{"id":13732,"date":"2014-01-17T12:09:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T12:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wcpporguk.cf.ac.uk\/report\/the-implications-of-small-country-governance-for-public-services\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T22:30:10","slug":"the-implications-of-small-country-governance-for-public-services","status":"publish","type":"report","link":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/report\/the-implications-of-small-country-governance-for-public-services\/","title":{"rendered":"The Implications of \u2018Small Country Governance\u2019 for Public Services"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This report was prepared for the Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery. It examines what is meant by 'small country governance', discusses whether it is a useful concept in Wales, and identifies lessons that might be drawn from international comparators.<\/p>\n<p>It addresses four questions that are directly relevant to the Commission\u2019s work:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is the small-scale of governance in countries like Wales less alienating than larger more distant London or Brussels governments, and are international comparisons valuable?<\/li>\n<li>Is subsidiarity (whereby public service delivery ought to occur at the lowest possible level) a relevant perspective for the Commission to consider?<\/li>\n<li>What are the best governance arrangements for Wales given the resources at its disposal?<\/li>\n<li>Does the \u2018machinery of government\u2019 and the current structure and organisation of the<\/li>\n<li>Welsh Government and local public services promote or inhibit effective \u2018delivery\u2019?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The available evidence points to five key conclusions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>'Small country governance' should not be a key issue for the Commission because scale is mediated by other factors such as politics, history, administrative traditions and economic capacity.<\/li>\n<li>Public policies do not respect being neatly confined to particular levels. Insofar as possible, however, it is helpful when there is a clearly defined separation of responsibilities between different tiers of government.<\/li>\n<li>There is a limit to the number of tiers that are advisable. More than two tiers in a country the size of Wales is likely to overcomplicate governance and service delivery.<\/li>\n<li>Many countries have a larger number of small municipalities than Wales but services like education are often delivered at a higher level of government which serves a large population. This might equate to the All Wales level for some services (such as secondary education), or to streamlined local government structures or regional partnerships for others.<\/li>\n<li>The All-Wales level should mainly be concerned with strategic steering, the distribution (and re-distribution) of scarce resources, the creation of performance incentives for service deliverers and foresight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This report was prepared for the Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery. It examines what is meant by 'small country governance', discusses whether it is a useful concept in Wales, and identifies lessons that might be drawn from international comparators. It addresses four questions that are directly relevant to the Commission\u2019s work: Is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9572,"template":"","categories":[49],"tags":[71],"research-and-impact":[],"class_list":["post-13732","report","type-report","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-wellbeing","tag-local-government"],"meta_box":{"project":"","lead_author":"","authors":[],"image":[{"width":744,"height":418,"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9.jpg","filesize":440996,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x419.jpg","width":744,"height":419,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":61750,"url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x419.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1200x675.jpg","width":1200,"height":675,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":130263,"url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1200x675.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x418.jpg","width":744,"height":418,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":61661,"url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x418.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-768x432.jpg","width":768,"height":432,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":63991,"url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-768x432.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"file":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1536x864.jpg","width":1536,"height":864,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":187800,"url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1536x864.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"7.1","credit":"Getty Images\/iStockphoto","camera":"Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL","caption":"Welsh Assembly debating chamber, Wales, UK","created_timestamp":"1142254586","copyright":"Darryl Sleath","focal_length":"18","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.125","title":"Welsh Assembly debating chamber","orientation":"0","keywords":["Architecture","Cardiff","Design","Discussion","Environment","Government","Indoors","Parliament Building","Political Rally","Politics","UK","Wales","Welsh Culture","Wood"]},"ID":"13733","name":"Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9.jpg","path":"\/infotree\/sites\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9.jpg","url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x418.jpg","full_url":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9.jpg","title":"Welsh Assembly debating chamber","caption":"","description":"Welsh Assembly debating chamber, Wales, UK","alt":"","srcset":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-744x418.jpg 744w, https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Debating-Chamber-Welsh-Gov-1600x900-9.jpg 1600w"}],"files":[{"file":[13734],"publication_type":"Report","title_for_display":"The Implications of \u2018Small Country Governance\u2019 for Public Services"}],"disable_related_content":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/report\/13732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/report"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/report"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/report\/13732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13732"},{"taxonomy":"research-and-impact","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcpp.org.uk\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-and-impact?post=13732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}