ABSTRACT
Over the past decade in Britain, there has been renewed political and academic interest in the problem of ‘policy implementation’. The concern of a right-wing government to reduce the scale and role of public service bureaucracies has left the air rife with talk of ‘value for money’, efficiency, effectiveness, performance review and so forth. Policy-makers find themselves under intense pressure to ensure that policy impact reflects the intended direction of change. The broad problem confronting policymakers is that policy is rarely applied directly to the external world, but is mediated through other institutions and actors. Policy impact is therefore at risk of distortion by these mediators.
