creation of an umbrella organisation tasked with improving coherence would in this context probably be a backward step. A more modest and achievable goal could be to improve communication between relevant actors, particularly at the national level. Regular meetings (perhaps on a two- or three-year cycle), to exchange information on efforts to address population balance, involving as many as possible of the key national actors identified in Chapter 3 would encourage coherence. A concise progress report document would be both a means of structuring, and a valuable tangible outcome, of such events.

At the local level, consideration could be given to introducing a specific responsibility for Community Planning Partnerships to include in their LOIP documents a clear analysis of population balance issues, based upon standard indicators (see above), together with a practical and resourced strategy to address it. At regular intervals (35 years) the outcomes of these strategies should be evaluated, following the approach proposed above. LOIP analyses, strategies and evaluations should periodically be summarised (across Scotland) to provide a clear “map” of challenges, CPP responses, and their impact. Findings would be a valuable element in the national progress report proposed above.

Reiteration of key action points:

(i) To establish objective baseline indicators of population balance, and relative measures of policy impact, as a basis for more comparable policy documents.

(ii) To clarify the distinctions and overlaps between seeking population balance, and other goals in the National Performance Framework.

(iii) To inform the above, the Scottish Government should use its various research programmes to fund work seeking a better understanding of the relative impact of different forms of intervention in pursuit of population balance at the community-level.

(iv) The initiation of a regular series of “stock-taking” conferences to pool knowledge of policy relating to population balance, from across Government, Public and Third Sectors. These to be marked by the publication of progress reports.

(v) CPP LOIPs should be enhanced by the use of comparable baseline indicators, and descriptions of specific and funded interventions to promote population balance, with targets expressed in terms of measurable impacts.

These to form the basis of a periodic comparative national progress report.