planning and the innovation process

Planning and the lnnovat ion Process

RAY JEFFERSON Planning Assistant, tenceshire County Council

Acknowledgements

Jo Introduction

2. Organisation theory and innovation

3. Pkznning and innovation

4. Some aspects of recent clanking innovation Part 1. Mefhodofogv

5. Some aspects of recent ~~an~~ng innovation Part 2. Results

6. A closer look at the planni~ innovation process

7, The consequences of innovation in planning

8. Conclusions

Appendix I. The questionnaires used

2. The independent variables

3. The ten innovation scores

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Bibliography 310

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234 Progress in Ptimning

To Marion

Acknowledgements

THIS study of the reasons why planning departments do or do not find recent advances in planning methodology useful was undertaken at University College London during 1971-2 while the author was supported by a grant from the Social Science Research Council. It was made possible because of the cooperation of over 100 local planning authorities in England and Wales. I should like to thank all of the people who took the time and trouble to fili in my questionnaires and return them to me so promptly.

I should particularly like to thank Ian Cullen of University College, London and Brian McLaughlin of the Centre for Environmental Studies for reading through the draft manuscript, giving guidance and making many constructive criticisms. In addition I should like to thank Ian Alexander, Chris Ousey, Les Struthers and others who took the time and trouble to discuss various aspects of the work in its early stages.

Naturally, all opinions expressed in the final work are attributable to myself.

RAY JEFFERSON

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236 Progress in Planning

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1. THE AIMS OF THE STUDY

The central concern of this study is as much with planners as with the ways in which they set about planning. In particular, the major interest is in the mechanisms by which the planning process changes, the stimulants of change, how changes are channelled and altered by the features of the planning system and how such changes are perhaps thwarted.

In the following pages some recent innovations that have been adopted within the planning process are studied. It is not the major aim of the study to consider the merits or demerits of any particular innovation, and it is recognised that not all new ideas are necessarily good ideas. Rather the aim is to take up a positive, detached viewpoint from which it is possible to describe and analyse the innovation adoption process. In the course of the study it is hoped that a variety of other facets to the planning process will also come to light.

No doubt every planner has his own opinions as to what rational planners ought to do in order to draw up the best plans and create the greatest amount of social benefit, but it is also interesting to consider what planners actually do when they are faced by such tasks. It is hoped that, with the help of some organisational theory and some empirical work, this study comes closer to the actual behaviour of planners than to the activities of the perfect practitioner, so often put forward in books and articles on planning methodology.

1.2. THE NATURE OF INNOVATION

The word ‘innovation’ may refer to the act of innovation or to the objects produced by innovation. An innovation as an object is simply defined by Rogers (1962) as an idea perceived as new by an individual. There does not have to be any objective newness to the idea, and indeed it may have been current for a long time before the particular individual became aware of it for the first time.

Innovation as an action is more complex to define, but perhaps the simplest definition is from the Concise Oxford Dictionmy where to innovate is to ‘bring in novelties; make changes’. Innovation, then, is a conscious thing and does not occur spontaneously, but needs to be directed by an individual or group of people. Most writers see innovation in this way, stressing the importance of action and radical change. For example,

. . . innovation is defined as (1) the conscious awareness on the part of organisational planners of the need for a new program that cannot be satisfied by utilizing any combination of existing, well established programs, and (2) the ability to satisfy that need in anticipation of a formal and organised demand for change. . . (Gawthrop, 1969, p. 182)

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and similarly,

Change. . . involves the designing. devising, and evaluating of new performance programs which have not previously been a ‘part of the organisation’s repertory and cannot be introduced by a simple application of programmed switching rules’. (Jones, 1968, p. 69)

In both of these cases the authors are at pains to exclude change that involves the rearrangement of factors to give a’new situation, but one that was clearly envisaged in the setting up of those factors. Other writers have gone further than this and suggested that incremental change is not to be considered as innovation. Thus Friedman (1966) states that innovative planning is a leap into a new state of affairs, an event that leads to the structural transformation of a situation. It is a form of action intended to change the nature of reality rather than a thought process preliminary to action. Finally, MacMurray (197 1) points out that innovation is necessarily a risk-taking process since it is impossible to know the full effects of such action.

In this study, innovation is taken to mean the active process of adopting radical change, be it good or bad, for the first time. Such changes may involve ideas, processes, products or services that have never before been used in the particular setting considered. In a very generalised way, innovation can be considered as a positive attachment to the goals of a social system but a rejection of the particular ways of achieving them (Ponsioen, 1969).

1.3. THE TYPE OF INNOVATION INVESTIGATED IN THIS STUDY

As stated above, an innovation may be an idea, a process, a product or a service. Within this study of innovation in planning it was decided that it was necessary to look at one particular type of innovation in order that the task be brought within manageable proportions.

To start with, the type of planning that was to be considered was restricted to that conducted within local planning authorities. This was the most interesting area to look at for two reasons. Firstly, unlike many other planning bodies, the prime objective of local authorities is not to look for new ideas but to serve the public. Secondly, the application of new ideas in this area may have the most immediate effect upon the public, even though there can be a long time lag before the full implications of innovative activity become clear. Local planning authorities also provide a large, homogeneous population of planning organisations, having similar powers and obligations from which generalisations concerning the adoption of innovation can be built up.

Having chosen the sample population for investigation, it was then necessary to choose the exact types of innovative activity to be studied. This was important since such disparate things as the carrying out of central area redevelopment schemes, the making of expanded town agreements, the use of cost-benefit analysis, and the reorganisation of a planiring department may all be considered as innovations in planning. In particular, the planning process may itself be seen as an innovative process that has been formalised within legal and administrative frameworks.

However, within this study it was necessary to choose those innovative actions that come to fruition in a relatively short space of time. Also, they should not be adopted at the national scale, otherwise their differential adoption within a sample of planning authorities could not be studied. More than this, however, the innovations studied should not be absolutely excluded from use in certain authorities because of their complete irrelevance to

Planning and the Innovation Process 239

the problems of those authorities. This latter criterion led to the rejection of the idea of using the products of planning as typical innovations. Recent ideas such as the General Improvement Area can only be relevant to those authorities that actually have areas of obsolescent housing within their administrative boundaries. Similarly, an authority is not likely to designate a Conservation Area if there are no buihlings of special architectural or historical interest.

In this way ideas turned to the study of innovations concerned with the processes of planning. Recent advances in technology, such as the use of social cost-benefit analysis or gravity modelling, could be used to investigate the problems faced by every authority, and are not excluded from use by one simple factor. Rather, the probability of their use or non-use is related to a whole complex of factors.

Thus the choice of the study area came down upon recent methodological advances within local planning authorities. As well as concentrating upon methodologies wholly used within the planning process it was thought interesting to include one methodology, Planning Programming and Budgeting, whose relevance was much wider than planning alone, since this might point up some contrasts between the adoption of new ideas within planning departments and the adoption of such ideas when co-operation outside the department was called for.

It was not necessary to choose innovations that are good for planning in some objective sense, even if this could be done easily, since the central theme of this study is the adoption of innovation, good or bad. All innovation involves the taking of risk by the adopters, and the opinions of the individuals involved within the process as to the value of certain new ideas will vary as their awareness and experience with the ideas grow. Some of the consequences of innovation adoption, good and bad, will be considered in a later chapter.

1.4. AN OUTLINE OF THE STUDY

The analysis of the innovation process within planning begins with a brief study of organisational theory. This is aimed at discovering the major ways in which innovativeness might be explained. Using this as a guide, and stressing no one approach in particular, the characteristics of planning are then considered in relation to the adoption of innovation, leading on to the formulation of hypotheses concerning the likelihood of planning authorities being innovative.

After this, a two-stage experimental design is used to study planning innovation empirically with the objects of testing some of the hypotheses presented, explaining the variations in innovativeness observed between planning departments, and building an explanatory model of the process. In the first stage a postal questionnaire was sent to 133 local planning authorities to discover their involvement with ten recent advances in planning methodology and certain other characteristics of the departments. From this information an index of innovativeness is constructed and applied to each authority. This is then compared statistically with the characteristics of the environment that each authority controls in an attempt to discover to what extent this environment stimulates the observed innovativeness, and to what extent their innovativeness is dependent upon other factors.

In the second stage a series of interviews was conducted within eleven local authority planning departments. These interviews both give detailed information about the ways in which innovations are adopted and also provide information with which to explain that part of their innovativeness that is not attributable to their environmental conditions.


Finally, some of the unintended consequences that follow upon the introductionof innovations are considered, while in the conclusions some recommendations are made about possible ways in which the evaluation of planning innovations might be improved. The recommendations will not consider faster innovation adoption as the prime objective, but rather more emphasis will be placed upon a better perception of innovative possibilities and a more accurate evaluation of their potential.

CHAPTER 2

Organ& tion Theory and lnnova tion

2.1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the main areas of organisational theory, and to analyse their possible contribution towards the study of innovation in an organisational setting.

As noted by Silverman (1970), most of the theories presented here provide a partial approach to the study of organisations only, and consequently it is very difficult to choose one theoretical approach as being superior to the others. Therefore, no attempt will be made here to select one approach with which to continue the study of innovation in planning. Rather, the contributions of all the approaches will be critically considered and use made of them whenever they are relevant.

2.2. THE DEFINITION OF ORGANISATION

Many definitions of organisation allot a central role to the existence of formal goals. Thus, Parsons (1964) says that an organisation is ‘a social system organised for the attainment of a particular type of goal’. That is, it can be seen as ‘societies writ small’. Other authors have stressed similar meanings:

Organisations are social units oriented to the realisation of specific goals. (Etzioni, 196 1, P.79)

Organisations are intricate human strategies designed to achieve certain objectives. (Argyris, 1960, p. 10)

Some workers have passed by goals in their consideration of what organisations are, and have adopted a much more descriptive approach. For example, Silverman (1970) shies away from a precise definition of organisation, and instead considers a continuum running between two ideal types, namely ‘social organisation’ and ‘formal organisation’. Government departments fall towards the ‘formal’ end, the characteristics of which are as follows. Formal organisations are laid down at a ftxed point in time, often with objectives set out, although these may change over time. There is a patterning of relationships, although this may not be very rigid, while a large amount of attention is paid to altering this patterning. In this approach, the flexible nature of the organisation is explicitly stated and the tendency to innovate with respect to its structure is actually built in as a characteristic distinguishing formal organisation from social organisation.

Other writers have defined organisations by reference to their general&d characteristics. Barnard (1938) states that formal organisations are to be distinguished from social

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organisation in general by acts of decision being explicit, the high degree to which logical processes are used, and the high degree of specialisation used in decision-making. Downs (1967) adds that organisations are able to maintain a diversity of viewpoints at any moment in time.

On the whole it seem reasonable to view a formal organisation as a conscious association between two or more people, existing in an attempt to make rational decisions and take specific actions in relation to some explicit problems. Such problems may be flexible over time, and are viewed differently by the different participants. In addition, the rationality strived for often involves a specialisation of roles on the part of the incumbents. Rational decisions and actions are aimed for, although limited knowledge and other human failings usually prevent their complete achievement.

2.3. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO ORGANISATION AND INNOVATION

2.3.1. The approaches classified

The major approaches to organisational theory may be classified as in Table 2.1. The grouping is by their various major emphases and it should not be taken that there is no overlap between the theories.

The nature of these theories will now be given closer attention, starting with those approaches that give most stress to analysis at the level of the environment.

2.3.2. Theories at the level of the environment

Theories considering organisations in aggregate, or at the level of the environment, look to broad economic or social trends as the determinants of innovation.

Economic analyses wish to explain innovation as a response to relative changes in the prices of resources (Blaug, 1963). As the prices of resource X rises relative to the price of resource Y there is a tendency for innovative activity in the economy to move towards ideas that use less of X for every unit of Y. In this way, monetary trends in the economy are paralleled by innovative trends. However, this simple economic analysis does not imply that all firms adopt a given innovation at exactly the same time. It is perfectly rational to continue using obsolete equipment and methods so long as the return on doing so is more than the return to be expected from the innovation, after the costs of setting up and adjusting to the innovation have been taken into account.

Other economic factors are also important in determining whether an innovation will be adopted and when. Mansfield (196 1) suggests that as the number of organisations that have already adopted the innovation increases, the likelihood of a particular organisation also adopting it increases. This is because the risks involved with adoption are lower once others have blazed the trail, and since lagging firms are more likely to fail if they do not innovate, due to market demand changing in response to the new possibilities. Also important is the size of the investment needed to adopt the innovation proportional to the size of the organisation involved. As this proportion increases firms find it harder to raise the capital needed, and hence find it harder to innovate.

P/arming and rhe fnnovation Process 243

TABLE 2.1. A ckrrsijc~tion md brief explanution of the major o~gn~~t~5~~ theories

Attention focused at the level of

The environment

The organisation within the environment

The individual within the organisation

Shorthand name for approach

Economic analysis

Structural-functionalism

Socio-technical systems

Organisational psychology

Action theory

Decision theory

Method of explaining innovation

Economic growth and prosperity call forth innovative activity

The organisation has needs of adaptation and integration which must be fulfilled if it is to survive in the long term. The unintended consequences of action lead to a problematic environment- system ~lation~ip that leads to innovation

Problems of the environment, and speck&y technology, lead to different organisational structures. Innovative organisations are needed where the environment isvariable

The personality needs of individuals have to be fuLfilled for efficient working of the organisation. Such needs may be satisfied by innovative activity

The way in which ~di~du~s see their own and other’s social situation may be used to expIain how and why innovation takes place. Changes in the involvement of individuals and the external environment cause innovation

Man’s essentially creative nature leads to innovation that is restricted by limited rationality, organisational structure and environment

The state of the economic en~o~ent is another important factor, since an expanding economy allows new processes to be added to older methods without replacing and disrupting them. This also matches well with the findings of Schmookler (1962) that innovation goes hand in hand with productive effort in the long term. As the output within a particular industry rises in an expanding economy, so does the amount of innovative activity. Ideas for innovative change to products and services often come from customers, and during periods of expansion the number of such customers, and hence innovative ideas, increases. Nevertheless, in the short term, a rapid rise in demand may entail the full use of resources for productive effort and a consequent lowering of innovative activity.

Such a process also has implications which suggest that innovative activity will become spatially con~n~ated within the national economy. Myrdal(l964) illustrates the cumulative economic forces that have the effect of concentrating growth within that area which has the initial economic advantage. As social overhead capital is installed in an advanced region this has the inevitable effect, in the absence of government intervention, of making future investment more profitable, and therefore more likely, within that region. This leads to rapid, concentrated economic growth which is itself tied to innovative activity. The result is the concentration of innovation within such a growth region, an effect well documented in the United States by Pred (1965) and Ullman (1964).

Child (1972) generalises the economic argument to talk in terms of environmental


change, complexity and illiberality. An environment that is changing irregularly over time and perhaps in a complex way over space, whether this be economic, social or political change, poses the problem of survival for organisations. If there is no innovation to match such change, organisations may find themselves equipped to deal with a nonexistent environment with the result that their efficiency falls. This is particularly true, in an illiberal environment where organisations may actually be active to reduce the success rate of their competitors.

On the whole, theory at this level sets out to explain innovative change, or the necessity for it, over a long time scale. Such forces may therefore be visuahsed as explaining a background swell of innovative activity, against which theories at the level of the organisation and the individual help explain the detailed ripples. These latter types of theory will now be considered.

2.3.3. Xkeories at the level of the orgwkation

Theories at this level rely heavily upon systems theory for their analytical framework. A system is a set of units with relationships between them (MacKenzie, 1967) and when treated in this way, organisations are usually considered as open systems in a stable equilibrium or steady state.

Four main considerations are relevant to the systems view of organisations. These relate to the arrangement of the organisational structure, the relationships between organisational parts, the effectiveness of the organisation relative to its ends, and the nature of the organisation’s dynamics. It is the last consideration that is directly concerned with organisational innovation. Such innovation may be administrative, that is altering the hierarchy and structure of offices within the organisation, or procedural, changing the ways in which functions are performed.

The two main users of systems theory are the structural-functionalists and the writers on socio-technical systems. The structural-functionalist school is varied, but the major concern of these writers is to explain the stable and predictable relationships that exist in organisations regardless of changing personnel and the varied personalities involved. Emphasis is upon the functions of seemingly isolated phenomena for system stability. In this theory innovation is seen as a response to forces of change whose function it is to preserve the present organisational structure and relationships.

Change and innovation may be caused exogenously or endogenously with respect to the organisational system (Parsons’ terminology, 1967). The former is due to change in the environment, while the latter is usually because of an imbalance of emphasis between the objectives of the organisation. A structural-functionalist analysis of innovation in organisations might be as follows. The organisation, being a system, has certain needs that must be satisfied if it is to be maintained. The needs of stability and the necessity to achieve organisational goals require adaptation to a changing environment. Such adaptation takes place via innovation, although such innovation will undoubtedly have unexpected results in other areas of the organisation’s activities. If these unexpected results act to reduce the organisation’s efficiency another cycle of innovation will be initiated. Indeed, such a repetition is likely given that environmental change is continuous and since the people adjusting the organisational system have limited rationality and perception. Here the stress is upon organisational innovation rather than upon innovation by individuals. Nevertheless, it tells us something about individuals since their actions often reflect organisational needs.


The socio-technical system theorists also place great emphasis upon the nature of the environment when explaining innovation. Their main question asks what kind of formal organisational structure can most effectively relate environment, technology and organisational members together? The environment itself has received detailed treatment, Emery and Trist (1965) describing four types of environment of increasing complexity and change. it is implied that changes in the environment tend to get out of step with changes in the organisation, thereby causing problems and further change.

This thesis is well developed by Burns and Stalker (196 1). Organisational innovation is seen as a necessity caused by continual change in the firm’s market for goods and services, leading to the adoption of an ‘organic’ organisational structure. This is an organisation having many unscheduled communication channels and a very flexible arrangement of of&s. In a stable market, on the other hand, innovation is not needed, and standardised production procedures are best carried out in a ‘mechanistic’ structure. This has a clear allocation of responsibilities and a formal hierarchy of authority. This is a structure near to Weber’s ‘ideal’ bureaucracy (Weber, 1946). Where the wrong structure is used in a given environmental situation, certain pathological responses by the organisation may result.

These approaches at the level of the organisation rely upon system needs to explain innovation, needs which arise ultimately because of the nature of the environment. They are useful in that they point up the interrelatedness of organisational phenomena and supply a framework within which they may be studied.

Where differences between organisations have to be explained, the socio-technical system approach is better than structural-functionalism since it does not hypothesise that one organisational structure is apt for all environmental situations. Finally, neither of these approaches stresses the activities and needs of individuals as explanatory variables of innovation. This aspect is given more emphasis in the theories considered below.

2.3.4. lYheories at the level of the individual

There are three schools of thought that are given attention here, namely organisational psychology, action theory sociology, and decision theory. In these approaches emphasis is given to individual psychology and the characteristics of the organisation as seen from the viewpoint of the individual participant.

Organisational psychologists stress Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of the individual. Such needs, ranging from the basic physical requirements at the bottom of the scale to the social requirements of man at the top, are seen as the motivating forces causing change and innovation in organisations.

Homans (1950 and 1954) and Brown (1964) have particularly emphasised the social needs of men in organisations, while Argyris (1960) uses the concept of self-actualisation - the drive to reach self-fulfilment in the eyes of oneself and others. Such needs and drives are used to explain individual behaviour in organisations and to make prescriptions concerning the type of organisation within which such needs are met most satisfactorily. Such prescriptions often recommend the encouragement of stable workgroups, worker participation in decision-making, effective communications between individuals and the use of non-bureaucratic structures functioning by the setting of objectives rather than through a hierarchy of authority.

The recommendations for worker participation, communication and non-bureaucratic structure are all stimulants to innovation since they release constraints upon the individual


and expand the range of ideas to which he is exposed. Innovation is analysed in terms of the fulfiient of personal needs such as selfesteem and status. Nevertheless, the organisational psychologist’s approach is perhaps too narrow inasmuch as it overlooks the importance of such things as economic and material incentives.

Action theorists consider that sociology is concerned to understand the actions of individuals by reference to the ways in which those individuals define their situation and the world around them. The observation of behaviour and the giving of meanings to such behaviour by the research worker is to be avoided (SiIverman, 1970). Changes in the involvement and ends of actors leads to change and innovation within an organisation. This results in changed patterns of interaction and definitions of the situation, some of which is intended by the actors and some of which is unforeseen. This is equivaleni to Parsons’ endogenous change. Alternatively, changes in the stock of outside knowledge, according to how it is perceived by the individuals within the organisation, may cause exogenous innovation with similar consequences. Change is particularly likely to occur when new individuals are introduced to the organisation, since they will bring a new view of the world with them. In addition, identical organisational changes may lead to different types of innovation according to the different perceptions, experiences and social positions of the individuals involved.

Decision theory investigates a smaller area of behaviour than does action theory. The emphasis is upon the decisions made by individuals and not upon the actions that are consequent upon such decisions. Inasmuch as a decision inaugurates a new course of activity, it is itself part of an innovative process.

Classical decision theory is more prescriptive than descriptive. The supposedly optimal decision-making procedure recommended to the rational person starts with the discovery of goals and then proceeds to the design of alternative strategies to reach such goals. Finally, a rational attempt is made to select a ‘best’ course of action from the alternatives (Scott, 1967). Within this process it is at the design stage that invention and innovation are most important, although no ways in which this may be stimulated are described.

In the course of changing the emphasis of decision theory from a prescriptive to a descriptive basis various alterations to the classical approach have been made. Simon (1959) attacks the idea of the decision-maker maximising his expected payoffs and substitutes the idea of the satisficer. Satisficing behaviour is more likely than maximising since no one can expect to know all of the alternative strategies and outcomes available to him at the point of decision, thereby eliminating the certainty of maximisation. Audley (1967) also suggests that the best strategy is unlikely to be discovered or followed in practice because of the human failings of misperception, conservativeness and bias. Such limitations to perfect human rationality explain why different innovations are adopted in otherwise similar situations.

In decision theory, man is seen as inherently creative and innovative in a uniform way, although his performance will vary according to the situation in which he finds himself, the nature of his interaction with others and his bias. Little emphasis is given to differences in creativity and intelligence, although the overall limitations of the human mind are asserted. Hence it is unlikely that the causes of innovation can be fully explained at this level, as it cannot at any one level in isolation.

2.4. CONCLUSIONS

Organisational theories rely upon two methods of explaining innovation. The first is the


necessity for the organisation to change in order to match the characteristics of its environment, while the second looks to factors internal to the organisation.

Theories at the level of the environment and at the level of the organisation look to that environment for their explanatory variables. If the organisation is to remain minimally efficient it must be able to deal with an environment that may be complex over space, varying greatly over time, and perhaps containing other organisations that’constitute a threat. In response to such situations, organisations may innovate with respect to their structure, with respect to the processes that are channelled by that structure, or both. The socio-technical system theorists consider that such adaptation and change may need to be continuous in those organisations that face a particularly fluid environment.

At the level of the individual both internal and external causes of change are looked into, but the external causes are seen mainly as constraints. Once innovation has been initiated by external change, the actual course that it takes depends upon the perception, personality needs and limited rationality of the persons involved. The characteristics of the environment impose constraints upon the types of change that will allow the survival of the organisation in the long term.

The internal factors initiating change relate to the social system of the organisation and the way that it is perceived by the individuals involved within it. Because every person views the situation differently, actions may be misinterpreted and an imbalance created within the system that leads to change and innovation. Alternatively, an individual may initiate change to satisfy some psychological need. Once again, the eventual viability of such change depends upon the characteristics of the environment and the constraints it exerts.

Thus, the two ways of explaining organisational innovation fit together. As a first stage of analysis, the innovativeness of organisations may be analysed with reference to the characteristics of the environment. However, this will not account for all the variability observed, and so a further stage of analysis must look closer at factors internal to the organisation. This is the procedure adopted in the empirical study presented in Chapters 5 and 6.

CHAPTER 3

Planning and innovation

3.1. INTRODUCTION

In a similar manner to the last chapter, the relationship between innovation and planning in local government is studied here at the level of the planning environment, at the level of the planning organisation, and at the level of the individual planner. In addition to studying the organisational characteristics relevant to innovation, aspects of the innovations themselves and how they fit into local-government functioning are also considered.

3.2. THE YLANNING ENVIRONMENT AND INNOVATION

3.2.1. Innovation and environment

The discussion of the last chapter demonstrated that many authors place an important emphasis upon the characteristics of the organisational environment as a determinant of innovative activity. Some (e.g. Parsons, 1964; Katz and Kahn, 1966) attribute all innovative behaviour to the requirements of the environment in the final analysis.

Several writers stress purely economic factors when explaining innovation, but this is not central to a discussion of government departments that do not have to sell their services at a profit. However, three aspects to the environment are important to planning innovation (Child, 1972). Firstly there is complexity and variability at a given point in time. This relates both to spatial variation in the environment and to the interconnectedness of environmental elements. Secondly, there is complexity and variability over time. Elements and relationships within the environment change their size and values at different speeds, in different directions and with different degrees of predictability. Finally, the environment may actually be hostile to the planning organisation. Formal and informal groups may adopt, as part of their objectives, the need to influence, promote or hinder planning activity.

As complexity over space and time and outside intervention increase, the necessity to innovate also increases. Otherwise the planning department may discover itself making plans for problems that no longer exist, ignoring other problems because their precise nature is unknown, or adopting inappropriate stands against organisations that could be better handled differently. Even so, the actual amount of innovative activity that will just about enable a planning department to survive without external intervention is probably quite low. As mentioned in the last chapter, the environment does not dictate the exact amount of innovation necessary, but rather sets up broad limits within which such activity must fall. Because of the difficulties of measuring the effectiveness of planning activities on account of

248


the intangible results involved, the lower limit to innovativeness that will be tolerated by the public and politicians is low in order to allow a wide margin for uncertainty.

Some departments may adopt a low-key disjointed incrementalist approach as described later in this chapter, while others may react with greater amounts of innovation more directly related to the environmental changes. This sensitivity of planning departments to environmental change varies according to the internal characteristics of the planning department and the individual planner.

3.2.2. The phnning environment

There is some evidence (Edwards, 1967) that compared with other local-government functions the status oftown-planning committees with councillors is low. Planners themselves also rank their profession low in status compared with other professions (Marcus, 1971) and council members often view town-planning committees as the protectors of private interest and therefore not of great importance for action and change. Such a viewpoint can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of inactivity.

Politically and administratively the planners’ environment is complex over space, varied through time, and often hostile. As well as cyclical changes in the political alignment of the council that is typical of many authorities, there are many and varied interest groups in the population at large that make representations to planners and against planners. Such activity by the public is actually stimulated by the planner’s desire for greater public participation. The complexity of the administrative environment is further increased by the fact that such participation is usually unrepresentative of the population as a whole.

As a reaction to such administrative complexities, planning departments may innovate administratively, both by adding new functions and duties to the existing framework and by rebuilding the organisational structure itself.

The environment administered by planners is very wide in scope, containing physical, economic and social components. This wide scope of interest, coupled with the sheer numbers of people and groups that are active within local planning authority areas, ensures that the environmental complexity relevant to planners is very high. This complexity is also increased by the planners’ uncertainty at any given time concerning the characteristics of the system with which they are dealing, and which of many courses of action they ought to follow.

As well as the high environmental complexity within any one authority, there are also large variations in such complexity between authorities. Environmental indicators such as overcrowding, poor housing conditions, car-ownership rates and many others reflect these differences between authority areas. Particularly large differences can be expected between rural and urban areas. Multiple use of sites, a wider range of functions and more complex developmental histories are all more prevalent in urban areas.

Complexity within the planning environment may lead to innovations inside planning departments involving greater differentiation and specialisation of roles, procedures and methods. Where such complexity also concerns poor living conditions, congestion and other problems that planners would like to remedy, there is a further spur to innovation.

As well as complexity over space, there is variability over time. In the short term this variability usually involves specific projects for capital investment, their implications for the development of land, and their social and economic consequences. The need to assess and measure the outcomes of such proposals often leads to innovative activity in evaluation

250 Progress in Pianning

techniques. Where alternative proposals have to be suggested, new ideas in plan making may result. Once again, such variability can be assumed to take on different aspects in different locations. In particular, urban areas may be expected to contain the greatest degree of variability, this going hand in hand with their greater complexity.

The planning environment also contains hostile and competitive elements. It conforms to what Emery and Trist (1965) call the disturbed reactive environment. In this environment, planners are not the only group to be interested in social and physical development. For example, politicians are especially concerned with the former, while property developers have great interests in the latter. In this situation, if an environmental state that is optimal for everyone is to be approached, there is a great need for negotiations between participants in order to avoid the undesirable, unintended consequences of each group’s activity. Such a requirement may lead planners to innovate along the lines of public participation and consul~tion.

As with other en~ro~ent~ aspects, competing interests can also be assumed higher in urban locations. This is because of the high density of activities, wide range of interest groups present, and consequently, the high likelihood of incompatible behaviour between them.

Thus, if planning were to reflect faithfully the needs of its environment we should expect planning innovativeness to be high on average, and that there would be variations between authorities, with a special emphasis upon innovation within large urban areas. However, as discussed in the last section, the wide latitude in innovative performance that can be tolerated by the planning environment means that in any given environmental situation the ways in which planning departments may innovate their activity can be subject to great variability.

3.3. THE PLANNING ORGANISATION AND INNOVATION

3.3.1. l%e department as a whole

In line with the socio-technical-system theorists, the planning organisation may be seen as a system open to its environment. The peoplk involved in this system may be planners, politicians or the public at large. Unlike many professions, the work of planners is available for scrutiny by the whole population, planning constituting a very open system. It is these people that give the support needed for the continuation of the planning process. They also bring widely differing world views with them to the pl~~g org~~ation, thereby forming an important source of ideas when change is needed. Indeed, the clash between their own views and the established outlook of the organisation may itself form an important source of innovative activity.

The outputs from the system include policy statements, information and action. The action might be to inhibit or to promote environmental change as the planning system acts in its capacity.as a regulator of society. Such output may change the nature of the environment and the way that it is perceived by planners, and so trigger off innovation. Thus, innovation may follow a course of cumulative development within a particular planning department. This gives that department a consistent reputation for innovation, which in itself adds to the effect by becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, planning departments are also able to resist many pressures for change. As well


as there being a complex and changing environment in which it is objectively difficult to measure the effectiveness of planning, departments may be unaware of needs for change because of their selectivity in monitoring their activities. The limited statistics available to them and the established ways of looking at problems may cause them to overlook some important, unintended impacts of their actions.

There are other characteristics of the planning organisation which may or may not be conducive to innovative activity. The Royal Commission on Local Government in England (1969) suggests that small authorities may well be unable to attract officers of high calibre, with the outcome that innovative activity is reduced in both quantity and quality. Such problems arise from the fact that there is lesser scope for specialist skills, a narrower career structure, and poorer prospects of promotion within small departments. The pay of chief officers, being related to the population of the area served, is also less in small authorities.

Small departments also have fewer financial resources. Because local government is viewed by the public as essentially a service function, it is politically constrained to devote only a very small proportion of its money to research. As a consequence it is only the larger authorities that can support a continuing research programme. However, even here, the research undertaken has to be of a very practical nature with possibilities of almost immediate return upon investment if it is to be justified. As a consequence, innovations that involve a complete break with past activity, and which come only from basic or pure research (Nelson, 1959), cannot be expected to originate within planning authorities.

Division of responsibilities between local authority departments may help each department to disclaim responsibility for problems, and hence avoid the need for innovation. However, where departments do come together to work on a given problem, the incidence of innovation may be greatly increased (A&en and Hage, 1971). Efficiency is impaired by the greater possibilities of conflict in such situations, but this may be more than outweighed by the greater variety of outlooks that can be brought to bear on the problem. Where problems are large and expensive to solve (for example, the introduction of a new computer system) such co-operation may also take place between local authorities, again to the benefit of innovative activity.

Where day-to-day working fully occupies the planning department, the absence of slack resources may necessitate the appointment of a planning consultancy to tackle some of the more persistent problems. For reasons outlined above this may be particularly true of the small authority. Having closer links with basic research, consultants are more likely to come up with original ideas than the departments by themselves, although, being driven by a profit motive, they are also concerned to arrive at quick and simple solutions, thereby restricting the area over which they range.

3.3.2. l7re arrangement of offices within the planning department

Local authority planning departments have a formal structure very similar to that described by Weber (1946) when he discussed his ‘ideal’ bureaucracy. This involves a system of rules that specifies the rights and duties of the incumbents in a hierarchy of offices, and a clear-cut, highly speciahsed division of labour.

Weber’s bureaucracy stresses the fmed jurisdiction of officers, a situation which is not conducive to innovation, which invariably involves looking beyond one’s present position. In addition, duties in the bureaucracy are usually specified by a set of minimum standards to be maintained. It is not very long before such minimum standards become viewed as


satisfactory standards by the participants, and this also has the effect of reducing innovative activity (Gouldner, 1954).

Too great an emphasis placed upon the conformity and discipline of participants may result in the displacement of goals. That is, the means of the organisation are substituted for its ends. This leads to the development of rigidities and an inability to adjust because of an irrational attachment to the rules, with obvious consequences for innovation.

In so far as planning departments, like other government bodies, rely upon bureaucratic structure to achieve operational efficiency, then to that extent are they imposing rigidities that hinder innovation.

The hierarchy of control that is universally used within planning departments has particular relevance to innovation. Blau and Scott (1963) suggest that the status differences created by the hierarchy impose a barrier to upward communication and remove many possibilities for social support of deviant viewpoints. Juniors often refrain from communicating unformulated ideas to superiors in case this creates a bad impression in the event of their failure.

There is also a clash between the hierarchical control structure and professionalism. Both bureaucrats and professionals have strictly limited skills, universalistic standards, are affectively neutral, and attempt to render services according to need rather than ability to pay. However, bureaucrats are subject to direct control by a superior, whereas professionals rely upon advisory control and support from peers in an institutional framework. This leads to role strain for the planner, who is both professional and bureaucrat, and can act to reduce the innovativeness of the individual. If a subordinate wishes to avoid a confrontation concerning his professional status he will not reveal his innovative ideas of a contentious nature, and such ideas may have to wait for implementation until the individual has achieved sufficient authority and status to impose them.

Another typology of office structure has been described by Burns and Stalker (1961). Here, two ideal types of organisational arrangement are described. One is oriented to stable working conditions and environment (the mechanistic organisation) and the other oriented to a changing environment requiring innovative behaviour (the organic organisation). With their specialised differentiation of tasks and hierarchic structure of control and authority, the planning departments of local government are located nearer to the mechanistic organisational type than to the organic one. However, in so far as communications between officers of similar position are well developed, and importance attached to general, cosmopolitan knowledge and skills, the complete rigidities of the mechanistic structure are avoided.

Nevertheless, local planning authorities are not characterised by the continual adjustment and redefinition of work roles and offices. Nor are they characterised by a network structure of control and authority, where responsibility and the location of authority are decided by consensus. Both of these are typical of the organic organisation.

As noted in the previous section, the planning environment is characterised by high complexity over space and time. It therefore relates best to an innovative planning organisation. However, the mechanistic structure approximated to by planning departments is not suitable for such innovations, and Bums and Stalker suggest that this may lead to various kinds of pathological conduct on the part of the organisation. Novel problems will not fit into the established structure of offices and are consequently passed up the hierarchy to the top for decision. In this way the chief planning officer may become overloaded with work and his subordinates frustrated by their inability to act upon problems.

Piarming and the /nnu~tion Process 253

Within the hierarchical structure of the prong department it is also usual to have a major division between plan-making and control. Minett (1971) suggests that such a division hinders the development of an overall view of the plamring process, and permits each division to disclaim responsibility for problems as they arise and attribute them to the other. Such activity means that many planning problems may be bypassed altogether and innovative activity reduced. However, even where co-operation is well developed, the fact that individuals in each division are special&d in their own functions means that they cannot properly interpret the information that they receive in the light of the other’s needs, and hence co-ordination is still hindered to some extent.

Thus, the necessary imposition of procedures and ob~gations upon ~~~du~s witbin organisations Emits their fIexibility and ~on~quently their ability to innovate. However, this could be partly overcome by the adoption of a more nearly organic structure and by the introduction of creative individuals to the organisation. The characteristics of such persons will soon be considered.

3.3.3. Deckion-making within phning orgunisations

As mentioned earlier, one way that planners may react to environmental problems is to follow a disjointed incrementalist dec~on-rn~g procedure (H~sc~~ and Lindblom, 1962). Unlike the conscious adoption of ~ovation as a means of coping with environmental change, the disjointed incremental&t approach is followed more by default. It also has various implications for innovation. Firstly, most decisions taken are of a marginal, incremental nature, and consequently radical innovative activity is unlikely. Then there is a tendency for ends to be chosen according to the means that are available. This is a very practical method of working, although not very innovative since ends preserve means and vice versa. Only a small number of alternative courses of action are usually considered, and as pointed out by Cyert and March (1968), since the search for alternatives starts near to existing solutions and works slowly towards more radical ones, the few solutions that can be considered because of constraints of time and resources are usually not very ~novative in character. Finally, the analysis of the consequences of decisions is fra~ented between individuals, evaluated in terms of short time-scale criteria, and often quite incomplete. Thus, the various unintended impacts of any innovation that is adopted may go undetected for some time, leading eventually to the need for more radical innovation as the problems cumulate.

The disjointed incrementalist method of progression by incomplete adjustment involves a small amount of innovation only. It provides a method of partially side-stepping environmental complexity and change, and relies upon the liberality of the environment, discussed earlier, that allows phmning departments to continue with a low level of ~ovation. Disjointed ~crementa~sm is probably colon in those dep~tments characterised by organisational structures and planners that are not conducive to radical action, as discussed in other sections of this chapter.

Simon (1959) suggests that the search for possible innovative action is initiated when organisational performance falls short of aspirations. Thus, in planning authorities, innovative activity can be expected to be related to the expectations of the staff involved. The higher are the expectations, the higher is the innovative effort. However, such expectations are not themselves independent of previous innovative activity and will adjust themselves up or down according to former successes or failures. The perception of such


success or failure will vary from individual to individual, and in this way the personality of the planner becomes directly involved in the striving for innovative success.

When solutions to problems have to be found in a short time, as is often the case in a planning organisation dealing with a complex, changing environment, the department may choose to work in an information blackout, restricting the number of people involved in the decision-making process. This restricts the likely innovative content of the decisions reached, but it does allow the limited information used to be digested adequately and reduces errors due to the distortion of Information during transmission. It also helps to achieve unity in search, analysis and evaluation, greater consensus and the reduction of conflicts of interest.

The eventual decision made will reflect the individual biases of the planners involved, the need for an easily adopted solution involving a minimal reallocation of power, the order in which the various alternatives were presented to the group, and the time allocated for the decision. For major decisions, the longer the period allocated for decision, the better the result. However, even where ample time is given for decision, if the planner involved has also to deal with short-term problems, as may well be the case in a mechanistic planning department in a variable environment, then the major decisions will be postponed until the deadline is near. In this way, the mixing of short-term and long-term problems leads to the inadequate consideration of the latter. As a consequence, major innovations may not be fully developed, leading on to their possible rejection or failure at a later date.

The behaviour of subordinates within the planning department may also prejudice the quality of innovative decisions made within the organisation. Downs (1967) notes that in the process of upward communication information invariably becomes distorted in content and emphasis. Because of this, superiors develop a justified scepticism towards many supposed problems. However, on the occasions where the planning situation is as bad as is claimed, this scepticism leads to delay in the introduction of innovative action, and even the possible misinterpretation of the situation and the initiation of incorrect action. The failure of such an inappropriate innovation may lead to it acquiring an undeserved bad name and leave the organisation less inclined towards innovation than was previously the case.

3.4. THE INDIVIDUAL PLANNER AND INNOVATION

Individual planners influence the amount and type of innovative activity within planning departments according to their background and individual motivation. These factors will be considered in turn.

Rogers (1962) suggests that innovative individuals are often young and of high social status. Being young they have been socialised and educated in more modem ways, have less incompatible experience to hinder them, and have a higher motivation to succeed than older persons. High social status is helpful since such individuals may deviate and still maintain their social position (Blau and Scott, 1963). Psychologically, Tyson (1966) considers that the personality variables associated with creativity and innovation include diligence, discipkne, total commitment to one’s work, intelligence, independence, intuitiveness and playfulness. However, the distribution of such traits amongst planners is unknown.

Socially, planners come from an undifferentiated middle-class background (Marcus, 1971), a background that sponsors a belief in stability and conventionality (Elboim-Dror, 1971). However, planners tend to deviate from this stereotype since the survey by Marcus also shows that, unlike the middle class as a whole, planners have a greater tendency to read a liberal press and support left-wing politics. Thus, planners are more ready to support


change than their social peers. Another background factor that may become of significance in the future concerns the

large number of planners being educated at the present time. Already the student membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute is the same size as its full membership. It Seems likely that there will soon be a surplus of qualified planners. Mulkay and Turner (1971) stress such overproduction of personnel as being one of the major causes of innovative activity within professions. It causes people to compete, look for new audiences and new sources of support for their skills. Some of this innovative activity will find its way to the conventional employers of labour sych as local government planning departments, although much of the innovation will take place elsewhere, perhaps in such fields as advocacy planning.

Once in a job, however, the planner meets people from a wide range of backgrounds. The existence of several methods of entry to the profession, combined with the nature of the work, which is often interdisciplinary and with people of other professions, means that a variety of outlooks and attitudes is fostered. This is a good thing when innovation is called for since varied approaches to a problem are more likely to come up with a good result in the end. However, such variation can become a barrier if it leads to a lengthy decision-making process_ and an inability to agree upon proposals.

The background of planners is also changing over time. The original emphasis upon engineers and architects has given way to a situation where people specifically trained as planners, and especially university graduates, are of growing importance. Thus the situation arises that in addition to differences between contemporaries there are also differences in outlook between superiors and subordinates, a fact that amplifies some of the processes involved in a hierarchical planning organisation mentioned earlier.

Like many other professionals, planners are strongli motivated to achieve career advancement. On average, they move jobs between five and six times during their career. This rate is much higher than was observed in a general sample of university graduates, a roughly comparable group (Marcus, 1971). Such mobility leads to a diversity of experience and also helps establish a cosmopolitan outlook, both of which are functional for the adoption of innovation. By continually altering the detailed make-up of face-to-face groups within planning departments, such staff turnover may further increase the receptivity to change by reducing the consensus on planning issues and methodologies at any one time. This also reduces the degree to which generalised social support in the form of affection, companionship and encouragement is used to reinforce established views (Secord and Backman, 1964).

To use Argyris’ term, the drive to self-actualisation by planners is most often satisfied by creativity. This was stated as the greatest job satisfaction by planners in Marcus’ survey. This suggests that a norm in favour of change is built into planning ideology, although the desire to change the environment is not quite the same as the desire to change oneseif. Indeed, Edwards (1967) suggests that the planners’ professional orientation may be a hindrance to changing themselves. There is a built-in conservatism in that planners look to their older peers for support and education, while a professional code of conduct prohibiting individuals seeking publicity for themselves inhibits the spread of new ideas and procedures.

Finally, Friedman (1966) points out that innovative planners are characterised by their committal to their ideas, concern to justify their proposed solutions rather than with predicting their consequences, regard co-operation as a tactic only, and also use information only as a tactical weapon. This suggests that the successful innovator is more akin to the


evangelist than the classical rational decision-maker.

3.5. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLANNING INNOVATION

Apart from the importance of the situation in which planning takes place, the characteristics of the innovation itself are important in determining the course and success of a particular innovative move. Both Rogers (1962) and Wade (1971) suggest various attributes that are important.

Firstly, there must be some advantage to be gained from adopting the innovation. This may be social, political or economic advantage. In a planning department, innovation may not be adopted unless it contains a margin of advantage for both the public and the planners. Certainly a proposal for change would be resisted if there were an advantage for the clients but a definite disadvantage perceived by the planners for themselves.

Then, the innovation should also be compatible with existing arrangements within the planning department. Change is most successfully implemented where it bears some relationship to existing values and past experiences. Where the innovation involves the use of technical equipment such as a computer, adoption will be more rapid if such hardware already exists and is capable of taking on the new procedures with minimal adjustment. Very often innovations involve the adoption of several related ideas and processes, and it is also important that all of these should be well developed and compatible.

High complexity in a possible innovation is a hindrance to its adoption. Where the changes needed in the department are perceived as complex by planners, and especially when other departments in the authority have to be involved in the process, such change is likely to encounter stiff opposition from the individuals concerned, even though such an innovation may match the nature of the planning environment well.

When particular adopters of an innovation are amongst the first to try it, the desire not to risk all resources upon an uncertain proposition puts a high premium upon divisibility. Thus, innovations that can be experimented with on a limited scale, perhaps on a pilot project basis, are favoured. In this context, a short time span between trial and results is also favourable since this limits the possibility of resources being wasted if the experiment is a failure, and also presents a result before interest in the innovation dwindles.

The cheaper an innovative proposition, the more likely it is to be given consideration since this both limits the losses in the event of failure and also promises economical working once it is implemented.

Finally, the ease with which it is possible to discuss an innovation affects its likely adoption. Communicability is higher when the results are tangible and easily perceived than when they are intangible. However, planning innovations may involve the evaluation and production of intangible results almost exclusively. Communicability is also high when other, similar organisations can be seen to be successfully using the innovation in question. Thus planners can be expected to make large efforts to determine the success or failure of similar projects to their own in other local authorities.

3.6. CONCLUSIONS

The amount of innovation that can be expected within a planning department depends upon the interrelationships between the planning environment, the organisational structure, the characteristics of the individual planner, and the properties of the particular innovation.

Planning and the innovation Process 257

The discussion of this chapter leads to some hypotheses concerning the variations in innovativeness that exist between local government planning departments. These are set down below, and evidence in favour of or against many of these hypotheses will be presented later in the study of the empirical work.

Innovation will be high, if all other factors are held constant, in those planning departments

(1) that have planning committees and departments of high status, (2) that have experienced changing political control, (3) that experience active public participation and opposition, (4) that have an environment of high complexity, (5) that have a rapidly changing environment, (6) that face difficult planning problems, (7) that have a varied mixture of officers and members, (8) that have a high staff turnover, (9) that have large numbers of staff,

(10) that make use of interdepartmental project teams, (11) that have employed a planning consultancy, (12) where bureaucratic procedures are not emphasised, (13) where deviant officers are allowed some freedom, (14) where hierarchical differences are played down, (15) where the organisation is more organic than mechanistic. (16) where there are delegated powers exerted by officers, (17) where decision-making is conducted openly and over a long period, (18) where decision-making is not of a disjointed incremental&t nature, (19) where the department contains young people, (20) where people have a cosmopolitan outlook with planning interests and contacts

outside their department, (21) where there has been departmental reorganisation, (22) where there is a history of innovation, (23) where there are ample resources, (24) where the expectations of performance held by the staff are high,

and also where the innovations investigated are (25) advantageous, (26) compatible with existing conditions and each other, (27) not complex, (28) divisible in time or organisational space, (29) cheap (30) communicable.

CHAPTER 4

Some Aspects of Recent Planning Innovation

Part 7: Methodology

4.1. INTRODUCTION

The concern of the next two chapters is with some recent advances in the technology of planning, and to what extent various planning authorities are innovative with respect to such technology. This chapter examines the methodology used in this empirical study, while the next chapter presents the results in detail.

4.2. THE QUESTIONNAIRE

In order to obtain a cross-sectional view of planning technology used in the various planning authorities of England and Wales at a given point in time, a postal questionnaire was devised. By posing the same few questions in a large sample of local planning authorities it was possible to gather strictly comparable results that could be used in a statistical analysis of innovation.

Since a schedule of detailed personal interviews was also undertaken in a small sample of local authorities, the aim of the postal questionnaire was not to obtain large amounts of detailed information, but rather to construct a basic framework that would both be interesting in itself and also form the background against which the detailed interviews could be set. The actual questionnaire used is described in Appendix 1.

In line with the theories presented in Chapter 2, the questionnaire was constructed to help investigate the innovativeness of planning departments according to the characteristics of the environment that they face and according to some characteristics of the planning organisation. Analysis according to the structural details internal to the departments was not given much emphasis in drawing up the national questionnaire since this was treated in the detailed interviews of the second stage of the experimental procedure.

Since many details of the planning environments within the various local authority areas could be investigated using standard sources of statistics published nationally, this left the questionnaire to cover topics of two kinds: (a) details of the department’s involvement with various planning techniques and (b) some characteristics of the planning department as a whole.

Two fields of planning technology were investigated, namely plan-making and plan evaluation. Within each of these fields, five particular techniques were detailed and the respondents asked if their particular authority had adopted, experimented with, or not used each one. An attempt was made to select a range of techniques with different likelihoods of

258

Pta~~i~g and the t~~ova~io~ Process 259

adoption so that most authorities would be able to claim an involvement with at least one of the techniques, and so that the differences in answers between authorities would be sensitive to different levels of involvement with recent planning technology as a whole.

The characteristics of the planning department asked about in the national questionnaire included the size of the department, the type of people employed, whether consultants and interdepartmental project teams had been used, and whether there had been a recent restructuring of the authority as a whole, including the planning department. The answers to these questions, together with the statistical information about the planning environment, provide the basic explanatory variables which, when included in a regression analysis, were to be used to account for some of the variations in ~ovativeness measured by the first half of the questio~re.

4.3. THE SAMPLING FRAME AND RESPONSE RATE

A stratified random sample of the local planning authorities in England and Wales was used as the basis for the postal questionnaire survey. Three strata were adopted corresponding to the three types of local planning authority: (a) County Councils and the GLC, (b) the London Boroughs and (c) the County Boroughs. A 100% sample was taken within the first two strata, and a 50% sample taken from amongst the County Boroughs.

In all, four authorities returned questionnaires that were inadequately ftied in, and which were therefore excluded from the analysis. At least seven questio~~res were returned after the deadline for analysis was reached and were therefore also excluded. Appro~ately fourteen authorities did not reply to the questionnaire, and this left 108 questionnaires out of 133 available for the analysis. The overall response rate of approximately 90% compares very favourabiy indeed with other postal questionnaires used-in other studies (Moser and Kalton, 1971).

4.4. THE INNOVATION SCORES AND INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

Given the replies to the questionnaire it was possible to construct ten separate indices or scores of innovativeness for each authority. All of these indices were calculated from the responses given to the questions concer~g the extent of involvement with the techniques of ply-rn~g and plan evaluation. The exact methods used in these c~culatio~ are described in Appendix 3.

Briefly, the different scores were arrived at through the formation of different weighted sums of the series of responses. For example, Innovation Score 9 concentrated upon the six techniques that were most commonly used within planning departments. For each of these six techniques, the contribution towards the total Innovation Score depended upon the proportion of all the authorities that had not yet achieved a given level of involvement. The greater the proportion of authorities that had not yet reached a particular 1eveI of involvement, the greater is the innovativeness of such an involvement. Thus consider the situation in Table 4.1.

TABLE 4.1. The percentage of authorities that have adopted, experimenfed or nor used a computer data bank

Not using, ‘70 Expe~ment~ng, % Adopted, %

49-l I 25.9 I 250


It can be seen that 75% of authorities have not yet adopted the use of a computer data bank. Thus, if an authority has adopted this particular technique the contribution given towards Innovation Score 9 on account of this is 0.750. Similarly, if the authority had been expe~en~g with the technique they would have scored O-49 1.

In the fmal analysis, in order to simplify the study, only one of the ten Innovation Scores was used as the dependent variable in the full regression analysis. In the multiple regression studies undertaken, all of the innovation scores qowed similar correlations with the independent variables, but Innovation Score 9 performed slightly better than the others, and was therefore chosen as the dependent variable with which to continue the analysis.

In addition to the ten scores of innovativeness, a data set of forty-four independent variables was constructed for each of the 108 authorities. Various sources of published statistics as well as certain replies to the questionnaires were used at this stage. The detailed nature of the variables, their sources and type of use in the analysis is outlined in Appendix 2, although a few examples are given in Table 4.2.

TABLE 4.2. Some of the independent varinbles used in the analysis

Shorthand name Meaning

Year

AMENIT Percentage of all households with all domestic amenities (e.g. bath, hot water)

1966

COUN66

CRWFAM

RATCHA

POUN7 1

ACADEM

RXSTlM

Percentage of households that live in council-owned property

Number df families living at 1% Persons per room or more

Percentage change in gross rateable values in authority’s area

Rate poundage (pence) in authority’s area

Number of planners in the local planning authority who hold degrees

Number of days taken to answer the national questionnaire (response time)

1966

1966

1970

1971

1972

1972

4.5. THE ANALYSIS

The statistical analysis took place in two stages. Firstly, the distributional characteristics of the various independent variables had to be investigated. One important assumption of the multivariate statistical analysis used in stage 2 is that the data are normaily distributed (Yule and Kendall, 1950). Given the citations of time and manpower that could be devoted to this stage of the analysis it was necessary to rely upon a visual test for no~~ty. This seems adequate considering the robustness of many statistical tests to the skewness of distributions (Yule and Ken&& p. 486).

Some of the variables approximated to the Gaussian bell-shaped distribution curve in their original state and were thus utilised in this form in the final analysis. Other data showed a marked tendency to skewness and had to be normalised before use. The transformation found adequate to convert all of the skewed data in this analysis to a normal ~st~bution was logarithmic. Other tr~sfo~ations are often used (e.g. double loga~~c, exponential} but they were not needed here. A complete list of the tr~sformatio~ used before the multivariate analysis was begun can be seen in Appendix 2.

Secondly came the multivariate analysis. The stepwise multiple-regression analysis used attempts to explain the variance of a dependent variable (in this case a score of innovation) in terms of its covariance with a series of other independent variables (the forty-four


variables in the data set). The technique does not compute an overall relationship between all the variables at once, but rather progresses in a series of steps towards a more complex solution from the simplest one possible, namely the relationship between the dependent variable and one independent variable. The programme starts by computing the relationship between the dependent variable and the most significant independent variable (in terms of their covariance) and then at each step adds into the relationship the next most significant variable. At each step it is possible to test the significance of the additional explanation achieved and thus at what number of steps one should halt.

CHAPTER 5

Some Aspects of Recent Planning Innovation

Part 2: Results

5.1. INTRODUCTION

The results of the analysis of 108 questionnaires returned from local planning authorities in England and Wales are given below. The chapter works through some of the simple interrelationships between the use of techniques and ends with two models of innovativeness, one to explain innovation and the other to predict it.

5.2.THE USE MADE OF VARIOUS PLANNING TECHNIQUES

Table 5.1 shows the percentage of departments for all the authorities studied that claim to be using various techniques on a full-time continuing basis, the percentage that are experimenting with them, and the percentage that do not use them at all.

The frequency of use of the techniques seems intuitively correct. Financial Appraisal, being the standard way in which local authorities evaluate their investment projects, is used very frequently within planning departments. The Goals Achievement Matrix, being both recent and problematical, has not been tackled by many departments, while Input-Output Analysis is more of a macro-economic tool and therefore of little use at the local authority level.

TABLE 5.1. The percentage of authorities using, expen’menting, or not usina various danni ng

Technique

Financial appraisal

Gravity modelling

Cost-benefit analysis

Multivariate statistical techniques

Computer data bank

Cost effectiveness studies

Planning balance sheet

Linear programming

Goals achievement matrix

Input-output analysis

Using full time, %

58.4 12.0 29.6

38.0 13.9 48.1

25.9 25.0 49.1

25.0 21.3 53.7

25.0 25.9 49.1

21.3 17.6 61.1

14.8 18.5 66.7

13.0 10.2 76.8

8.3 14.8 76.9

3.7 8.3 88.0

techniaues

Experimenting, % Not using, %

Number of authorities = 108.

262


5.3. OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANNING DEPARTMENTS

In this section the replies of planning authorities to other questions in the national questionnaire are analysed. Some of these will be valuable in the construction of the regression models later in this chapter.

The mean size of the planning departments replying to the questionnaire was fifty-three, with only about 10% of the sample having more than 110 persons employed (excluding administrative staff). When it came to employing planners with degree qualifications, the average number in a planning department was approximately twenty-four with very few departments having more than ten. Indeed, almost half the departments sampled had ten or less degree-qualified planners.

When it comes to the use of narrow specialists, the employment of sociologists and statisticians in those roles alone is very uncommon. The existence of designated posts for such persons is significantly related to the size of the planning department, large departments having the advantages of ample resources that allow a finer division of labour between individuals.

Within the authority as a whole 34.2% of the respondents reported that there had been a major reorganisation of departments within the last two years. This suggests that, on average, reorganisation comes every four years. As will be demonstrated below, such restructuring has an influence upon the degree to which recent management techniques are utilised within the authority. The involvement of authorities with such techniques is shown in Table 5.2.

TABLE 5.2. The involvement with management methods in the authority as a whole

Method

Delegation of powers to individual officers

Interdepartmental project teams

Management by objectives

Planning programming and budgeting

Not using, % Experimenting, % Adopted, %

44.5 8.3 47.2

15.7 20.4 63.9

57.5 25.0 17.6

56.5 23.2 20.4

Sample size = 108.

From this it can be seen that interdepartmental project teams and the delegation of powers to individual officers are commonly used, partly no doubt because of the temporary status of the former and the ease of introduction of the latter. On the other hand, complete management methods such as management by objectives or planning programming and budgeting have not been adopted in many places, although perhaps one-quarter of all authorities are looking into them.

264 Progriss in Planning

5.4. INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE TECHNIQUES USED

If a planning department uses one recent technique on a full-time basis, then it may utilise other techniques, either because they are directly related to the original technique, or because innovation with respect to one technique may indicate a general innovativeness in the department that leads it to adopt others. This contention is tested in this section, where correlations between the uses made of various techniques are studied.

TABLE 5.3. Interrehtionships between plan-making and evaluating techniques (Product moment correlations)

I

l-00 036

(3)

039

l-00 @56

(4; (5)

+

0.17 0.10

o-12 0.10

Technique

1. Computer data bank

2. Multivariate statistical techniques

3. Gravity modelling

4. cost effectiveness studies

5. Cost-benefit analysis

6. Planning balance sheet

7. Financial appraisal

1.00 0.11 0.02

1.00 047

1.00

(6)

0.12

0.12

0.05

0.17

041

1.00

(7)

0.18

0.14

020

026

033

035

1.00

Sample size = 108. ltalicised values have p < 0.05.

Table 5.3 shows the relationships between some of the plan-making and evaluating techniques contained in the questionnaire, as measured by the product moment correlation coefficient. A significant correlation indicates that there is a strong tendency either to use both of the techniques within a planning department, or not to use either of them. All of the variables in the table are binary in character.

Three of the techniques included in the questionnaire (linear programming, input-output analysis, and the goals achievement matrix) have been excluded from the table because of the skewed nature of the replies to these questions, each one having more than 85% of the replies in one category alone. Such skewness would invalidate the meaning of the correlation coefficients.

Table 5.3 shows that there is a strong tendency for gravity modelling, multivariate statistical analysis, and a computer data bank to be used together within the same authorities. The computer data bank can supply the large statistical resources needed for both gravity modelling and multivariate analysis, while, in addition, the sorts of skills required of planners are similar for all three. This is an example of related techniques being adopted together, lending support to hypothesis 26 in Chapter 3 concerning the need for compatibility between techniques.

There is a similar tendency for the four plan evaluation techniques to be tried together, there being particularly strong relationships between the two financial techniques of cost effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis.

Planning and the Innovation Process

TABLE 5.4. Relatfonshfps between tech~~ues used and characterf3ffcs of the p~~m.ng department

265

Techniaue I (1)

Departmental characteristic

Number of staff

Number of degree Staff

Employ a sociologist

Used consultant

Restructured departments

Product moment co~Wfon$

(2) I (3) (4) f (5) f (6) 1 (7) I I I

0.03

0.02

026

0.12

0.02

030 022

028 019

0.18 021

0.07 028

021 I 0.17

024

I 0.19

0.07 0.03

026 022

0.07 f 0‘10 0.00 f 0.14

Key to headings:

(1) Computer data bank (2) Multivariate statistical

techniques (3) Gravity modelling

(4) Cost effectiveness studies (5) Cost-benefit analysis (6) Planning balance sheet (7) Financial appraisal

Sample size = 108. Italicised values have p < O-05.

Table 5.4 shows similar correlations to those in Table 5.3 between the use of the various plan-making and evaluation techniques and certain characteristics of the planning departments. The larger the department and number of degree-quaWed people employed, the greater is the likelihood of having adopted the various techniques. This is confirmation of hypothesis 9 in Chapter 3, and also relates to hypothesis 20 concerning the importance of contacts outside the planning department inasmuch as degree-qualified people tend to have cosmopolitan outlooks.

Consultants appear to be of importance where gravity models, cost effectiveness studies and cost-benefit analyses have been adopted. These are three areas of strong activity by consultants. This also supports hypothesis 11 in Chapter 3 that states that planning departments emplo~g consultants are likely to be innovative. The restructu~ng of the depa~ments within the authority as a whole does not relate significantly to the adoption of any plan-making or evaluating technique, and therefore challenges hypothesis 21 in Chapter 3. Nevertheless, as will be seen in Table 5.6, it does relate to innovativeness in management techniques.

The next table (Table 5.5) indicates that there is little relationship between the adoption of management methods and planning techniques. Thus, for example, no positive evidence can be given to support hypothesis 10 in Chapter 3 suggesting that the existence of interdepartmental project teams leads to greater innovation. However, management by objectives is related to the evaluation techniques, perhaps a reflection of the importance of evaluating the outcomes of action and comparing them with the objectives of that element method.

M


TABLE 5.5. Relntionships between plan-making and evaluation techniques hnd manageme nt methods

tions)

(41 (5) “-flI P duct mo ent cant

(1) (2) (3) (61 (7) Technique

Management method

Delegation of powers

Interdepartmental project teams

Management by objectives

Planning pro~arn~g and budgeting

0.01 0.14 0.06

0.03 0.08 0.07 0.16 0.18

-0.10 0.07 0.04

-0-13 -0.08 -0.06

Key to headings as in Table 5.4. Sample size = 108. ltalicised values have p < 0.05.

0.12

0.11

019

0.10

0.18

o-15

029

024

The last table in this section (Table 5.6) refers to the relationships between managementi ~ovations and the structural ~~rac~~stics of the planning department. It is clear at once that the size of the department and the type of employees found in it relate closely to each other. Similarly, the use of interdepartmental project teams, management by objectives and planning programming and budgeting tend to go together. As mentioned above, the restructuring of departments is related to the use of recent management methods, and lends support to hypothesis 2 1 in Chapter 3 so far as management innovations are concerned.

TABLE 5.6. Re~tjonshiRs between ~e~tmental characteristics and &magement m&hods

(Product moment correlations)

>38

L-00

iii (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

0.10 0.08 020 0.16 -0.03

0.12 0.09 021 @20 -0.03

0.18 o-11 0.10 0.08 @23

024 0.11 0.16 @I9 0.12

1.00 0.13

l-00

-0.05

625

1.00

-0.02 -0.15

028

05s

1.00

027

037

030

1.00

It ali cised lues have p c 0.0

-6-i

l*OO

Sal

VPriable

1. Number of staff

2. Number of degree staff

3. Sociologist employed

4. Used consultant

5. Delegate powers to officers

6. lnterdepart- mental proj. teams

7. Management by objectives

8. P.P.B.S.

9. Restructured departments

099

1.00


Other interesting relationships within the table suggest that the adoption of management by objectives and planning programming and budgeting is much more likely where there is a high number of people with an academic background (hypothesis 20 again) and that consult~ts are important in the process of adopting planning prig and budgeting and the use of delegated powers (hypothesis 11 again). The importance of consultants will be given closer attention in the detailed studies of the next chapter.

5.5, THE REGRESSION MODELS OF INNOVATlVENESS

5.5.1. The descriptiw multiple-regress&z model of irtno~ti~eness

fn this section an attempt is made to explain the observed innovativeness of local planning authorities by assuming that innovation is a linear function of environmental and departmental characteristics. Explanation at this level of resolution is used by system theorists, s~ctur~-function~sts and socio-technical system theorists as explained in Chapter 2. The approach ignores many of the intradepartmental and personal factors that other theorists have emphasised in their studies of innovation, and consequently one cannot expect perfect explanation from looking at environmental characteristics alone. It is in the next chapter that intradepartmental and personal factors are touched upon.

Data for all the 108 local planning authorities was fed into a stepwise multiple-recession model that took Innovation Score 9 as its dependent variable and the forty-four variables listed in Appendix 2 as independent variables. At each step of the multiple-regression procedure it was possible to test whether all of the variables included in the regression equation added significantly to the explanation achieved. The eleventh step was the last one in which all the variables did add significantly to the explanation of the variance of Innovation Score 9, and at this point the model parameters were as out~ed in Table 5.7.

TABLE 5.7. The descriptive multiple-regression model

Multiple R = O-6833. p <O-01. InterceDt value = -141293 I Variable

1. AMENIT

2. COW66

3. CRWFAM

4. RATCHA

5. PouN71

6. PGRANT

7. PDEMOL

8. TYPAUT

9. ACADEM

10. CONSUL

11. RESTIM

Coefficient

0.02335

-GO3677

l-29637

-0.11146

O-02228

241398

0.33753

-0.95545

0.36207

-0.40791

-0-48649

Standard enor

0~01002

0~01097

O-26895

0.05677

0.01133

0.71248

0*19181

0.39109

0.20507

0.19509

0.25838

F-value

5432%

11.2387-j

23.2332$

3.85477

3.8676t

114795t

3.0966*

S-9686?

3*1173*

4.3718t

3.54515

‘p<O-01. t p ~O*OOl.

Variable names are explained in Appendix 2.

268 Progms in Planning

The absolute values of the regression coefficients cannot be compared directly, one to another, since they depend upon the way in which the variables were measured. However, their sign is important. The size of the F-value indicates the significance of the particular variable to the overall explanation after the effects of all the other ten variables have been held constant.

First of all it should be noted that the multiple correlation coefficient of 0.6833 indicates that almost 47% of the variance in local planning authority innovativeness is explained by using the eleven variables. This leaves approximately half of the variance to be accounted for by other factors internal to the planning department such as the experience and social contacts of the individual planners.

Of the eleven variables, eight relate to the external environment of the authority and three to the characteristics of the planning department as a whole. The most important of the environmental variables refers to the total number of families within the local authority’s administrative area that live at densities of more than 1% persons per room. As the number of such people living in crowded conditions rises, so does the innovativeness of the local authority. This is in direct support of hypothesis 6 in Chapter 3 stating that the more difficult are the problems faced by the authority, then the more likely is innovation. The importance of this variable also matches &th the findings of Robson (1968) and Gittus (1964) who, when conducting social area analyses within two British towns, also discovered overcrowding as the most important surrogate of urban conditions out of all the variables they had included.

Also important are the percentage of all houses receiving improvement grants and the percentage of all houses that are demolished annually. As with the index of overcrowding, both of these reflect the existence of difficult housing problems, and as these increase in size, so does local planning authority innovativeness. However, improvement grants and demolitions also relate to the speed at which the planning environment is changing. A rapidly decaying housing stock necessitates a large proportion of demolitions and improvements which themselves go on to reinforce the changing environment. Thus, the inclusion of these variables within the model supports both hypotheses 5 and 6 in Chapter 3 above.

The slower is the rate at which the total gross rateable value of all the buildings within the administrative area of the local authority is changing, the greater is the tendency for innovativeness to be high (variable 4 in the model). Once again, this is a surrogate of the problems faced by the planning department. Slowly increasing or even falling total gross rateable values indicate slow economic growth and perhaps even decay in the building stock. Another financial statistic included in the model is the level of the 1971 rate poundage (variable 5). The size of this poundage reflects both the planning problems faced by the authority and the resources available to the planning department. A high poundage indicates the need for high expenditures relative to the size of the local authority, and this is often the consequence of facing up to difficult problems requiring heavy investment by local government. However, a high poundage rate also means a high availability of money relative to size and is therefore evidence in favour of hypothesis 23 in Chapter 3 which states that innovativeness is likely to be high where there are large resources.

The high availability of resources also appears to be the explanation for the inclusion of variable 1 in Table 5.7. The greater is the percentage of households within the local authority area that have all the usual amenities (e.g. bath, hot water, etc.), then the greater is the aggregate gross rateable value. This variable may also be related to the attractiveness of


the area as a place to live, and hence the ability of the planning department to attract planners of high calibre.

As the percentage of houses owned by the council increases, the amount of innovation decreases (variable 2). This is perhaps partly an inverse of the previous factor and also a reflection of the fact that where much of the planning environment is directly controlled by the local authority it is necessarily less complex and problematical, and consequently less likely to require innovative action.

The inclusion of variable 8 in the multiple-regression model indicates that, on average, County Councils are more innovative than the County Boroughs and London Boroughs, and this is after such factors as the size of the departments and the character of the local environments have been accounted for by other variables. The reasons for this are probably related to the detailed internal structure of the departments involved, such as are touched upon in the next chapter. Also concerning the nature of the planning department, the model indicates that those authorities with large numbers of planners with degree qualifications (variable 9) are more innovative than others. This is both a reflection of the importance of the absolute size of the department and the influence of such people as potentialinnovators (hypotheses 9 and 20 in Chapter 3).

Once again, the employment of a planning consultancy is seen to have the effect of increasing innovativeness, while variable 11 indicates that the faster the questionnaire was returned the more likely was the department to be innovative. The exact meaning of this must be speculative, but it is possible that rapid responses could be expected from organic departments since mechanistic ones would be slow in collecting the information needed from several different sources and also slow in processing a request for information that does not fit well into the established response patterns. If this is the case, it affords evidence for hypothesis 15 in Chapter 3.

The inclusion of eleven variables in the multiple-regression model necessarily means that there are twenty-five variables not considered because their significance to the overall relationship is very low after the interrelationships with the eleven included variables have been taken into account.

55.2. I&e distribution of innovativeness within England and Wales

Maps 5.1 and 5.2 show the claimed involvement of the counties of England and Wales with techniques in January 1972 as measured by Innovation Score 9, and the computed innovativeness resulting from the descriptive multiple-regression model. The degree to which these two maps agree is an indication of the success of the multiple-regression procedure as a model of the observed distribution of innovation. The maps vary in the number of counties covered because some returns came back too late for inclusion in the statistical analysis, although their scores could be entered on the map of claimed innovativeness.

The striking feature of Map 5.1 is its close similarity to a map showing the distribution of population in England and Wales (Map 5.3). The existence of a spine of imrovativeness between London and Manchester is also interesting in its coincidence with the area described by Caesar (1964) as Britain’s potential ‘megalopolis’. This is the area of greatest industrial and urban growth, and the area of the country best served by a multiplicity of communications. A similar concentration of innovative activity has been noted by Ullman (1964) in the north-east United States. Bred (1965) explains this in terms of a cumulative model of development based upon the concepts developed by Myrdal. Urban spread,


population growth and industrial expansion lead to the growth of large markets, economies of scale and completely new opportunities for investment. Large resources become available because of economic success, and the new opportunities call forth invention and innovation. This innovative activity then feeds back into industrial growth in order to regenerate the process.

Quartiles of Innovation Score 9

less

less

MAP 5.1. Claimed innovativeness of county planning authorities (January I9 72).

Planning and the Innovation Pracess 271

\ Quartiles of innovation Score 9

MAP 5.2. Computed ~n~o~atiueness of county p~~~i~g ~th~~tjes (Jtmuo~ 1972).

The economic incentive is not so applicable to Iocal government as in the argument above, ~thou~ rapid economic growth does mean the rapid growth in gross rateable values and possibly the existence of some surplus resources withii the authority. In addition, rapid economic growth is usually tied to growing environmental problems of congestion and pollution. The fact that these forces are strongest in large urban areas combines with the fact that such areas usually have large planning departments, depa~men~ that are able to mob&e sufficient resources to sponsor new ideas.

272 Progrws in Planning

\

B Persons per

IL t

square mile’-

Over 512

257 - 512

Under 257

MAP 5.3. Fop~lati~~ density in England and Wales

Once again the importance of size and complex environmental change as determinants of innovation are established, supporting hypotheses 4,5,6, and 9 of Chapter 3. The cumulative process also suggests that innovative departments are likely to remain so because of external factors, thereby also supporting hypothesis 22.

5.5.3. The predictive multiple-regression model of innovativeness

As well as analysing innovativeness in a descriptive model it was decided to attempt to predict the innovativeness of the eleven authorities that were visited during the course of the programme of personal interviews. In this way the deviation between actual innovativeness and predicted innovativeness could be observed and perhaps explained in the light of those interviews.

The same stepwise multiple-regression procedure was used as before except that this time the eleven authorities where interviews took place were removed from the analysis. The time taken to respond to the questionnaire was also removed for all cases. The latter variation was necessary since it is impossible to know this fact without actually sending questionnaires to the authorities concerned, in which case prediction is hardly necessary.

The structure of the predictive model came out as in Table 5.8, with six steps taking- place before insignificant additions were made to the explanation.


TABLE 5.8. The predictive multiple-regression model of innovation

Multiple R = O-6293 p < 0.001 Intercept value = -0.47575

Variable Coefficient Standard error F-value

1. DwEM6 0.99752 0.25482 15.3245t 2. COUN66 -0.02393 0*01171 4.1748t 3. PGRANT 1.79069 O-71211 6-3233t 4. PDEMOL @44271 O-17132 6.67787 5. ACADEM 056360 0.21316 6.9909t 6. CONSUL -0-41696 o-20882 3.9869’

l p = o-01 t p = O*OOl

Variable names are explained in Appendix 2.

The coefficient of multiple correlation is lower than with the descriptive model, and therefore the deviations between the predicted and observed values will be comparatively large. The explanation of the residuals will be attempted in the analysis of the next chapter.

5.6. CONCLUSIONS

This chapter shows how different planning innovations have been adopted to different extents by the planning authorities of England and Wales. Some techniques tend to be adopted together, while the use of any particular technique is also related to the various characteristics of the planning department involved. Analysis of these regularities give support to several of the hypotheses concerning innovation in planning that were put forward in Chapter 3.

Approximately half of the variation in innovativeness between local planning authorities was explained using a multiple-regression model involving independent variables related to the size of the authority and its problematical environment. Again, this modelling process supported several of the hypotheses of Chapter 3, and helped to explain some of the important factors that stimulate innovation in planning methodology.

Finally, a model was constructed to predict the innovativeness of the authorities visited during a schedule of personal interviews with planning officers. The deviations between the predicted and observed values that were noted here are to be analysed in greater detail as part of the next chapter where the results of these interviews are presented.

CHAPTER 6

A Closer Look at the Planning Innovation Process

6.1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is to take a much closer look at the details of the planning innovation process as revealed during the course of personal interviews with planning officers in eleven London Boroughs. These interviews allowed the study of the innovation process through time, as opposed to the cross-sectional view taken in Chapter 5.

6.2. THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND INTERVIEWS

The actual form of the questionnaire used is given in Appendix 1. It consists of three sections, two of which were repeated for each innovation considered in the interviews. Firstly there was a set of questions that asked for an historical sketch of the authority’s involvement with the particular innovation being discussed. This was followed by some more personal questions concerning the individual’s attitudes towards and experience with the technique. Lastly there were questions concerning the characteristics of the individual and his opinions.

The sample of authorities chosen for the interviews was selected from the London Boroughs according to their known involvement with Planning Programming and Budgeting (Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants, 1970), an attempt being made to approach Boroughs with varying degrees of experience. The London Boroughs were chosen for the personal interviews partly on grounds of accessibility to the interviewer, and partly because they form a homogeneous group of local authorities having similar administrative histories.

The final list of innovations studied within the sample is as shown in Table 6.1.

TABLE 6.1. The innovation case histories studied

Innovation I No. of cases

Planning programming and budgeting 9 Management by objectives 1 Compute; data bank 8 Cost-benefit analysis 2 Gravity modelling 1

All of the findings that are presented in this chapter are directly derived from these twenty-one case studies, although complete histories of any one department are not presented because of a pledge to preserve the anonymity of the departments concerned.

274


6.3. THE ADOPTION PROCESS

6.3.1. The initiators of innowtion

First of all, it is interesting to consider the importance attached to various possible causes of innovation by the planners themselves when directly questioned on the matter. When asked what they considered to be the most influential factors in persuading their authority to adopt a particular technique, the planners divided their attention between the problems faced by the authority and the opinions and attitudes of individuals. All the techniques investigated stemmed at least in part from the need to deal with problems external to the authority, but only with planning programming and budgeting were the attitudes of individuals important as well. This is a reflection of the fact that a management method such as planning programming and budgeting is almost an ideology or way of life rather than a clear-cut, non-emotive tool for working. In addition, the problems for which planning programming and budgeting is the proposed solution are themselves rather vague and difficult to enumerate, whereas other techniques are often strictly delimited in their scope and usefulness.

Turning to the case histories, three stimulants to planning innovation may be isolated:

(a) the situation of the authority, (b) the individuals concerned and (c) the organisations involved.

Argument from the situation of the authority is the explanation that would be adopted by the systems theorist. Several respondents referred to the growing difficulty of monitoring a changing environment and the impossibility of even formulating the problems to be faced

by planners, let alone the solutions, without radical changes in planning methodology. The more immediate situation of having to prepare evidence for a public inquiry was also mentioned by two respondents as being a major factor in the investigation of planning techniques new to their department. However, recognition of a problematical situation depends upon the characteristics of the individuals present, the second factor important to the initiation of innovation.

Out of the seventeen innovative actions studied in the case histories, six were directly related to the arrival of new senior officers within the authority and a further two with the election of new members. Sometimes the newly arrived individual may initiate an innovation directly himself, partly as an attempt to establish his reputation within the authority, and partly as a result of his expert knowledge and experience in other jobs. His habitual ways of thinking may clash with the established modes of action within the authority, leading to adjustment on both sides and consequent change. On the other hand, a new individual may actually be brought to a job specifically because of his expert knowledge which does not exist already within the authority. The decision in favour of change and innovation may already have been taken and the individual employed as a change agent to promote and facilitate the changes.

In eight of the seventeen case studies involving innovative action, consultants played a significant part in the innovation process. In three of these cases, all connected with planning programming and budgeting, the original idea for the specific innovation to be tried came from the consultants. Given a generalised problem, the employment of a consultancy may be the way to arrive at a specific solution.


6.3.2. TWO adoption processes described

In this section the historical process of innovation adoption is described for two different innovations (planning programming and budgeting and the computer data bank). These are then contrasted and compared in a later part of the chapter. The processes described are not the experience of any one authority, but are an amalgam of all the cases studied. This serves to increase the generality of the analysis and also helps preserve the anonymity of the authorities concerned.

The planning programming and budgeting approach to government management and decision-making has been set out by several authors (e.g. Hovey, 1968; Amos, 1970; Welfare, 1971). In this analysis, it is not so much the concern of the author to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the method, as to discuss the ways in which it may first come to be used.

The process of adopting planning programming and budgeting is outlined in Fig. 6.1.

Lpolitlco: Issue ] r

HIstory of Declslon to change

Chonqe Aqent Some

I

resources 01 located

t

Chonpe Agent Portbculor declslon

from outside - to OdODt PPBS

(!ndlvlduol or

consulto~t~

I

PDrtlClDOtlOn with Build-UD

II-

Leornlng, OdODtOtlOn

others outside and compromise

orgonlzatlon

AdoDtton

cExternol Factors -- Intern01 Factors C

Fig. 6.1. The generalised adoption process for planning programming and budgeting systems.

The problems internal to the authority are usually associated with supposed inefficiency, time wasting and a general ignorance of the best way to distribute resources between activities. Such an issue can be used to advantage at local elections where generalised pledges to improve the situation are made. Such a pledge for reorganisation is a pledge which can easily be fulfiied, the action needed falling wholly within the control of the authority. This is unlike many other pledges concerning a planning environment which is subject to autonomous change beyond the complete control of local government. Such a political situation demonstrates the operation of hypothesis 2 in Chapter 3 concerning the importance of political change.


A decision is taken by the council to ratify the need for change and reorganisation, although the explicit way in which this is to be achieved is probably not stated. If a consultant is appointed, the particular one chosen will influence the future course of the innovation adoption process, since each consultant has a more or less complete management package to apply to most of the management situations that it encounters. Naturally, marginal adjustments can be made to the package to allow for local peculiarities. In this case then, it is the consultant that originates the idea of adopting planning programming and

budgeting as the particular management tool needed.

Alternatively, if a consultant is not appointed, it is often a newly appointed chief executive who has to investigate the possible management methods to be adopted by a management board. This chief executive will be chosen because of his particular management skills, and the promise he holds out for successfully introducing change to the authority. It may be that the man appointed sought out the job specifically for the opportunities it would give him - not only opportunities to increase his own status and sense of achievement, but also the opportunity to escape the frustration of a former job where constraints of resources and personalities blocked the innovative moves that he had made. Thus, the creation of a new post has the effect of attracting innovative individuals to the authority, thereby furthering the innovation process.

Once a decision to develop the planning programming and budgeting system has been taken, either upon the advice of a consultant or an individual within the authority, a heavy commitment has been formed that decreases the chances of the technique being abandoned before full introduction. Such a decision leads into the stage of positive action and build-up. A programme department is often set up at this stage.

If a consultant is directing the adoption process, events usually move fast and a standard system that has been found to work in other organisations applied. Consultants tend to be a little dogmatic and hasty in their work because of the tight constraints of time and money to which they work. If the adoption process is internal to the authority, however, it proceeds more slowly and incrementally. The extra time available allows greater treatment of inconsistencies and the need to reconcile competing demands. Within the rapid adoption alternative, the failure to reach such compromises often leads to disruption and the development of antagonisms, a feature which can act to reduce the effectiveness of the system, at least in the short term.

Learning is also a major feature of the build-up stage. Not only do the exigencies of time and resources necessitate the change agents to adapt the ‘perfect’ planning programming and budgeting system to the existing conditions and vice versa, but the staff that will eventually have to operate the system are also taught the fundamentals. New employees are also brought into the programme department since this enables the organisation to change while reducing the resources needed to teach the existing staff. However, such new staff may cause status and political problems with the established staff since such informal systems are markedly disturbed by the introduction of new experts.

Participation with other authorities is also a feature of the build-up period. Both the heavy investment and the ideological nature of planning programming and budgeting stimulate the key people involved to seek confirmation of their views and support from their

peers. Because of this, groups of authorities come together to discuss their experiences and

proposals. Activity on such working parties may lead those authorities using the incremental adoption procedure to adapt their ideas.


Finally, adoption involves the introduction of five-year rolling programmes that cumulate into a full planning programming and budgeting system as the technique proves itself and the staff become fully familiarised with it. Programme areas may change over the years and fox this reason the authority must attempt to keep flexible.

Those authorities investigated that were not directly introducing a planning programming and budgeting system fell into four groups. Firstly, there were those authorities that had not yet wakened to the idea of planning programming and budgeting. In these authorities, reorganisation along Maud/Mallaby lines had only just got under way and they could therefore be considered as potential adopters in the near future.

Secondly, three authorities had set up working parties to look into planning programming and budgeting, together with other management techniques. These working parties had been set up under the initiative of chief officers, perhaps having just come back from a management training course, but there was no strong political initiative within the boroughs that might drive them towards adoption. Essentially, these boroughs were marking time and awaiting the outcome of experiments within larger authorities before they took their own decision upon whether to proceed or not.

Thirdly, there was one authority that had already adopted an alternative scheme, management by objectives. A favourable attitude was held towards planning programming and budgeting, although the adoption of a near relative precluded change over to planning programming and budgeting because of the time and effort that had been devoted to the alternative.

Lastly there was one borough where the value of a planning programming and budgeting system was disputed directly. The dependence of the technique upon a long time scale of five years or more was disliked. This was especially so since the budgeting arrangements of local authorities only allow firm financial estimates to be made for a maximum of twelve months. In addition to this, even where plans can be drawn up, it was considered that the inevitable three-year cycle in local elections would prevent continuity in the long term and the continual adjustment of objectives to the detriment of the plan. For these reasons the chief executive had restructured the authority under his own initiative and avoided overall management systems such asplanning programming and budgeting.

The process of adopting a computerised data bank is set out in Fig. 6.2.

External Prob Iem

Scorch Into Scorch for resources

(both tnternol ond external)

Adopt ion

c- External Factors- lnternol Foctorr

Fig. 6.2. The generalised adoption process for a computer data bank.

~annjn~ and the Innovation Procas 279

The problems leading to the eventual investigation of the computer data bank are, this time, external to the authority. A rapidly changing complex environment requires a large, mechanised data system if it is to be successfully monitored for planning. This is a problem that is particularly pressing in central London.

However, such problems will only lead to innovation if they are perceived and acted upon by a change agent (Jones, 1968). In the case of the computer data bank the change agent is often a planner with an education in or experience of computer techniques. Such an individual may be young and looking for opportunities for self-advancement. This being the case, he has to ally himself with a more senior member of the staff in order to give his proposals credibility and authority. Such an ally may involve himself with the technique in order to make an a~~trative gain within the planning department or local authority. Thus, in this case, the proposal for the innovation comes from one individual or a small coalition, with little involvement of higher management levels at this stage.

The decision to look into the practical possibilities of adopting a computer data bank is usually taken before it is known that there will be any resources available for the technique’s adoption if it looks favourable. However, computing facilities have either to exist or be planned for the near future before such a decision is warranted since a computer data bank cannot justify such facilities alone. Very often a computer is already being used for accounting purposes, perhaps shared with other authorities, and thus the data bank application can be treated as a marginal cost to that system.

Thus, the decision to look into the technique involves both a search for possible detailed methods of construction and a search for the fmal resources with which to run it. During the investigation of the various possible ways of constructing a data bank other authorities become involved. At a minimum, such participation will be with those authorities which share the computing facilities, and it is in this way that some otherwise reluctant departments become involved with the technique.

The uncertainty connected with the many alternative computer data-bank schemes that exist and the comparative rarity of the necessary computing skills amongst planners often lead to a desire to pool the effort involved between an even larger number of authorities and the setting up of joint working parties.

The development of a computer data bank is expensive, and thus the funding of the project becomes a major preoccupation of the initiators. Formal application may be made to the council, in which case there is a need to convince them of the benefits before work starts. This may prove difficult with lay councillors unfamiliar with the procedures of computing. Help may be more easily obtained if the final suite of programmes is marketable, thereby replacing some of the development costs. However, this introduces a constraint in that the data bank must be compatible with the needs of other authorities and adaptable to various local conditions. The cost of meeting this may more than outweigh the financial advantages of sales, and so the project is rendered uncertain again.

The fact that the technique is divisible may be a great help to the initiators in persuading the authority to devote resources to it. A few computer files may be built up initially and their general usefulness evaluated before more money is committed. However, such a tactic does suffer from the drawback that many of the advantages of a data bank do not become apparent until the whole system is set up, therefore leading to the underestimation of the value of files in isolation,


An alternative approach to the resources problem that was adopted by one authority was to fund the scheme by drawing resources from various unconnected allocations to other departmental activities, and by using such facilities as spare computing time from other organisations. In this way, a minimal operative scheme was built up without the necessity to ask formally for money from the council. The council could then be presented with an operative scheme, the advantages of which, it was hoped, would be immediately apparent and further money for which would then be forthcoming.

Once financial resources have been allocated to the project it is possible to proceed with the build-up. It is here that various other constraints upon the nature of the system make themselves felt. Firstly, there is the necessity for all authorities using the same computer (often about three or four) to agree to one system of working. This problem is particularly acute if the authorities involved are located some distance from each other and consequently face environmental problems of differing natures requiring differing facilities. Such problems are not easy to overcome in the short term by rearranging computing partners, not only because it may take up to three years to remove oneself from a computer consortium but also because planners are only one of several groups within the authority using the facility, and the other groups may be quite satisfied with the present arrangements.

Secondly, where a borough-wide, multi-departmental data-bank facility is being aimed for, it becomes necessary to adapt the data bank to make it suitable for storing information relevant to all local-government functions. This may be very problematical if the different files need to be defined and stored according to. different referencing systems. However, once under way the system build-up may be controlled by very few staff. Complications may arise at this stage in that programmers and planners do not visualise the system in the same way, leading to difficulties of communication and uncertain arrival at a system that the planners will consider satisfactory.

Of the eleven boroughs where interviews were conducted, only one authority was not involved with a computer data bank in any way. Another six had not progressed far towards adoption, although they had set up working parties to investigate the technique in detail with other authorities. These six authorities are potential adopters where action may be taken within the next two years or so. Another four of the authorities had progressed a long way towards a full system, being in the final stages of data collection and file construction. NO authority had a full system running on a regular basis.

All of the boroughs that were deeply involved with the technique were in the inner London area. This is probably a reflection of the fact that it is in such central areas that environmental complexity puts a high premium upon large-scale data-handling facilities. This was illustrated by the fact that one of the outer London boroughs which was looking forward to a computer system within two or three years had meanwhile adopted an interim system on hand-sorted cards - a simple indicator that they had comparatively little information to handle.

Of the six boroughs involved in working parties on computers with other boroughs, two of them were initiators of such working parties, while four of them became involved when approached by others. Several authorities became involved specifically because of the actions of their computing partners. Whether the authorities that have been drawn into consideration of the technique by outside organisations eventually adopt the technique or not seems to depend upon the knowledge and drive of the initiators of the working party.

The one authority that had no involvement at all with the technique was an outer London borough of low innovativeness overall. Here it was considered that the trouble


involved with introducing a computer data bank was not warranted by the returns that it would give. However, there seems little doubt that were this authority asked to take part in an exploratory working party it would have done so. The mutual investigation of a technique may eventually mean the sharing of development costs, thereby making the scheme more attractive.

6.3.3. i%e adoptibn of different techniques compared

Certain similarities exist between techniques in the characteristics of the adoption process followed by local planning authorities. Right at the beginning of the process, when the realisation occurs that innovative activity will be necessary to meet the contingencies of a problem faced, there is usually little consideration given to all the various courses of action open to the authority. Whether the final innovation adopted is suggested by a consultancy or a particular individual, it is very often the only alternative considered. The prior opinions of the innovators bias the selection of an innovation. Such a process is not necessarily bad in that the selection of the ‘right’ technique may often be prohibitively time consuming, and also lead to the selection of a method that no one in the authority has the skills to follow up and implement.

The major difference between the techniques studied is complexity (hypothesis 27. Chapter 3). In this respect planning programmin g and budgeting is by far the most complex. Being more of an ideology than the other narrower techniques it therefore involves greater problems with personnel. Its effects may markedly alter the career chances of individual officers. The great complexity and size of a full planning programming and budgeting system also means that it takes longer to adopt than other techniques. The decisions involved in the adoption of cost-benefit analysis or gravity modelling are restricted to fewer people and may therefore be taken more rapidly. However, the computer data bank adoption process may also be long if the required hardware has to be waited for.

Planning programming and budgeting stems from problems internal to the authority, is related to large-scale reorganisation, needs political initiative because of its status consequences and may also be related to the introduction of a corporate planning scheme. None of the other techniques have such far-reaching connections with other local authority characteristics.

Next, there are the different requirements of compatibility (hypothesis 26, Chapter 3). Both planning programming and budgeting and the computer data bank involve interborough working parties. In particular, the latter technique may often have to be adapted in order to meet the requirements that the data bank be compatible with the needs of computing partners, other interested authorities and other departments within the local authority. In contrast to this, cost-benefit analysis and gravity modelling may incorporate features that are entirely peculiar to the particular use in question. This may promote advance in the methodology of the technique since deviant schemes are easily tried, although the lack of formal contacts with other interested authorities may reduce the possibility of widespread adoption of such a valuable adaptation.

The adoption of cost-benefit analysis and gravity modelling is made easier because of the lesser need to be compatible with other departments and authorities. Because of the absence of interest in other departments, support for the scheme needs only to be very localised in order to secure the resources needed, provided that such resources are not so large as to signiiicantly reduce the efforts that other departments wish to devote to their own schemes.

N


Cost-benefit analysis and gravity modelling are comparatively cheap (hypothesis 29, Chapter 3) compared with planning programming and budgeting and the computer data bank and may be handled by very few people. This means that the required man-hours needed to develop these techniques are more likely to be available.

Lastly, there are differences of divisibility (hypothesis 28, Chapter 3). Planning programming and budgeting is much less divisible for trial than the other techniques, although some authorities have tried experiments within one department. As noted above, the computer data bank also involves drawbacks if tested in part only. However, both cost-benefit analysis and gravity modelling can be tried on a very limited scale to test their usefulness. In this way, experimental failure with the technique is more easily avoided and the final adoption of its use made more likely.

Thus we arrive at the position shown in Table 6.2 concerning the differences between the techniques. This suggests from the total number of stars allocated to each that gravity

TABLE 6.2. Some differences between the techniques investigated

Technique I

Complexity I

Problems of Expense Indivisibility compatibility I I

PPBS Computer data

bank Cost-benefit

analysis Gravity modelling

*** *** *** l *

l * l ** ** **

+* t * *

* * * *

***z High l * = Medium *=Low

modelling should be the most easily adopted technique, followed by cost-benefit analysis, computer data banks and planning programming and budgeting in that order. That this agrees with the observed results obtained from the national questionnaire can be seen in Table 6.3.

TABLE 6.3. T?ze star rating of difficulty of adoption and the observed mtes of adoption

Technique Star rating

Sofall authorities that have adopted

PPBS 11 20.4 Computer data bank 9 25.0 Cost-benefit analysis 5 25.9 Gravity modelling 4 38.0

6.4. THE INNOVATIVENESS OF THE 1NTERVlEW AUTHORITIES

in this section some of the interrelationships in the London questionnaire results will be considered, especially as they relate to the innovativeness of local planning authorities.

Certain characteristics of the individual planner were found to relate directly to the innovativeness of the authority. Graph 6.1 shows how the total number of schools,


conferences and professional meetings attended by the interviewed planners outside their boroughs varies with innovativeness. It seems reasonable that individual planners are more

IO!-

% S- x

>

zl s-

:: 7- t-

e 6-- xx 0

& cl-- z x x 0

2 4 x

f 3-- x

E 6 2- x

P I--

l. I I I I 0 10 20 30 40

lnnovotlon store 9

GRAPH 6.1. Innovativeness and the number of outside meetings attended by the respondent.

likely to participate in functions outside their authority where that authority is innovative. A high level of achievement in the department leads to high involvement in activities outside, which leads to greater awareness and understanding by the individual, which then causes further innovative activity within the department. This produces a high expectation of successful innovation on the part of the staff (hypothesis 24, Chapter 3), and directly supports hypothesis 20 in Chapter 3 concerning the importance of outside contacts.

Direct evidence of the connection between expectations and actual performance is given by Graph 6.2, where the individual planner’s subjective rating of his authority’s innovativeness is compared with the more objective measure based upon past activity within the authority. This relationship demonstrates the effect of an accurate perception of the authority’s position relative to others, and also of high expectations being related to a high level of performance.

GRAPH 6.2. Self-rated innovativeness and Innovation Score 9.

Planners also have a good perception of the performance of other authorities. Graph 6.3 shows the innovativeness of local planning authorities plotted against the number of mentions they were given in other authorities when planners in the latter were asked to


name those departments that they considered to be ‘go ahead’ in planning. Both the number of mentions received and innovativeness rise together.

GRAPH 6.3. The innovativeness of local planning authorities and the number of mentions they received from other authon’ties

As well as these relationships between individual planners’ characteristics, perceptions and innovativeness, a distinctive dichotomy was found to exist between inner and outer London boroughs, there being a much lower incidence of innovative activity in the outer boroughs.

Several of the respondents mentioned the high turnover of staff that is experienced by the London authorities as being important to the importation of new ideas and practices into their boroughs, although apart from the noted connection between innovation and the arrival of new individuals in Section 6.3.1 above, no information was collected to test this interesting assertion.

6.5. THE RESIDUALS FROM THE PREDICTIVE MODEL

The predictive model drawn up in Chapter 5 left residuals of innovativeness unexplained. Although the model shows a multiple correlation coefficient of 0.63 when all the authorities are included, apart from those where interviews took place, this drops to 0.40 when the interview authorities are considered in isolation.

GRAPH 6.4. The residualsjkm the predictive model and the number of outside functions attended by planners.


Some of the unexplained variance could be mopped up if additional variables were included within the model. Graph 6.4 shows the correlation between the residuals and the number of outside functions attended by the respondents. As the amount of activity outside the planning department increases, there is a tendency to underestimate the actual innovativeness of the authority. Thus, certain aspects of the individual planner’s activity may be very important for the innovativeness of their authorities and yet those are not included in the predictive model of the last chapter.

Another important aspect concerns the planner’s expectations of his authority’s innovative performance. Graph 6.5 shows the extent to which the residuals from the regression model relate to the subjective assessment of the authority’s innovativeness relative to other planning authorities. The tendency is that the more the model underestimates the observed innovativeness of a particular authority, the more likely are the planners within the authority to hold a high opinion of their innovativeness. Such a high opinion may also reflect the high status of planning within the particular authority. This connects with hypothesis 1 in Chapter 3.

t s Among the

g first x

0’ c Shghtly b before overage

z

xx

x

P ;; About overage - x xx x P I I I I

-2 0 -I 0 00 10 20

Reslduol score

GRAPH 6.5. l?ze reskiu& from the predictive model and self-rated innovariveness.

The residuals also vary with the reputation of the authority within other planning departments. This is shown in Graph 6.6 where the number of times a particular authority was mentioned in other authorities as being progressive is plotted against the residuals of innovativeness.

x x

GRAPH 6.6. The number of mentions received by local planning authorities and the residuals from the predictive model.

Such a reputation is founded partly upon the actual performance achieved by the authorities, and to this extent innovativeness causes reputation and not vice versa. However,


reputation is also associated with the degree to which authorities have publicised their achievements, and the character and personality of their departmental heads. These latter traits of departments are valid explanatory variables related to innovativeness, and it is for that reason that the reputation of departments is included here.

Other variables that could have been included within the London questionnaire might have led to greater explanation of the residuals. However, most of the possibilities that have been used elsewhere (e.g. Aiken and Hage, 1971; Blau and Scott, 1963) involve interviews with nearly all staff within the organisation, and often concern the personal details of working relationships. Within the scope of this work, such a wide schedule of interviewing could not be undertaken within the time available.

6.6.CONCLUSIONS

This chapter has set down some of the more important findings of the interviews carried out within eleven London boroughs. The experience of these boroughs with twenty-one innovative processes formed the basis of the study. The initiation of the innovative process was found to be analysable in terms of the problems faced, the individuals facing them and the organisations that such individuals went on to introduce to the process. According to how these differed, the details of the innovation process that followed also varied. Of particular interest was the frequent importance of either individuals or organisations that came to the innovation process from outside the planning department with ready formulated ideas and innovative possibilities. There was also a great amount of liaison between authorities. Such liason may take the form of working together on the same project, or of keeping each other in touch with the ways in which they were following up change.

Different innovations vary in the characteristics that are important for their adoption. Consideration of such factors as complexity, compatibility, expense and divisibility can lead to predictions concerning the likelihood of their adoption within planning.

In addition to the explanation achieved in the models of the last chapter, innovativeness in planning was also found to relate to the activities of individual planners, the subjective assessment of their own authority, the reputation that their authority has and its location within the Greater London area.

The residuals of innovativeness from the predictive model of the last chapter were found to be strongly related to the activity of the planners interviewed. The awareness of recent ideas is stimulated by attendance at such things as conferences, schools, and lectures, and such an awareness may lead on to innovation adoption. The residuals of innovativeness were also found to vary with the reputation of the department; both the reputation as seen by its own planners and its reputation as seen by others. Such a reputation is due partly to that department’s efforts to contact other authorities and to tell them of its achievements, and partly to the calibre of the individuals within it. Both of these traits are emphasised within innovative departments.

CHAPTER 7

The Consequences of lnnovation in Planning

7.1. INTRODUCTION

So far we have been concerned with the ways in which the characteristics of planning problems and the plating process affect the adoption of innovations. In this chapter, this outlook will be reversed, the major focus now being upon the ways in which recent innovations affect the planning process. The main concern is not with the intended consequences of planning innovation, since these are dealt with at length by the promoters of the various techniques; rather, the idea here is to concentrate on some of the untended consequences. If this chapter seems against ~novation on balance, this is only so because the desirable, intended effects of innovation have not been stressed.

7.2. THE TECHNOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

It is perhaps ironical that the adoption of innovation is made possible by flexibilities in planning organisations and individual planners, and yet such an adoption often involves a reduction in that flexib~i~. Every alternative taken up means thousands of others rejected. The adoption of one technique makes it much less likely that another technique designed to carry out essentially the same job will also be adopted. Conversely, the adoption of one technique may imply the later use of others related to it. The building up of a computer data bank may lead on naturally to mathematical modelling at a later stage. In both these ways innovation adoption closes down the number of options open in the future. The growth of such inflexibility may be important if the planning environment continues to change rapidly, although the reduction in options may be very welcome to the planner who has to make complex decisions con~m~g future developments within his department.

It is possible that the growth of routinised and rigorously based methodologies of plan-making and evaluation will lead to more comparable planning achievements throughout the country. Planning problems may be seen in the same light and dealt with in similar ways by different authorities, even if such approaches might be similarly wrong. However, too much stress should not be placed upon the unifying effects of recent methodological advances since all the techniques allow great room for the exercise of professional judgement and personal opinion. The weighing up of intangibles in cost-benefit analysis might be such a case, while the design of akernative plans to be evaluated in the fust instance is another. In addition, various authorities with different resources and skills might adopt dissimilar innovations to tackle similar problems, and consequently arrive at totally different answers. Even given this difficulty, however, the adoption of one methodological innovation and its repeated use may lead to compatible and consistent planning decisions being reached within

287


any one planning department. It should also be considered whether the use of modem methodologies may reduce the

premium on some original and critical thinking. Certainly Friedman (1966) suggests that emphasis upon the use of computers and economic methods may reduce the planner’s interest in achieving radically new environmental situations and new ways of altering the world. The methodology.is left to produce the solutions to problems with little original thought on the part of the planner. Where a technique such as cost-benefit analysis claims to deal with all the various aspects of planning proposals and to produce an unambiguous answer which can lead directly to action, it is tempting for the planner to follow the various steps of the method through mechanically, hoping that complex problems such as the assessment of intangibles will somehow be dealt with automatically within the process. It is inconvenient for the planner to give too much stress to the limitations of the underlying assumptions of the techniques, or to the possibility of alternative methodologies existing that could also solve the problems, since this would cloud over the clarity of the eventual result, and a clear result is what is needed if disputes and complications are to be avoided.

7.3. THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

Many recent developments within planning methodology also have the result that, when adopted, they tend to reduce the accountability of planners to both politicians and public alike. Techniques such asgravity modelling, simulation and multivariate statistical analysis all involve complex mathematical concepts and assumptions. Similarly, methods of plan evaluation now lean heavily upon economic theory. In order to indulge in these methodologies certain thresholds of resources and expertise have to be passed.

The result of this is that councillors and the lay public have more and more to rely upon the given calculations of the professional and are reduced to discussing side issues. Planners are more able to justify their schemes with pages of mathematical and economic analysis beyond the criticism, and therefore the control, of the majority of their clients. However, even where clients feel themselves able to criticise the schemes, be their criticism of the gut reaction type or a critical review of the methodologies used, there is usually insufficient tune and money available to conduct an opposing evaluation on the same footing as the one used by the planners. Such difficulties do not bode well for the future of public participation.

Where planning proposals are supported at an inquiry by recent developments in methodology, it often becomes the aim of opponents to destroy the proposals by discrediting the methodology used. Such discredit would be useful to the objectors since in this way everyone is reduced to talking on the same level. As a result, more time may be taken up with the discussion of the methodology itself than with the impacts of and the reactions to the proposals. The consideration of basic values and assumptions that underlie the scheme is pushed into the background, to the detriment of planning since it is these values more than anything else that the planner needs to know about if his ideas are to be acceptable to his clients.

Some methodological innovations may also conceal the values and policies that go into the make-up of planning proposals under a smoke screen of complexity. They may also constrain politicians in the choices that they can exert. The masking effect is particularly present within those techniques that seek to simulate or predict the planning environment. The answers derived from such activity may look very definite and accurate, but usually they are based upon a whole series of initial assumptions made by the planner and implicit


assumptions made within the framework of the technique. These limitations need to be made perfectly clear if the true value of such methodologies is to be real&d by politicians.

Recent planning innovations may also have the effect of restricting the choice of politicians, unless they become involved in the planning process at a much earlier stage than at present. Evaluation techniques can usually be relied upon to present an unequiv~~y best solution from alternatives analysed, and the additional costs to be attached to all the other aiternatives. Although it is true that the politician may cheerfully accept suuh extra costs if he does not choose to follow the ‘best’ alternative, he nevertheless still feels some pressure towards adopting such a ‘best’ solution. Yet, if the politician were involved at the start of the evaluation process helping to make what are essentially political decisions about such things as the cost of intangibles, the discount rate to be used and the costs of distributional effects, the ‘best’ alternative to emerge might have been different, and might well have been the one alternative that he had otherwise felt guilty about following.

Another possible effect of adopting innovations is that they may indeed increase the quality and accuracy of planning decisions, but they may also make them more irrelevant than they are at present. Schon (1970) has pointed out that it usually takes government departments so long to create an awareness of problems within the politicians that handle the funds, that by the time processes to tackle the particular problem are looked upon favourably, the problem itself has probably changed radically in nature or become less important relative to other problems. Even where solutions are well matched to the problems, they will often fail to be so for long, and may well spark off new problems. Nevertheless, once administrators have found an innovative action that matches a problem in the short term, such action will be followed until its consequences become intolerable, either because of environmental change or because the perception of the problem itself changes. This is because of the growth of commitment towards the solution (Levin, 1972).

It is also possible that planning departments spending a lot of time and money in an attempt to follow the latest fashions of plan-making and evaluation will tend to get their ends and means confused. So much effort may be put into m~suring and estimating the size and character of problems that little will ever be done to take action to deal with them. With many problems, there usually comes a time when action, even slightly misguided action, becomes imperative, and to be preferred to inaction.

One good effect of innovation is that it may help to raise the sights of politicians. In the absence of some external discipline, the tendency is for decision time to become filled with short-term problems and for strategic issues to be given insufficient consideration. This is because smaller problems are closer to the politician’s experience and seem more important because of their nearness in time. However, much more time should be given to considering major issues and policies. Methods of plan making and evaluation may force politicians and planners irto such strategic thinking, although the limitations mentioned previously should always be borne in mind.

7.4. THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

By social consequences is meant the impact of ~novation upon the social relations~ps within the planning department. Schon (1970) considers that the most likely consequence of proposals for innovation is ‘dynamic conservatism’. All proposals for change involve disruption and the growth of uncertainty.There is uncertainty as to the ways in which new methodologies will be carried out and uncertainty regarding one’s own role within the new system. Such uncertainty generates anxiety and conscious or unconscious resistance to


change. Four strategies may be used to resist change, and are well described by Schon. Selective

inattention to innovative proposals may occur in which there is a refusal to acknowledge the existence of an innovative possibility. This may drive a barrier between the sponsors of innovation and others. This process was encountered in two of the interview authorities where chief officers nearing retirement did not wish to be involved with new techniques and where introduction had to wait until after they had gone.

Secondly, there is the counter-attack or preventive attack. If this is between rival factions within the planning department, it will be even more divisive than the first strategy. However, if conducted against an outside agency, it may promote internal cohesion, to the benefit of the department when concerted action is again necessary in the future.

Thirdly, there is the tendency to isolate change if its adoption becomes inevitable. This may mean the social isolation of those individuals conducting the new function and the starving of that function of information and resources because of its claimed irrelevancy to the planning function. Alternatively it may involve the setting up of a new department which can then be largely ignored. This may be the fate of some programme departments within local authorities.

Lastly, there is the strategy of minimal compliance. Offices may be renamed and allegiance given to new proposals, but in reality there is a tacit agreement between individuals that things will continue much as before. This is undoubtedly the case with many local government reorganisation schemes where town clerks have been redesignated as chief executives and new directorates set up incorporating the old departments of the authority unchanged.

Another social consequence of adopting innovation may be the generation of conflict

between departments and between individuals. Many innovative techniques call for a more comprehensive approach to decision making. Thus, for example, planners wishing to pursue cost-benefit analysis will wish to have information about housing policies, education policies, road policies and such like, all of which are often formulated in separate departments or even other authorities. However, not only do they want information, but they may also start to generate their own policies within those areas so as to produce alternative proposals for evaluation. Such action would no doubt be considered as the poaching of functions from other departments and lead to non-co-operation, with the obvious consequences to the value of the cost-benefit exercise.

One way of getting around this problem is to form an interdepartmental working party to carry out the project concerned, although the tendency here is for discussion to degenerate into endless talks on the powers and functions to be allocated to the various groups involved.

Further conflict may be generated between politicians and planners. As noted above, many of the decisions made early on within a plan evaluation exercise are of a political nature. If planners alone make these decisions, then the politician may feel annoyed that he is funding projects over which he has little control and which do not come up with the sort of answers that he wants. Alternatively if the politician is asked to sit in on the early decisions, then the planners may feel that such a process is an infringement of their political neutrality and professional competence. Either way, conflict may result which will be a hindrance to the successful operation of the innovation.

7.5. THE IDEOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

The constant necessity to look for new innovations to meet the continually changing


problems of the world, coupled with the inability of any one innovation to solve a particular problem in the long term, has led Schon (1970) to consider the breakdown of the belief in the stable state. Gone is the idea that the world is essentially a stable system in which the marginal adjustments of planning can be easily exerted on behalf of the good of everyone, and gone is the idea that changes are of such a simple nature that it is possible to control and plan them completely for the future. Planners are coming to realise that they cannot control the whole environmental system down to the last detail even if this were desirable, and this is one of the main messages of the move towards more generalist planning in the 1968 Act. Similarly, politicians are realising that they cannot exert complete control over planners because of the growing complexity of the planning process. The days of simple physical planning rules and procedures are gone, replaced by a wider system incorporating social and economic factors, a system of greater variety involving cross-cutting theories as to the consequences of action and a great number of ways of evaluating and measuring such consequences. Such a system is amenable to direction and guidance, but not to complete control.

Finally, planning is coming to be seen as an essentially political activity. The ideology that views planners as politically neutral is not so widely held as formerly. Many planners see their job as more than preserving the good things that we have in society today. They see it as building a better society for tomorrow. Recent emphasis upon the social consequences of planning, combined with an ideology that is oriented to the future, has led many planners to see themselves as agents of social change, or social innovators - a political activity. This, in a sense, is a return to the ideologies held by the early pioneers of planning and social action such as Howard, Cadbury, Rowntree and Unwin, although the large element of physical

determinism linking environment directly to social health is now gone. In addition, as noted above, many recent innovations in planning have absorbed political decisions into the planning process itself, making it even more difficult for planners to remain politically neutral, even if they should desire to do so.

7.6. CONCLUSIONS

Recent innovation may engender forces that make planning more irrelevant as a solution for problems faced, cause social upheaval within the profession, reduce future flexibility and decrease the accountability of what is becoming more of a political process. However, these costs associated with innovation are probably well worth paying if such innovation can help in the arrival at consistent decisions in whichrhe consequences for all the groups in society are made explicit, and if more time is spent thinking about the overall shape of things to come rather than letting this develop by default.

Nevertheless, some innovations will undoubtedly have greater unintended consequences than others, and there is an urgent need that such consequences should be evaluated and the good innovations discriminated from the bad. But, given that most methodological advances in planning consume large resources of time and money relative to the reserves available in local government, any one department cannot evaluate all of the alternative innovations by itself. Indeed by trying out one innovation it may be building up such a commitment to it that it will be adopted even though other alternatives may come to be recognised as better. Thus there is a need for much greater information to be made available to local planning authorities concerning the methodologies and full consequences of new ideas as and when they arise. Such information would enable them to choose between techniques away from


an infbrmation vacuum and before lengthy investigations and commitments have been built up. The various ways in which this might be achieved will be considered as part of the next

chapter.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusions

8.1. THE STUDY OBJECTIVES

The objects of this study of methodological innovation within local government planning departments were, firstly, to understand how the planning process changes, secondly, to discover the stimulants of and barriers to such change, and, finally, to make recommendations concerning adjustments that might be made to the planning system in order to achieve better, although not necessarily faster, innovation within planning. The latter point is important since not all innovative activity is necessarily good for planning in the long term.

8.2. PLANNING INNOVATION

The theories put forward to explain innovation operate at the level of the environment, the organlsation, and the individual.‘Argument from environmental complexity and variability suggests that the pressures for innovation within planning are large, while the characteristic organisational structure of formal bureaucracy within planning departments leads one to the conclusion that the ability to react to such pressures is low. The ways in which individual planners arrive at decisions may, in addition, distort the reaction to such pressures, although the background and working conditions of the individual suggest that the motivation in favour of change is high.

The way in which these conflicting pressures for and against innovative activity have worked out in practice is illustrated in the extent to which planning authorities are involved with various new planning techniques. Of the ten techniques studied, only one was being used full-time by more than half of the authorities sampled, while two techniques were being used by less than 10% of the sample population. However, when those authorities experimenting with the techniques are also considered, four of the ten techniques were being investigated by over half the authorities. As for the authorities themselves, Table 8.1 shows the distribution of replies along Innovation Score 9, the major measure of innovativeness used in this study. It can be seen that eleven authorities were not involved in any way with the six techniques that contributed towards this score, whereas twenty authorities were deeply involved. Thus it can be concluded that differences in environmental conditions, departmental organisation and individuals between departments cause wide variations in innovativeness.

293


TABLE 8.1. The distribution of authorities along the scale of Innovation Score 9

hovatim score 9 No. of authorities

@0!-00.99 :: l*OO-1.99 30 2.00-2.99 26 3.00-4.07 20

(4.07 was the maximum score possible)

By using a stepwise multiple-regression model of innovativeness, it was found that approximately 34% of the variance in planning innovation between local government departments could be attributed to the characteristics of the planning environment alone. When some overall characteristics of those departments are added into the model, such as the number of degree-qualified planners employed and the time it took to respond to the postal questionnaire, the level of explanation rose to 47% of the variance. As a consequence, approximately half of the variance was left to be explained with reference to the internal structural features of the planning organisation, to the personalities of the individual planners, or to errors of measurement. Such a split suggests that explanations at all three levels mentioned above (the environment, the organisation, and the individual) have a useful role to play in analysing innovative activity.

One consequence of the large amount of innovation which can be explained by environmental characteristics is the spatial regularity of innovativeness at the national level. Environmental conditions tend to reach extreme values in areas of high population density, leading to high innovation in those areas too. Thus we have a pattern of innovativeness which shows a close relationship to the distribution of population over the country.

Study of the residuals of innovativeness from a predictive model for the eleven authorities visited within London suggests that the activities of individual planners and their perception of their own and other authorities can further add to the explanation of innovation. Here the characteristics of individual planners are used to explain innovation after the effects of environment and organisation have been taken into account.

Investigation of two composite innovation adoption processes, constructed from the results of detailed personal interviews, demonstrated the importance of innovative individuals and consultants to the initiation of change. Consultants are particularly important where complex management proposals are being introduced since they very often have a package proposal they can adapt to any particular situation. The individual initiators of change are often appointed from outside the authority just before the innovation process starts. Such individuals bring well-developed ideas with them which can then be implemented under their guidance.

Similarities exist between the adoption processes followed for different innovations. This applies particularly to the need to participate with other authorities and to overcome internal and external constraints by adaptation and compromise. However, the details of such processes do differ from one innovation to another, and it was found that by considering differences in complexity, compatibility, divisibility and expense for various innovations, it is possible to predict their relative frequency of use at the national level.

Of the hypotheses put forward at the end of Chapter 3, the following ones were supported by empirical evidence in the subsequent analysis of Chapters 5 and 6.


Innovativeness will be high, if all other factors are held constant, in those planning departments: (1) that have planning committees and departments of high status; (2) that have experienced changing political control; (4) that have an environment of high complexity; (5) that have a rapidly changing environment; (6) that face difficult planning problems; (9) that have large numbers of staff;

(11) that have employed a planning consultancy; (15) where the organisation is more organic than mechanistic; (20) where people have a cosmopolitan outlook with planning interests and contacts

outside their department; (21) where there has been departmental reorganisation (for management innovations); (22) where there is a history of innovation; (23) where there are ample resources; (24) where the expectations of performance held by the staff are high;

and also where innovations investigated are (26) compatible with existing conditions and each other; (27) not complex; (28) divisible in time or organisational space; (29) cheap.

Only two of the hypotheses were directly refuted, and these are: Innovativeness will be high in those departments: (10) that make use of interdepartmental project teams; (21) where there has been departmental reorganisation (for plan-making and evaluation

techniques).

As well as being able to explain the adoption of planning innovation within local government, one should also be mindful of its possible consequences. They may have technological, political, social and ideological effects that can obstruct the adoption of future innovation direct attention from the real issues of planning, lead to irrelevance and cause planners to adopt political viewpoints.

8.3. SOME RECOMMENDATIONS

We have seen that the problems faced by planning departments can be expected to stimulate a lot of planning innovation, and that the differences between departments with respect to such innovation may be explained by reference to the characteristics of the environment, the organisation and the individual planner. However, it is necessary to consider whether the average level of innovative achievement might be raised, not in terms of the speed of adoption so much as in terms of the quality and appropriateness of the innovations chosen for adoption. This is a matter of improving the evaluation of new ideas and involves the better use of existing and additional resources to produce information and understanding to dispel the ignorance, uncertainty and consequent anxiety that may lead to the poor and halting evaluation of innovation.

Whether such improvements are considered necessary rather depends upon one’s viewpoint. The external observer of the planning process may see large room for improvement and the need to get away from the older methods of working which one can


see in many departments. However, the planner within local government may view his department as being overloaded with work and already subject to demands for change and reorganisation that are beyond the department’s capacity. The view taken here is that there is some room for improvement and that if certain adjustments were made inside and outside the department, then the pressures of work and for change could be accommodated more effectively. The dilemma here is that in order to arrive at a position where the acceptance of change is possible, the department has to change in the first place.

The changes that could be made to the planning process to enable better innovative activity are analysable once more at the three levels that have been used throughout this work: the individual, the organisation and the environment. These will be considered in turn.

Concerning the individual planner, there is little that can be done in the short term to alter the calibre of the staff employed, if indeed this is necessary or desirable. Such changes must rely in the long run upon the sorts of people attracted to a planning career and upon the educational process through which they pass. More could perhaps be done in the form of mid-career training, although this is already iunning at a high level if the proportion of interviewees who had attended such courses is an accurate indicator.

One finding of this thesis which could be used in the short term, however, concerns the recruitment of new staff within pressing problem areas. Where generalised problems exist and it is proposed to devote resources to them, it may be better to appoint individuals from outside the authority to work on these problems than to follow a tendency to promote staff from within the department. In this way, new ideas and solutions may be brought to the authority in an advanced stage of development. Such a recruiting policy is specially recommended where the department is being expanded to treat the new problem, since this policy will then not disrupt the status positions of other staff too severely. However, the existence of a high mobility between jobs in planning also helps the implementation of this policy where departmental size is to remain constant.

Concerning the internal structuring of the planning department, there are two possible strategies that could be recommended. One involves a decrease in job specialisation and the other an increase. The former requires a move towards Bums and Stalker’s organic organisation in order to achieve an improvement in innovativeness and departmental flexibility. Such a move would place less emphasis upon a bureaucratic framework to guide working than is done at present and put more emphasis upon the importance of technical knowledge to problem-solving, regardless of where it came from. It would also stimulate a network of control and authority rather than a hierarchy, and stress the allocation of responsibilities to individuals according to consensus. By developing a commitment to the planning organisation as a whole rather than to specific posts, such a structure could help in the process of continually adjusting the scope and content of jobs in order to meet the changing requirements of the planning environment. It also brings a wider range of opinions to bear upon specific problems and, therefore, increases the probability of better evaluation of innovations. However, there are certain difficulties with the system. Firstly, it is difficult to see how a more organic structure can arise out of the present system, since it would be strongly resisted in order to protect patterns of social status and privilege. Secondly, even if set up, it may quickly decay to a more formal structure in order to avoid the uncertainty and anxiety which the organic structure commonly involves. Lastly, since the organic system is not amenable to control from the top, it would not be accepted by local government politicians because of the implications that such a situation would have for local democracy.


The other organisational strategy, involving greater specialisation, is one that can be easily recommended, although again it does not give the complete solution. This involves the hiving off of the innovative function into a section of its own. This could be done by scaling up the so-called ‘research’ section of many departments ln order that it may investigate new sources of information and new planning techniques. This has the advantage that it may easily be accomplished within the existing departmental structure, and some authorities have already set up such information and tech%ques sections. However, although more controllable than the organic alternative, such a new section would suffer both from being innovative in a limited way and also from the possibility of it being ignored. By definition, such a section exists to investigate information sources and techniques only and will, therefore, not produce the more general ideas that character& the organic set-up. In addition, because of its separate status, such a section may be effectively ignored by planners in other sections since they have little commitment to see it succeed. Such commitment might be increased, however, once its ability to increase the effectiveness of other planning functions becomes readily apparent, and if everyone from the department were to take tours of duty within the information and techniques section. This latter system would increase the number of viewpoints available to the section, thereby stimulating a greater range of ideas. It would also help to keep planners in the whole department alive to new techniques. Given the almost total impossibility of introducing an organic scheme into local government departments, it is recommended here that the option involving specialisation should be followed.

So far as the overall characteristics of the planning department are concerned, there is one major recommendation that can be made, although decisions have already been taken upon the subject recently. This is to make local planning authorities larger. One strong finding of this thesis is the importance of departmental size for the adoption of innovation. In its plans for local government reorganisation, the Government has now decided that structure planning is to be carried out by the new Counties, while local plans will be formulated by the new District Authorities (Pritchard, 1972). The number of county authorities is virtually unchanged from the present structure, and, therefore, innovative activity is likely to continue here much as before in so far as size will influence it. However, the new District Planning Authorities will be much smaller than the present planning authorities, and it seems likely that local planning may suffer as a result, a fear recently expressed by the Royal Town Planning Institute (1972). These authorities may not have the facilities either to evaluate or to introduce new planning methodology.

Recommendations at the level of the planning environment concern the arrangements and relationships that exist between the various organisations involved in planning and how these might be altered. This is a very large subject and it will be dealt with very selectively here. As mentioned above, the main concern is with the better provision of information and understanding. These should be made available as widely and freely as possible, so that all groups may participate within the planning process. One result of this would be the improvement of planning innovation, although other aspects of planning would also benefit.

There is already a multiplicity of organisations whose function it is to discover, develop and spread the knowledge of planning technology. These range from government-run research bodies such as the Building Research Establishment, through such bodies as the Centre for Environmental Studies and university departments, to wholly independent organisations such as the Civic Trust or Political and Economic Planning. It is possible that the research and information functions of these organisations could be improved, while

0


other additional bodies might carry out some functions that are not present within the planning system at the moment.

Groups Type

Local authority planners and politicians

Public

Groups

Local authority planners and politicians

(a) DATA

Statistics arranged by areas Indicators Trends General pictures of areas

As above, but also information on the problems faced

Information on intentions of planners

Information on likely impact plans

How disseminated

l Data banks (perhaps regional) Regional studies

t Data banks available for public access, perhaps at cost price or subsidised

t Question-answering services in mass media

Exhibitions/local meetings to discuss plans

Pamphlets Lectures

(b) PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

Type

Technology: Computing Evaluation Plan-making Modelling Mom toring

Theory: Sociology Economics

Experience: Difficulties encountered by others

Liaison with other authorities * Research results from others t Research in own departments

(perhaps with external funds) t Secondment of specialists to

authorities Lectures Conferences/schools

t Specialised question-answering service

Public Alternative technology and methodology with which to confront planners

t Advocacy planning t Alternative plans

* Needs more emphasis.

t Very little or no development at present.

Fig. 8.1. Information required within the planning process.

Figure 8.1. sets down the sorts of information that are needed within planning, both for planners and for the public. It suggests some of the ways in which this could be provided and also considers to what extent these methods are used at the moment.


For the organisations that exist at the moment, major problems of interaction are caused

by historical accidents and differences in perception. Historically, organisations collecting information may have chosen one way of arranging their data, and continued this for the sake of continuity. HoweOer, each agency may have been collecting such information on a different basis, and thus comparisions between each other’s work or the aggregation of their data for problem solving may not be possible. in order to correct this in the future, there is a great need for coordination.

However, even if such co-ordination were achieved, it would not necessarily overcome the problem of different organisations seeing the same problems in different ways. This occurs because of differences in leadership or because of differences in the groups represented by the organisations. Even so, if the findings of Hirschman and Lindblom (1962) are valid, the existence of many organisations working on the same problem from different viewpoints may be very beneficial in that novel solutions to such problems are more likely to be found.

In Fig. 8.1 the information considered is of two types - facts and figures, and

knowledge of techniques and skills. There is already a lot of data available to planners, although more emphasis could be put on the provision of data banks, perhaps at a regional level and with comparable methods of data collection and storage nationally. Such data-bank information could also be made available to private individuals or organisations at a cost price so that such basic knowledge is more widely available, a policy supported by Wilson (1969). However, such information spread requires computing facilities, and for those members of the public that do not have such access, there ought to be more generalised facilities such as local lectures and a question-answering service run by some body independent of the local planning authority. The Glasgow Planning Exchange may form a precedent for this type of activity.

Much more needs to be done concerning the availability of technology and skills. To begin with, greater emphasis should be placed upon research into planning methodology so that techniques can be developed for local authorities to use. Without such raw material, the innovation process cannot begin. More of the Social Science Research Council’s grants could be devoted to planning research in university departments and other existing planning bodies. Grants could also be given to develop techniques within planning departments in the context of actual planning problems, and if the requisite skills are not available within those departments, then experts could be seconded to them for the duration of the research. In this way, planning research can be made more relevant and immediate to the tasks faced by planners, and departments can become closely involved with new ideas, not being so hampered by the lack of resources and skills as at present. If necessary, these grants and skills could be provided from a new independent planning body, although several organisations already have the powers to give them, such as the Centre for Environmental Studies and the Countryside Commission (Sharp, 1969) and these powers might be utilised more. If a new body were set up, however, this could also provide a specialised question-answering service to solve detailed minor problems posed by planners about planning methodology.

Technology is also needed by the public, although in their case this relates to advocacy planning and the construction of alternative plans. Some charitable institutions and non-profit-making bodies already carry out such services, generally in the poor inner urban

areas of cities. Nevertheless, the great majority of the public do not have such services, yet they could be provided at low cost to the public by the same independent body that would give expert advice to planners mentioned above.


Thus, the final recommendation of this work is the setting up of an independent planning body, funded by central government, that could, at its discretion, give aid to planners and public alike with the object of stimulating change in local government and producing alternative plans for the public. Such activity would increase the awareness of planning concepts, increase the possibilities of acting upon such knowledge and increase the number of people and viewpoints involved in planning. All of these things would lead to an improved planning innovation process.

APPENDIX 1

The Questionnaires Used

INTRODUCTION

Two questionnaires were used during the course of this study. One was a self-administered postal questionnaire that was distributed to most of the local planning authorities in England and Wales (The National Questionnaire), while the other was completed by the author during personal interviews with planning officers in a sample of the London boroughs (The London Questionnaire).

THE NATIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE

The National Questionnaire consisted of a letter backed by a one-page questionnaire. The questions were as follows:

QUESTIONNAIRE - PLANNING INN0 VA TIONS

Please tick off the following list as it applies to your authority:

1. Planning Techniques. Does your department make use of any of the following planning techniques:

Not used

Computerised Data Bank?

Multivariate Statistical Techniques (e.g. Factor Analysis, Multiple Regression)?

Linear Programming?

Input-Output Analysis?

Gravity Models?

I El

I I

301

Experimented Have adopted its with only use


2. Plan Evaluation. Has your department been involved with the following techniques of plan evaluation when dealing with your authority’s planning problems:

Cost Effectiveness Studies?

Cost-Benefit Analysis?

Planning Balance Sheet?

Goals Achievement Matrix?

Financial Appraisal?

Not used Experimented Have adopted its use with only whenever relevant

I!!! m I=I

3. Munugement of the Planning Function.

(0 How many people are employed in the department that carries out the planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . function (excluding administrative back-up)?

(ii) How many of these people hold a degree? . . . . . . . . . . . .

(iii) Does the department have a designated post for: Yes No

A Statistician? I III

A Sociologist? I I

(iv) Have some of your planning problems been tackled by the employment of an outside planning consultancy by your Yes

cl No - -

authority? q

4. Munugement of the Whole Authority.

(0 What is your authority’s experience with the following management methods:

Not used Experimented with only

Delegation of Powers to

Individual Officers (as suggested by Maud/ MalTaby)?

I i

Interdepartmental Project Teams (for specific problems)? I I

Management by Objectives? n I

Planning Programming and Budgeting? / I

(ii) Has there been a major restructuring of departments in the last two years? Yes -

Use it or have used full time

No -

THE LONDON QUESTIONNAIRE

Planning and the lnno~arion Process 303

This was a two-sided questionnaire administered by the interviewer. On the front was a series of questions to prompt the interviewer when asking about the authority’s experience with innovations. These prompts came under the headings of (a) awareness, (b) individual suggestion, (c) pre-experimental group, (d) experiment, and (e) adoption. At each of these possible stages in the adoption process questions were asked about decisions made, the individuals or groups that made them, the date of decision, the information used, and the problems faced.

This was then followed by the following fured information questions, the possible replies being placed on a series of cards in order to prompt the respondent.

CONTACTS

I. When you needed information or advice about questions concerning this technique where did you usually turn?

(a) This borough, (b) other boroughs, (c) CLC, (d) consultants, (e) planning schools, (f) other:

2. On the whole, would you say such contacts were helpful to you? Yes/No.

~XPE~ENCE (Where relevant)

3. Has your authority experienced any of the suggested teething troubles with the introduction/experimentation with the technique?

(a) Lack of information, (b) inability to restructure, (c) great initial workload, (d) uncertainty, (e) other:

4. What would you say were the most influential factors in persuading your authority to try the technique? (NO PROMPTING) (a) People’s opinions

(i) colleagues in this authority, (ii) outside professionals, (iii) members. (b) Problems faced

(i) internal, (ii) external. Details: S.DISCONTINUERS ONLY

What led your authority to reject the use of the technique? (a) Poor results

(i) little relevance, (ii) little accuracy, (iii) other: (b) Too expensive. (c) Disliked by personnel. (d) Other:

A TI’ITUDES

6. What do you personally think about the technique? (a) Favourable. (b) Unfavourable. Expand:

STOP - GIVE NATIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE

FORMA L/INFORM4 L STR UCTURE

7. For each of the foIlowing, approximately how many have you attended in the past year? (a) Conferences, (b) Schools/Lectures/Courses, (c) Processional Society Meetings.

8. Which of the suggested sources give you the most intellectual and professional stimulation (rank: order): (a) Professional colleagues outside borough, (b) professional colleagues inside borough, (c) professional journals and books, (d) professional meetings?

304 Progms in Planning

GENERA LISA TIONS

9. Would you tell me in what kind of organisations the three planning friends you see most often socially work?

I”; F;;borough. (b) other boroughs,

(:) plar&g schools, (d) consultants, (f) other:

10. About where would you rate this authority with respect to adopting new planning practices and ideas compared with other authorities?

(a) Among the first, (b) slightly before average, (c) about average, (d) slightly later than average, (e) among the last.

11. Are there any other London boroughs that you would describe as ‘go ahead’ in planning? Which are these?

12.Which two of the following would you say were most important in promoting change in local government planning?

(a) Consultants, (b) training schools, (c) individual officers, (d) problems, (e) legislation, (f) other:

ANY OTHER POINTS:

APPENDIX 2

The lndependen t Variables

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the body of the text, the set of independent variables used in the multiple-regression programs have been referred to with shorthand names. In this appendix these names are explained, together with the sources of the information, the year to which it applies, and whether the variable was transformed in order to make its distribution conform to the normal curve.

THE VARIABLES

Some of the variables, marked with an asterisk, were not used in the final modelling process but were simply included in the data set so that the computer could use them to calculate further variables in the list. Some of the variables are binary in nature, that is taking the values of 0 and 1 only, and these have also been indicated in the list below. These binary variables were included in the analysis exactly as if they were continuous.

Name

ACADEM

AMENIT

BUILD*

CAROWN

CONSUL?

COUN6 1

COUN66

CRWFAM

Description

No. of degree-qualified planners employed in the department

Percentage of households with all amenities within admin. area

Source Year Transformation

Questionnaire 1972 log(ACADEM + 1)

Census 1966 -

No. of dwellings completed (all sectors)

Percentage of households with 1+ cars

MoHLG, 1970 Local Housing Statistics

Census 1966

_

-

Has the planning dept. Questionnaire 1972 -

employed a consultant?

Percentage of households Census 1961 -

living in council-owned property

Percentage of households Census 1966 -

living in council-owned property

No. of families living Census 1966 log(CRWFAM + 1) at 1X+ per room

* = Intermediate variable needed for generation of other variables. j = Binary variable

305


Name

DEBT70

DEMOL*

DWEL66

HEAD1

IMPROV*

INDVAL*

MANAGE

MILES

MOBILE

OFFVAL*

PBUILD

PCDEBT

PCOUN

PCRATE

PCROAD

PDEMOL

PERCRW

PGRANT

PINDUS

POFFS

POP70

POUN70*

POUN7 1

Description

Total local authority debt

No. of houses demolished as unfit or in clearance areas

No. of dwellings

Head of planning dept. an engineer/chartered surveyor planner?

No. of improvement grants given in public and private sectors

Rateable value of industry

Percent active and retired males who are managers and employers

Distance from centre of London to County Town

Percent of population moving within area in last five years

Rateable value of offices

Percent houses completed.

Per capita debt of local authority

Per cent change in council home ownership

Per capita gross ratable value

Per capita road expenditure

Percentage of houses demolished

Percentage of families overcrowded

Percentage of dwellings getting improvement grants

Per cent of total gross rateable value in industry

Per cent of total gross rateable value in offices

Total population

Rate poundage

Rate poundage

Source

Municipal Year Book

MoHLG, Local Housing Statistics

Census

Questionnaire/ Municipal Year Book

MoHLG, Local Housing Statistics

DOE, Rates and Ratable Values in England and Wales

Census

RA C Handbook log MILES

Census

DOE, op. cit.

From BUILD & DWEL66

From DEBT70 & POP70

From COUN6B & COUN6 1

From RATVAL & POP70

From ROADEX & POP70

From DEMOL & DWEL66

From CRWFAM & TOTFAM

From IMPROV & DWEL66

From INDVAL & RATVAL

From OFFVAL & RATVAL

Municipal Year Book

DOE, op. cit.

DOE, op. cit.

Year Transformation

1970 log DEBT70

1970 -

1966 log DWEL66

1972 -

1969

1971

1966 -

1966

1971

1970 log(PBUILD + 1)

1970 log(PCDEBT + 1)

19611 1966

1971

-

log PCRATE

1970 log(PCROAD + 1)

1970 -

1966 _

1969 log(PGRANT + 1)

1971

1971

1970

1970

1971

log(POFFS + 1)

log POP70

_

-

* = Intermediate variable needed for generation of other variables. t = Binary variable.

Name

PPOUND

PSHOPS

RATCHA

RATVAL

RESTIM

ROADEX

SHAKUpt

SHARE

SHOVAL*

SIZE

TOTFAM*

TYPAUT?

UNSKIL


Source YeOr Tmns~o~~on

Per cent increase in From POUN? 1& 19701 rate poundage POUN?O 1971

Per cent of total gross From SHOVAL & 1971 log PSHOPS rateable value in shops RATVAL

Per cent change in yield DOE, op. cit. 19701 of penny rate 1971

Total gross rateable DOE, op. cit. 1971 log RATVAL value

Response time to reply Questionnaire 1972 log(RESTIM + 1) to questionnaire

Total expenditure on roads DOE, High way 1970 Iog(ROADEX + 1) Statistics

Has there been ~orga~satio~ ~estio~~~ 1972 of departments?

Percentage of households with Census 1966 2+ families

Total rateable value in DOE, Rates and 1971 shops Ratable Values in

England and Wales

No. of people employed in planning dept. excluding back-up

Total number of families

is authority a borough or county?

Per cent of active and retired males who are unskilled manual workers

Questionnaire

Census

municipal Year Book

Census

1912 log(SlZE + 1)

1966

1966

* = Intermediate variable needed for generation of other variables. t = Binary variable.

APPENDIX 3

The Ten Innovation Scores

INTRODUCTION

From the replies given to the national questionnaire concerning the use of recent planning techniques it was possible to calculate ten different scores of innovativeness. These calculations followed the formulae set out below. It was from these different scores that Innovation Score 9 was selected as the dependent variable to be used in the body of the thesis.

THE INNOVATION SCORES

Let i indicate the ten detailed planning methods:

i = 1 = computer data bank, 6 = cost-effectiveness studies,

2 = multivariate statistical 7 = cost-benefit analysis,

analysis, 8 = planning balance sheet, 3 = linear programming, 9 = goals-achievement matrix,

4 = input-output analysis, 10 = financial appraisal. 5 = gravity modelling,

Let j indicate the involvement with the method:

j= 1 = not used, 3 = adopted its use. 2 = experimented with only,

Let k be the index (between 1 and 108) of the individual authorities.

Thus, xijk = the cell value (this may only be 1 or 0) for innovation i, level of use j, within authority k.

Then, Innovation Score 1 is defined as

ISl, = g ;f [u-l) * Xijk 1. i=l j=l

Notice that for each authority, Only One of the values xirk, Xizk and xijk can actually take the value 1, and the other two are zero since each authority can have only one level of involvement with each technique. Thus Innovation Score 1, for each authority, allocates zero for no involvement, 1 for experimentation, and 2 for adoption of each technique, and then sums over all ten techniques to get the final score.

308


The other nine innovation scores are calculated as follows:

10

.IS2, = % 2 ’ Xi3k i= 1

where

and

where

Is3, = g ixi2k + xi3kl 3

i=l

It+tk = g [AiXiZk+BiXi3kI, i=l

108

Ai = C Xiik k=l

108

108

Bi = 2 Ixilk + qZk1 k=l

108

IS5k= ~ BiXi3k, i=l

108

Bi = z ixilk +&Zkl k=l

for each i

for each i,

for each i.

108

Innovation Scores 6 to 10 inclusive are identical to Innovation Scores 1 to 5 presented above except that i takes the values 1,2, 5,6, 7, and 10 only. This removes linear programming, input-output analysis, the planning balance sheet and the goals-achievement matrix from the analysis, these being the four techniques that were used least nationally, and perhaps the ones least understood by the respondents.

Bibliography

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259 pp. AUDLEY, R. J. (1967) Whor Makes Up a Mind?, reprinted in CASTLES et al. (1971), op. cit. BARNARD, C. I. (1938) The Functions of the Execufive, Harvard University Press, parts reprinted in

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planning and the innovation process

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