Lead institution: Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds

Timescale: The project runs from February 2010 through to 31 March 2013.

Aims of the research

The primary objective is to deliver theoretically-informed policy-relevant research investigating the topic of carbon emissions management within transport. It will try to identify blockages and opportunities to improve the governance processes to enable the transport sector to decarbonise in an efficient, effective and accountable manner.

The project will produce knowledge and policy understanding on the impacts of governance arrangements on the development and delivery of transport policy including but not limited to:

1. The impacts of devolution of competencies to sub-central government and the impacts of delegation to non/quasi-state bodies (e.g. under what conditions do such changes add value to either accountability or efficacy in policy-making?)

2. Power dependencies and networks across adjacent sectors (e.g. do any structures effectively break down policy silos between adjacent policy sectors such as transport and land-use planning or energy?).

3. The design of effective incentives and sanctions to assist in delivery, and

4. The importance of accountability in supporting carbon reducing policies.

Technical Summary

This project seeks to establish the extent to which the governance structures in different parts of Britain facilitate or block progress towards a lower carbon transport system as part of a broader shift to a low carbon economy.

Britain is a multi-level polity in which policy-making and implementation involves a range of (public, private and voluntary) actors and in this context a distinction can be made between territorial decentralisation and functional decentralisation. Territorial decentralisation involves the delegation of functions to broad multi-purpose tiers of sub-national governance. This has been a central dynamic of British governance since the introduction of an asymmetrical pattern of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1998. Functional decentralisation, by contrast, emphasises the delegation of functions, both vertically and horizontally, generally to single-purpose quasi-autonomous agencies. Modern notions of ‘good governance’ have been imbued with this centrifugal dynamic, combined with New Labour’s desire to carve a ‘third way’ between the public and the private sectors (OECD 2002; Flinders 2004). The existence of complexity, fragmentation and significant levels of organisational autonomy within chains of delegation poses distinct questions for the central steering capacity of politicians, the scrutiny capacity of democratic arenas, and the overall efficacy of the system as a whole. The recent global financial crisis has further increased the pressure on politicians to deliver ‘more for less’ and, therefore, to manage across borders and agencies more effectively.

Multi-Level Governance has proved an effective framework through which to unravel and map-out the policy-making process in a range of sectors (economic policy, regional policy, environmental policy, etc.) while also delivering greater precision in relation to conceptual debates around democratic accountability and legitimacy. To date, however, transport policy in general, and carbon emissions management (CEM), in particular, has not been assessed through the analytical lens of MLG. This is despite the evidence that:

1. Transport-related economic activity and its environmental impacts do not respect political and administrative boundaries; and

2. The distribution of responsibilities and funding are known to have a substantial impact on effective transport strategy development and delivery

Carbon emissions management is a particularly important case study application as it is clear that deep cuts will be required in carbon emissions, as set out in the Climate Change Act. It has, to date, proved difficult to achieve significant cuts in carbon in the transport sector. Through a comparative case-study research design this research will examine different governance arrangements in different parts of the UK and through this will deliver particular insights into both the relative effectiveness of different governance arrangements on policy delivery and outcomes, and the variations in scrutiny frameworks and how they contribute to accountability and, in turn the relationship with operational efficiency. This comparative approach will increase this project’s capacity to deliver theoretically-informed policy-relevant research through which lesson-drawing and best-practice components can be drawn.

Data, Methods and Planned Outputs

Research Team Biographies