How political parties matter in political-administrative relationships: children's services policy in England 1997–2019.

Public policy studies typically stress policy networks and communities, interest groups and bureaucrats, and overlook the governing role of parties. This paper argues that parties should be seen as governing as well as electoral organisations and contrasts a party-centred approach with the policy community and policy network approaches. A case study comparing the development of children's services policy in England during the Labour governments (1997–2010) and the Conservative-led governments (2010–2019) provides supporting evidence for this approach. It shows how ministers as party actors sought control over the administrative state through their framing of problems, reorganisations and the active political management of the policy sector. In so doing they marginalised the professions and central government departments. They also sought to manage, rather than respond to, the extra-governmental organisations in their political environment. This paper contributes to our understanding the political-administrative relationships in identifying how parties take control of government, how public problems are defined and relate to party ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]