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Policy Transfer among Local Governments:An Information-Theory Approach

HAROLD WOLMAN* AND ED PAGE**

We argue that the burgeoning literature on policy transfer suffers from thelack of an analytical framework that would facilitate understanding and,thus, theory-building. We suggest that policy transfer be conceptualized asoccurring through a communications and information framework and thatit focus on information networks that include producers, senders, and facil-itators of information, as well as recipients. We apply this framework to an

illustrative study of how British local-authority officials involved in thearea of urban regeneration policy learn from each other’s experience.

Utilizing this approach, the results of our case study yield severaltestable hypotheses for future study. In particular, they direct us towardsthe importance of informal networks in the policy-transfer process, towardsan examination of the motivations of producers, senders, and dissemina-tors of information, and towards the difficulty all participants in thenetwork have in assessing the quality and validity of the information they

receive.

INTRODUCTION

The past decade has seen an increasing interest in studies of how gov-ernments learn from the experience of other governments, variouslycalled policy transfer or “lesson-drawing” (see Rose 1993). While most of the literature on policy transfer has been concerned with cross-national

policy transfer (see, for example, Bennett; Dolowitz 1997, 1998; Hoberg;Majone; Robertson and Waltman; R. Walker; Wolman 1992), a closelyaligned literature on policy diffusion has been concerned with the tem-poral pattern of adoption of a particular policy within, as well as among,countries (see, for example, Balla; Berry and Berry; Downs; Gray;Mintrom; Mintrom and Vegari; J. Walker). Most of the policy-transferstudies have been single-issue case studies from which it is difficult togeneralize, because the studies vary in both policies and countries exam-

ined. The policy-diffusion literature also presents difficulties from theperspective of policy transfer. First, diffusion does not necessarily implytransfer (see Collier and Messick; Eyestone), and second, the diffusionstudies, although methodologically sophisticated in many respects, iden-

Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 15, No. 4,

October 2002 (pp. 477–501). © 2002 Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148,USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK. ISSN 0952-1895

*The George Washington University**London School of Economics



tify the determinants of the pattern of policy adoption but tell us littleabout the processes involved (see Mintrom; Mintrom and Vegari). Theseprocesses remain a virtual black box.

Part of the dissatisfaction with the policy-transfer literature and the

inability thus far to penetrate the black box except on a case-study-by-case-study basis is that it is not placed in a framework that facilitatesunderstanding and, thus, theory-building. To the extent that policy-transfer literature has been driven by theoretical concerns, its focus has

been almost exclusively on classifying (e.g., Bennett and Howlett, whoclassify different types of policies transferred and the purposes for whichpolicy-makers use information on policies from abroad, and Dolowitzand Marsh, who classify what is transferred).

In this article, we examine policy transfer as an instance of policy learn-ing and adopt a communications and information framework that focuseson information networks, including producers, senders, and facilitatorsof information we are as well as recipients. Following information theory(Argyris and Schon), we are also concerned with the way in which infor-mation is processed, framed, and assessed. Adoption of this frameworkpermits us to move beyond classification and to examine a set of theo-retically linked relevant concerns, some of which have been ignored by

existing studies.

POLICY TRANSFER AND INFORMATION THEORY

Policy transfer is a subset of policy learning, which Colin Bennett andMichael Howlett (288–289) define as “the general increase in knowledgeabout policies.” Hank Jenkins-Smith and Paul Sabatier (42) take a morespecific approach, defining policy-oriented learning as “relatively endur-ing alterations of thought or behavioral intentions that result from expe-rience and which are concerned with the attainment or revision of theprecepts of the belief system of individuals or of collectivities.” Policytransfer as a form of policy-oriented learning requires not only the acqui-sition of knowledge but also utilization of the knowledge about policieselsewhere. At a minimum, this means taking the knowledge into accountin policy-making.

Policy transfer, since it is a form of policy learning that is done by gov-ernments, is a form of “organizational learning.” In a strict sense, orga-

nizations, which are simply constructs, cannot learn; only human beingscan learn (Farkas, 3, 32). However, with Chris Argyris and Donald Schon(191), we define organizational learning as occurring when individualsacting on behalf of an organization and interacting with others in theorganization learn in such a way that the beliefs, attitudes, or values of relevant organizational members change and—in the case of policytransfer—organizational behavior changes. Our focus, therefore, is onindividual members of organizations who are in a position to shape

organizational behavior.

478 HAROLD WOLMAN AND ED PAGE



Policy transfer is thus fundamentally about learning. Learning, inturn, is a process of transferring information (Farkas, 4). Coming to anunderstanding of policy transfer thus leads to a series of importantinformation-related concerns: how does information get communicated,

how does it get processed, how does it get assessed, and how does it getutilized? Together these questions form a facilitative framework forexamining policy transfer and for identifying and testing theoreticallyrelevant propositions. We address each of these in turn.

Communications

As Everett Rogers (5–6) notes, “[C]ommunication is the process by which

participants create and share information with each other in order tosearch for mutual advantage.” Communication implies both a receiver of information and a sender or senders. It may also include producersof information, who may be indirect senders (they may produce infor-mation, which other senders convey to recipients). Senders and receiversfrequently exchange information through some form of at least semi-structured network that exists over time. Information is also exchanged

both through more formal networks and occasionally via unstructuredone-off occurrences. We note here that virtually all of the policy-transferstudies of which we are aware focus almost entirely on the receivers of information and the use they make of it, rather than on senders andproviders.

Processing

Information exchange is not a simple process, because, while informationmay be neutral, the way in which it is interpreted and processed is not.

Argyris and Schon (197) observe that “[O]rganizational learning dependson the interpretation of events, which depends, in turn, on frames, themajor story lines through which organizational inquirers set problemsand make sense of experience. Framing is essential to interpretative judg-ments, but because frames themselves are unfalsifiable, organizationalinquirers may be trapped within self-referential frames.” Placing this ina cross-national context, Anderson (1978, 20) observes that

[S]o-called shared problems—inflation, inequality, environmental deteriora-

tion, social conflict, participation, and the like—may have a wholly differentkind of significance from one nation to the next, not only because of economicand social differences, but because of the way such problems are evaluated andanalyzed . . . Public problems are not just “out there” waiting to be dealt with.Policy-making is not simply problem-solving. It is also a matter of setting upand defining the problem in the first place.

Assessing

Recipients of information must also assess the quality and relevance of the information they receive (they do so within the “frames” discussed in

POLICY TRANSFER AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 479



the previous section). Is the information accurate, and is it valid? Does itaccurately depict the experience of the policy and its effects in the gov-ernmental unit in which it is currently in place? Is it valid in the sensethat it can be generalized to the recipient’s jurisdiction, where a variety

of differences—ranging from the nature of the problem to institutionalsetting and political, cultural, and historical concerns—are likely to exist(Wolman 1993)? In their review of the policy-transfer literature, KarenMossberger and Harold Wolman indicate that assessing informationstands out as particularly problematic in policy-transfer efforts.

Utilizing

Can policy transfer (or, more broadly, policy learning) be said to occurif information—even if it is received, processed, and assessed—is notutilized? Colin Bennett distinguishes between knowledge of a program,utilization of that knowledge, and adoption of the program. We arguethat policy transfer does require utilization of knowledge drawn fromthe experience of others, although it does not require actual adoption. Byutilization, we mean that knowledge about this experience is takeninto account in the policy-decision process or shapes or affects the nature

of the decision.Utilization, however, can come in many forms. Bennett and Howlett

suggest that learning through policy transfer can occur in three differentforms: process-related or institutional design; instruments or tools; andideas or goals. The most obvious form is the direct transfer of program-matic design or technique. But, as Richard Rose (1991) points out, thistype of transfer does not necessarily imply mechanical copying, which isonly one form of what he terms “lesson-drawing.” Lesson-drawing also

occurs through what he calls “emulation” (adoption but with adjustmentfor differing circumstances), hybridization or synthesis (combining ele-ments from several different programs), and “inspiration” (experienceelsewhere acting as a spur for new ideas).

As the term “inspiration” suggests, policy transfer can encompasstransfer of policy goals, concepts, or ideas as well as program structure,design, and techniques. It can also involve the transfer of what Moss-

berger calls “policy labels.” Policy labels are names that are applied to awide range of policies reflecting ambiguous and loosely bundled ideas(e.g., privatization, enterprise zones). The label itself is the concept that istransferred. As Mossberger (171) writes:

Labels have both referential and symbolic meaning. The referential value of theenterprise zone label was that it explained the intent of decisionmakers toaddress the problems of declining areas. The enterprise zone label cut infor-mation costs. One official explained that for distressed areas, “it had to be enter-prise zones.” It was much easier to modify the idea than to start with a newone, explaining and defending it. The enterprise ones also embodied symbolicsignificance, communicating government concern for impoverished communi-ties, and signaling a pro-investment attitude toward businesses.




Utilization might also involve learning from the political strategies andtactics employed in other settings. In addition, utilization might occur aspart of the political process, with actors referring to the experience of other governments in an effort to persuade others of the desirability (or

lack thereof) of a policy. This may be after-the-fact utilization (e.g., the useof the knowledge may not have contributed to the policy decision itself

but may be used as a tactic to legitimize the decision taken).The information framework presented above serves as a framework for

our study and allows us to focus on a set of theoretically relevant ques-tions: To what extent and under what conditions do policy-makers seekto learn about policy activities elsewhere, from what sources do they seekinformation, how do they assess information and what sources do they

trust, to what extent and how do they use the information, why do sendersand facilitators provide information, and how do they assess the informa-tion they send?

In a recent paper, Mossberger and Wolman reviewed 17 case studies of cross-national policy transfer in an effort to draw generalizations fromexisting research about these questions. They did so by attempting toimpose a modified information-theory framework on this set of diversestudies. They tentatively concluded, for example, that most policy trans-

fers involved a relatively narrow search (usually one country), that inmost cases borrowing countries appeared to have reasonably accurateand detailed knowledge about the operations of the program in the othercountry but insufficient understanding of the way the program interactedwith other elements of the political system in that country, and that infor-mation about policies or programs in other countries, once sought, isusually utilized in some way in the decision process.

THE STUDY

There is a dilemma in studying policy transfer empirically. Researchershave generally engaged either in intensive case studies or in diffusionstudies involving quantitative analysis of patterns of adoption of a policy

by units of government (e.g., national governments, local governments).The first method provides rich information from which, unfortunately, itis difficult to generalize. Findings derived from a study of the transfer of

policy A from government Y to government Z may or may not hold forpolicy B or for transfer of policy A (or B) from government V to X.Diffusion studies suffer from the same problem (patterns of diffusion

may differ across policies or units of government), and also fail to provideexplanation of how policy learning occurs. Furthermore, diffusion studiesrequire policy adoption, whereas learning through policy transfer, as wehave defined it, can occur even if the policy is not adopted. Nonetheless,the literature on innovation diffusion, which is concerned with, inter alia,questions such as what factors cause organizations to adopt innovationsand what factors determine the way in which innovations diffuse, doesprovide a set of findings with which our results can be compared.




We have chosen an alternative, though complementary, approach.Instead of focusing on a specific policy decision through a traditional casestudy, our unit of analysis is the important actors who are potential policylearners within a system of governments with respect to one or more

policies. We identify these actors through organizational position and askthem how they engage in policy learning. This approach has the advan-tage of including variations of behavior among a large range of units(rather than focusing on a single case study), but the potential disadvan-tage of being unfocused, since questions about policy transfer would not

be anchored in a common example.In this study, we undertook to examine how British local authority offi-

cials involved in the policy area of urban regeneration learn from each

other’s experience. Rather than pursuing a case-study approach andtaking a specific example of policy transfer, we asked local officials howthey found out about the experience of other local authorities in the areaof urban regeneration (i.e., who they received information from), howthey assessed the information, and the extent to which they utilized it intheir decision-making process.

Regeneration policy in Britain is funded primarily by grants (CityChallenge and later Single Regeneration Budget, or SRB) provided by the

government to local areas. According to the official Department of Envi-ronment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) guide (1), “The aim . . . is tohelp to improve local areas and enhance the quality of life of local people

by tackling need, stimulating wealth creation, and enhancing competi-tiveness.” The grants are provided to regeneration partnerships, which

bid for them on a competitive basis. Local authorities (local governmentsin the U.K.) are nearly always an important participant in these partner-ships; usually a local authority or a coalition of local authorities are theprime movers. However, there are frequently other partnership members,ranging from community organizations to business organizations, edu-cational institutions, training institutions, and so on. Once a partnershipis funded, additional bids are sometimes made for specific projects byelements of the partnership (e.g., a community organization) with theapproval and under the umbrella of the partnership.

We began by interviewing regeneration partnership officials in theManchester region (leaders of Single Regeneration Budget or CityChallenge authorities), asking them, among other questions, from what

sources they received information about the experience of other localauthorities with respect to urban regeneration. We then followed up byinterviewing the most prominent sources of information cited, askingthem, in turn, about their sources of information, how they assessed it, towhom they sent it, their motivation for sending it, and so on.

Based on these interviews, we then constructed a questionnaire, whichwe sent to directors in 569 regeneration partnerships. The questionnairewas designed to elicit information on the extent to which officials in

regeneration partnerships attempted to learn about regeneration activi-




ties in other partnerships, their rationale for doing so, the sources of suchinformation, and the usefulness of the various sources. We received com-pleted surveys back from 293 respondents—a response rate of 51%, agood response rate for a mail survey. Finally, we followed this up with

several other personal interviews in other parts of the country.

Communicating Information

Communication about the experience of local authorities with urbanregeneration occurred within a network consisting of receivers, senders,producers, and facilitators of information. Many of the actors in thisnetwork played multiple roles. Regeneration partnership officers were,

for example, both receivers of information and senders of information. Inthe latter capacity, they sent information both informally to their col-leagues and formally through issuing and disseminating publicationsabout their experience. Senders of information, such as the DisseminationUnit of the DETR and the Planning Exchange, were also receivers of infor-mation from other sources, since they produced little of the informationthemselves. Some producers of information, such as the Local Govern-ment Management Board (LGMB) and the Local Government Association(LGA), were also senders of information (to their members, in the firstinstance) as well as receivers of information from other sources. Otherproducers of information, such as the Research Division of the DETR orresearchers studying local authority regeneration experience, were pri-marily producers of information, whose results were mostly disseminated

by others. In addition, some actors, while they might also be sendersand/or producers of information, played a role as facilitator, holding sem-inars, conferences, and so on as a means of bringing together other actorsto share information and experience.

Receivers of Information

We begin with a focus on the regeneration partnerships that are receiversof information about the experience of other local authorities. To whatextent do they seek out such information, and why?

Nearly all of the local authority officials interviewed from regenerationpartnerships gave some degree of “lip service” to the importance of learn-

ing from the experience of other authorities. Only 8% answered that suchexperiences “rarely” or “never” played a role in decision-making in theirarea. Respondents differed somewhat in the degree to which they lookedat the experiences of other authorities. Over one-half replied that theexperiences of other authorities “occasionally” played a role. A sizeableminority, 40.8%, drew on the experiences of other authorities more fre-quently, either “often” (30.1%) or “all the time” (10.7%) (Table 1).

These results tend to reinforce the findings of the interviews. As thedirector of a large development corporation observed, “I’m a firm believerin not reinventing the wheel,” a phrase which was frequently used.




Indeed, this director reported that when he first accepted the position, hetraveled around the country looking at the activities of other developmentcorporations. Another respondent, a director of a local regeneration part-nership, said the rationale for looking to other authorities was to see“what works and what doesn’t, how can we apply it, how can we avoidreinventing the wheel, and how are we doing relative to other authori-ties.” Another, from a regeneration partnership headed by a small local

authority, noted that “Usually we get an idea for an activity or initiativefirst, then we try to find out who else is already doing it, and look to seehow they are doing it.”

However, most also admitted that, despite its desirability, there wasnot a great deal of systematic effort put into learning from others. As oneregeneration partnership respondent noted, “Ideally I would like to havea greater awareness of what’s happening elsewhere. But that’s very con-strained by time and resources.” Another observed that a great deal of information came across his desk on the experience of other authorities,

but that they did not engage in active efforts. A third began by minimiz-ing what could be learned from others, since “[R]egeneration programsare locally made to deal with local problems. We devise a custom-madesolution, and we have the expertise to do that.” However, as he contin-ued, he mused, “[B]ut sometimes we do end up reinventing the wheel.Maybe we would do better if there were more dialogue with people whohave tried something elsewhere.”

Close observers who did not work directly for regeneration partner-

ships were more dismissive. A respondent who works for one of the localauthority associations observed that “Knowing what other authorities aredoing is a very low priority for councils. There is a sense that we want todo it our way.” And a consultant who works closely with regenerationpartnerships noted that local authorities are constantly being told that theycan learn from others and that the government had put an emphasis ondissemination of good practice. However, “From the local-authority pointof view, the process of learning is random and unfocused.” He concluded

that the real concern of local authorities lay not with understanding what


TABLE 1In Devising Regeneration Activities for Your Area,How Often Does the Experience of Other LocalAuthorities Play a Role in Your Decision-Making?

Respondents Percentage

All the time 31 10.7Often 87 30.1Occasionally 148 51.2Rarely or never 23 8.0

TOTAL 289 100.0



other local authorities were doing, but with what initiatives the centralgovernment was funding. Indeed, a director of one of the regenerationpartnerships volunteered that “We’re more interested in where centralgovernment is going so that we can position ourselves to get more money

to benefit the city.” Another observed that “When we first applied for SRB,we looked at the projects of other local authorities under City Challengeto see what was most likely to be funded.”

Sources of Information

Despite the lack of systematic effort, local authorities do receive infor-mation about the experience of other local authorities. There are a variety

of formal and semiformal mechanisms that might serve as sources for thisinformation. The survey asked respondents to give different sources of information about the regeneration activities of other authorities marksout of ten for the frequency with which they were used and the useful-ness of the source. The most frequently used sources were governmentpublications (average mark for frequency of use of 6.07), conversationswith officials (5.86), good-practice guides (5.45), and practitioner journals(5.13) (Table 2).


TABLE 2How Do You Find Out about the Activities of Other Local Authorities thatInterest You in the Field of Regeneration? Please Indicate for Each of theFollowing Types of Information Source (a) How Often You Use It and (b)How Useful You Find It. Please Give a Mark Out of 10.

Frequency of Use Usefulness

Average AverageSource Score Respondents Scorea Respondents

Government publications 6.07 281 6.28 275Conversations with 5.86 281 6.73 276

officialsGood-practice guides 5.45 280 6.09 266Practitioner journals 5.13 280 5.82 247Newsletters 4.91 281 5.20 261Presentations at seminars 4.87 282 5.45 278

and conferencesElectronic information 3.43 277 5.18 217Conversations with 3.09 277 4.88 234

researchersAcademic journals 2.69 271 4.46 183Study tours 2.04 271 5.21 168Conversations with 1.86 264 3.82 168

councilors

aAverage excludes those who never use the source.



A follow-up question using the same ten-point scale asked about theusefulness of information from the various general sources for those whowere users of the source. Understandably, since the average usefulnessscore (Table 2) is based on those who make some use of each source (that

is, it excludes those who give a zero frequency-of-use score), the scoresfor perceptions of usefulness are generally higher than the frequency-of-use scores. People are likely to use sources they have found useful. Thisalso helps explain why the two scores broadly mirror each other. Forexample, those who get information from conversations with officials inother authorities tended to find them very useful, and this source gainsthe highest average “usefulness” score (6.73). There are, however, somenotable exceptions. Those who actually used electronic information

tended to rate these sources quite highly (5.18). Only conversations withcouncilors (3.82), academic journals (4.46), and conversations withresearchers (4.88) appear to be of limited value to those who actuallymake use of them at some time.

Taking both the frequency of utilization and the usefulness of thesource into account, it is clear that the most important source of infor-mation for respondents is informal personal contacts with their peersfrom other regeneration partnerships and local authorities. These infor-

mal exchanges of information may come in the course of telephone calls,conversations about other matters, or, in some cases, periodic meetings of peers in the local area about shared concerns. Often, they result fromsocial contacts that are incidental to more formal occasions, such as atten-dance at a conference of a local government association, a meeting of localauthority executives from the surrounding area, a seminar, or a studytour. These findings are consistent with social-learning theory, which,according to Rogers (334), “states that individuals learn from otherswhom they observe and then imitate by following a similar (but not nec-essarily identical) behavior.” He further notes that they depend heavilyon the communicated experience of near peers.

Increasingly, these informal contacts also result from discussions thatoccur within formal or quasiformal networks of regeneration officials. Alarge proportion of respondents (71.2%) indicated that they participatedin local consortia devoted to the discussion of regeneration issues. DETR’sDissemination Unit, through a contract with the British Urban Regen-eration Association (BURA), has been involved in explicit efforts “to

provide effective regional networks where best practice in all aspects of economic, physical and social regeneration can be identified, exchangedand widely promoted” (BURA 2000). The DETR’s objective is to convene,if they do not already exist, and stimulate such networks and then hopethat they become self-sustaining. Indeed, this emphasis on networksseems well founded. Partnerships that participated in networks or con-sortia were more likely to engage in above-average efforts to find outabout the regeneration experience of other partnerships than were those

that were not network or consortia participants. One must, of course, becautious in interpreting this relationship. It may result from network and




consortia participation encouraging search behavior about the activity of others, or from a tendency of those partnerships that are interested infinding out about the regeneration behavior of others to be likely to par-ticipate in networks and consortia. However, these findings are consistent

with research on the importance of networks in the innovation diffusionprocess (Balla; Mintrom and Vergari).

Informal personal contacts are often buttressed by personal visits thatpermit the official to observe the physical results of activities. As oneofficial said, “You go physically to see how other authorities approachthings—personal contacts and visits are where we learn what’s going onelsewhere.”

In addition to informal personal conversations and contacts with local

officials, respondents from regeneration partnerships mentioned a widerange of other sources. Some of these also involved informal personalcontact, in many cases with academics or researchers from local univer-sities who had done consulting work for them or whom they had cometo know (average score for frequency of use of 3.09). More formal inter-action, such as presentations at seminars and conferences, was rated 4.87,while study tours received an average rating for frequency of use of only2.04 (Table 2).

The frequency of use and utility of information from written sourcesvaried widely. As already noted, government publications (average scorefor frequency of use of 6.07) and good-practice guides (average score forfrequency of use of 5.45) were given high marks. Practitioner journalsreceived a relatively high rating of 5.13, but the survey results suggestthat academic journals played very little role as a source of policy infor-mation (average response of 2.69). Newsletters were given an average fre-quency rating of 4.91. Among the various sources of written information,

electronic information, including Web sites, received a score of 3.43,suggesting that the Web has not yet made a major impact as a source of innovation dissemination.

The survey also asked respondents a similar question about specificsources of information. The highest rating by far (average score for fre-quency of use of 5.96) was given to the Government Offices for theRegion.1 The DETR, the source of most government regeneration funding,also received relatively high ratings for frequency of use (4.92). Both the

Government Offices for the Region and the DETR were also given thehighest ratings for usefulness of information by those who made use of them (6.48 and 6.17, respectively). They were followed by the JosephRowntree Foundation (6.03), a foundation whose funding is concentratedin the areas of regeneration, housing, social policy, and local governmentand which disseminates its study findings widely through short sum-maries of their results, and by the LGA (5.33), the membership organiza-tion for local governments in England and Wales.

We also asked the survey respondents to name the particular authori-ties to which they looked as a source of ideas for their own areas. A largepercentage of respondents—57.4%—cited predominantly local or regional




neighbors as authorities from which they learn. Thirty-five and six tenthspercent cited authorities predominantly outside their areas, while 6.9%cited similar authorities (e.g., “other former mining towns”) from outsidetheir areas.

While few studies have attempted to determine where units of gov-ernment actually look for information about policies, our findings appearconsistent with those that do exist. In one study, Patricia Freeman (101)asked state legislators in six states whether they “ever examine the energylegislation of other states to get ideas regarding legislation in your state?”If the answer was yes, the legislator was then asked which states wereexamined. She concluded that interstate communication among legisla-tors is fairly extensive, and that while certain states are on every list (indi-

cating a small set of national “leaders”), most state legislators lookedprimarily to their geographic neighbors for ideas.

Our findings are also consistent with the literature on innovationdiffusion. Jack Walker originally argued that diffusion of state policyoccurred through regional networks. Recent work by Frances Berry andWilliam Berry, Michael Mintrom, and Mintrom and Sandra Vergari allfind that adoption in a state is associated with adoption in states con-tiguous to it.

Those regeneration partnerships that had a primarily national orienta-tion, citing examples of authorities outside their region from which theytend to draw lessons, were primarily partnerships in areas of large pop-ulations and with large local authority workforces. This is not surprising,since their size suggests they have the personnel resources to engage in

broader search. In his review of literature on the determinants of inno-vating organizations, Rogers (379) concluded that organization size isconsistently found to be a critical factor. However, he adds that “[S]ize isprobably a surrogate measure of several dimensions that lead to innova-tion: total resources, slack resources, technical expertise of employees,organizational structure, and so on.”

The preponderance of local or regional exemplars does not necessarilyimply a “parochial” or limited approach to learning from others. First,since those working in partnerships have limited time and funds toengage in elaborate searches, locally based examples offer informationthat is more readily available and more easily assessed. One respondentreplied that she knew the people in the neighboring authorities, knew the

area, and thus found it easier to assess the success of their initiatives.Second, since regeneration issues are often viewed as regional problems,it is understandable that officials in partnerships look to neighboring ornearby authorities for lessons. Third, the resource-bidding structureencourages a regional focus for lesson-drawing. Local authorities are incompetition with each other for funds, and the relevant GovernmentOffices for the Region (later Regional Development Agencies) play animportant role in assessing the priority of any project for support. Thus,

knowledge of the local scene—what has attracted funds elsewhere in the




region and what likely competitors are doing—is seen as extremelyimportant information. For example, one respondent in inner Londonpointed out that any SRB proposal was likely to be in competition withother London proposals, and that knowledge of what was going on in

London authorities was probably more important than keeping abreastof developments further afield.

Senders, Producers, and Facilitators of Information

Who are the senders and producers of information in this informationnetwork, what do they do, why are they involved, and what are theirsources of information? This question, which emerges from our informa-

tion-theory framework, has not been the subject of any systematicresearch in the policy-transfer literature.The organization most involved as a sender of information is the

DETR. Within the Regeneration Directorate of the DETR, there is a for-mally constituted “Dissemination Unit,” which has assumed a role, as amatter of policy, in disseminating “good practices” to regeneration part-nerships. According to the head of that unit,

[O]ur main customer has been the regeneration partnerships . . . A lot of our

work focuses on the dissemination of good practices to these regeneration part-nerships . . . One of the main purposes in providing this information to part-nerships is to give the partnerships information on strategies that have beentried and found to be successful as well as pitfalls. We are saying, “These arethings that have worked and why. It’s up to you whether to use them.”

The Dissemination Unit engages in a variety of activities. It sends outgood-practice guides and quarterly newsletters (Update), produced by acontractor, to regeneration partnerships and local authorities. This mate-

rial deals with good practices in terms of both specific topics and man-agement practices. In addition, again through its contractor, the unit actsas a facilitator of information by staging workshops and seminars ongood practice in which regeneration partnerships and local authoritiesparticipate.

The reason the Dissemination Unit provides such information is builtinto the nature of the program itself. According to the director, theoutcome that the unit would like to see resulting from its activities is that

“success build upon success . . . I would hope we are, where appropriate,influencing behavior, not just providing information.”In addition to the Dissemination Unit, the DETR also has a Research,

Analysis, and Evaluation Division, which, among other functions, servesas a provider of information to the Dissemination Unit. The divisioncontracts with outside firms for evaluation research. According to oneof the officials in that division, “We are, among other things, providers of information to the Dissemination Unit. We write into our contractsfor evaluation a stream of outputs, some of which are qualified con-clusions for good practice.”




The Government Offices for the Region served more as facilitatorsthan as providers. They distributed DETR’s good-practice guides to theregeneration partnerships and held seminars, most of which involvedtechnical aspects of program administration, but some of which touched

on good-practice experience of other local authorities. In addition, theregional offices tried to promote networks among local regeneration part-nerships in the region so that experience could be shared.

Another set of information providers that have a more or less formallystructured role in the dissemination process are the local government pro-fessional associations, such as the LGA, the LGMB (after April 1999, theImprovement and Development Agency for Local Government, or IDeA),the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), and so on.

These organizations produce best-practice guides, send out newsletters,commission research papers, hold seminars and workshops, and set upnetworks on a variety of topics of interest to their membership. However,with few exceptions, none of these organizations has devoted much of this activity to urban regeneration strategies and/or practices. Indeed,according to a staff member, the LGA has done little in terms of infor-mation dissemination about best practices or the experience of regenera-tion partnerships in urban regeneration.

The BURA is a more specialized professional association whosemembers come from a variety of sectors—central and local government,the voluntary and community sectors, and the private sector. However,less than 25% of the 600 or more regeneration partnerships are members.BURA was formed in 1990 specifically, according to its chief executive,“because people were not aware of what was happening elsewhere. Wefelt it was necessary for an organization to be a repository of good prac-tice.” BURA’s primary means of accomplishing this is through an annualaward scheme in which it presents five or six best-practice awards eachyear. The winning projects or activities are then publicized throughvarious means and descriptions of them are circulated to BURA’s mem-

bers. BURA also organizes conferences, workshops, and seminars onvarious issues and conducts regional study tours of “best practice”schemes for its members. It does not itself produce good-practice guidesor engage in research.

Commercial organizations also play a role in disseminating informa-tion. The Planning Exchange is a Glasgow-based nonprofit organization

that engages in four primary activities: information services, publications,seminars, and consultancy. It provides these services to members who paya membership fee and, in some cases, to nonmember subscribers for a fee.The Planning Exchange has more than 250 members, of which one-thirdare local authorities. Its mission, as articulated by its managing director,is “to help practitioners do better in urban and rural development bylearning from each other and from research.”

The information services the Planning Exchange provides include a

weekly bulletin to its subscribers, consisting of abstracts of recent journal




articles and relevant reports, research studies, and other literature. It alsopublishes case studies of local-authority experience with developmentactivities and runs seminars on a variety of topics, including explicitlywhat works or has worked in a specific area. Finally, it operates, with the

cooperation and funding assistance of the DETR, the Regional Informa-tion Network, a dedicated electronic mail and conferencing network,which as of January 2000 had 7139 registered users. Of these, 1819 wereworking directly in regeneration partnerships.

Newsletters and journals provide another source of information. Oneof the sources of information most frequently cited by our respondentsand one of those deemed most useful (63.6% of our respondents cited itas such) was New Start, a weekly journal which began publication in Feb-

ruary 1999. New Start is a commercial venture, the revenues of which arederived from advertising for recruitment as well as for products and ser-vices and from subscription payments. It is aimed specifically at regen-eration practitioners, as well as those involved in related and cross-cuttingissues. According to New Start’s editor,

What we do, uniquely, is to present the major news of interest to such readersevery week, together with features and comment pieces that we hope will provestimulating and thought-provoking. We run “case study”-type material fairly

frequently . . . Our sources are numerous, ranging from personal interviews foran editorial feature, to government or academic reports, to information on theInternet . . . you name it, we get it.

Another example is Urban Environment Today (UET ), a specialistsubscription newsletter. According to its editor, UET’s sales pitch to itspotential subscribers is straightforwardly about information and policytransfer: “You need to learn what everyone else is doing, what is goodpractice in local authorities, what the new development ideas are, what

the Government is doing, what the funding sources are.” UET providesthat information in journalistic form in its twice-monthly publication.Like New Start, UET is thus a sender of information rather than a pro-ducer. It receives information from a variety of sources, including othermagazines, press releases, reports from various sources, the Internet,and—as journalists—contacts with a wide network of people who areconcerned with urban development issues such as practitioners, policy-makers, analysts, advocates, and so on.

According to its editor, UET’s motivations for providing informationare complex. As a private venture (it is published by Landor Publications,a small publishing house), the revenues of which come entirely from sub-scriptions and advertising, it holds commercial success as an importantgoal. However, as the editor commented,

[E]ditorial decisions are made on a commercial basis, but it’s not quite as simpleas that . . . We do have an agenda. It is about revitalizing urban centers and pro-moting the needs of the inner city. And we are committed to the participation

of residents in policy-making . . . The publisher is committed to that agenda aswell. We would be concerned if we were a commercial success but we didn’t




change behavior. As it is, we are still losing money because we haven’t beenable to get enough advertising. I think the publisher is at least looking for thelosses not to increase.

Local authorities themselves are also producers and senders of infor-

mation, as well as receivers. Many create glossy brochures heralding theiraccomplishments. As one local authority chief executive observed, “[W]emake an effort to publicize our successes. It gives us peer recognition aswell as recognition by the Government. We get quite a lot of visits fromother local officials and politicians.” A deputy chief executive of anotherlocal authority also commented upon the city’s efforts to provide infor-mation on its own successful activities as both a matter of pride and ameans of demonstrating to local elected politicians that their activities

reflected well upon them.

Processing Information

Information is not neutral. Recipients process it through a framework thatreflects their own views and interests. What do recipients have in mindwhen they receive information about the urban regeneration activities of other regeneration partnerships? Our interviews suggest that they arelooking predominantly for examples of successes—programs and activi-

ties that “worked.”But worked for what purpose? From the government’s point of view,

the urban regeneration program has a wide set of purposes. As notedabove, the official DETR guide (1) defines the objectives as “to help toimprove local areas and enhance the quality of life of local people by tack-ling need, stimulating wealth creation, and enhancing competitiveness.”As one DETR official stated it, “[U]rban regeneration consists of a rangeof activities that are seeking to regenerate areas of physical, social, and

economic need.” And another DETR official emphasizes that “[F]unda-mentally, urban regeneration is meant to deliver social benefits.”

When asked about the purposes of the regeneration program, localauthority officials in regeneration partnerships respond similarly, citing a

broad set of objectives. However, when pressed about what they look for,most invariably respond in terms of things that they can see—in short,evidence of physical development. Information about what is a “success”is thus filtered through the frame of local authority officials’ expectations

for urban regeneration. These expectations are primarily in terms of physical development.

Assessing Information

Recipients of information must, implicitly or explicitly, assess the qualityof information they receive. Most providers must do the same in select-ing the information they wish to send to recipients. As Mossberger andWolman (16) note, “[T]he problem of how to evaluate the performance of

a program or policy in the country from which transfer is being consid-ered is, in many ways, the most difficult dilemma in the policy transfer




process.” Nonetheless, information assessment has been virtually ignoredin policy-transfer literature.

When the question of how they assessed the information they receivedwas posed to respondents, many reacted with surprise, observing, “I

haven’t really thought about that” or “That’s a good question.” Regen-eration partnership officials tended to place the greatest reliance onassessing the reliability and usefulness of information on their ownsenses—what they saw or heard, particularly informally and particularlyfrom people or sources they trusted. As has been noted, they gave thehighest average usefulness rating in terms of general sources (6.73 out of 10) to conversations with officials from other local authorities or regen-eration partnerships. The highest rating for specific sources (6.48) went to

the Government Offices for the Region, regional government officialswith whom, before RDAs, regeneration partnerships had frequentinteraction.

However, local regeneration partnership officials were suspicious of the motivations of many of the sources of information. The follow-ing comments from five different regeneration partnership officials aretypical:

How do you assess the quality of information? It’s very difficult. I just applymy own critical faculties to what is being said. I apply my own judgment andexperience . . . If there is something said in a formal presentation, I trust it moreif I can follow up and talk to people. People are willing to be more honest in apersonal conversation.

You talk to people; you look them in the eye. If it’s theory, it’s hard to assess;if you can see it, it’s easier. For those things happening on the ground, you talkto people who are impacted or affected. Or you talk to the agency peopleresponsible. It’s not easy to do this. It’s too time-consuming . . . But I’m suspi-cious of a lot of information about what’s happening elsewhere. It’s important

to understand the motivation of these organizations [providing the informa-tion]. Many have an axe to grind.

My assessment of this stuff [information about the experience of regenerationactivities in other local authorities] is very much contextual. I don’t have theresources to do research. If you have the opportunity to go see something, thatsometimes helps. I would pay more attention to and trust information frompeople in local authorities I am familiar with.

You get more honest assessments from informal contacts with people you do

know. They’re less likely to “BS” you. These kinds of contacts and conversa-tions are different from a public presentation at a seminar where they can’treally say what happened because they have to look good. You’re more likelyto get the truth in an informal context.

How do you assess? It’s difficult; you almost need a sixth sense. There’s a lotof rhetoric and bluff around partnership work. You have to use your own expe-rience and professional judgment. It’s how much I trust the person I’m hearingit from.

Assessment thus occurs through the application of the local official’s ownsense of what sounds right, with particular weight given to what he orshe sees (which provides a bias towards physical development) or hears,




usually in an informal context, from trusted sources. It does not reflect acritical evaluation in any policy-analytic sense as set forth above. Inresponse to a question about how local authorities assessed informationabout the experience of others, an official from a local authority associa-

tion observed, “Badly. The view is, if it works there it must work here.”A DETR official observed that local authorities as policy customerspreferred guidance on the basis of informed opinion, rather than formalfindings or evaluations.

Providers of information to regeneration partners often responded insimilar ways when asked how they assessed the information they pro-vided in their good-practice guides, newsletters, reports, and so on. Anofficial from the LGMB (now IDeA) simply said, “[I]t’s very difficult. I’m

not sure we really do it.” The LGA representative responded, “We deter-mine what is good practice by using people we trust in local authorities.We don’t have a formal evaluation process. It’s a good point. We hope wepresent information not in terms of ‘Coventry has the answer,’ but interms of ‘Coventry is doing something interesting that is worth other localauthorities thinking about.’” The Planning Exchange director indicated asimilar approach to their good-practice case studies: “We go out to thelocal authority, interview officials, talk to observers, maybe also speak to

academics who have done studies. We do not do an independent evalu-ation. We go there to get stories. We are dispassionate, we don’t have anaxe to grind. We get the facts right.” The editor of New Start observed that“We are careful not to sanction individual studies as examples of bestpractice—although we may quote others who say so. We do not have thestaff to conduct any kind of serious analysis of whether or not such claimscan be substantiated; however, by highlighting particular cases we canoffer readers the opportunity to make their own judgments.”

According to a DETR official, the DETR dissemination office sees itsresponsibility, at least in part, as saying to local officials, “These are thethings that have worked and this is why they have worked. It’s up to youhow to use them; they are not blueprints.” In response to the question of how they know what has worked, the official replied,

Our consultant [Roger Tym and Partners, at the time] does the original workon this, selecting the regeneration partnership and activity once we have chosenthe issue. It’s also true that the partnerships promote themselves. We arelooking for activities where there has been some level of achievement andwhere the outputs described in the proposal have been produced. We don’t doour own evaluation; we ask the exemplars what kind of evaluation has beendone. Is it fair to say we are relying on the evaluation of the program opera-tors themselves? I guess we are, but that is where the primary evaluationoccurs. We do ask probing questions and get the views of the GovernmentOffice for the Region.

When we asked an employee of the DETR’s consultant, Roger Tym andPartners, how they identified good practice, he replied simply, “It’s pro-

jects that are successful or appear to be successful. If we’ve had reports




that it’s successful, we will talk to them, ask them what they’ve done well,and read some of their literature.”

Interestingly, there was a marked divergence between the replies of oursurvey respondents and those of our personal interviewees on the use-

fulness of good-practice guides. The survey respondents ranked themrelatively high, giving them an average score for usefulness of 6.09.However, several of those we interviewed were skeptical of good-practice documents and formal reports of success. One regenerationpartnership official observed that “I’ve found some of the good practiceguides so simplistic that they are almost of no value.” When asked howthe DETR knew what good practice was, a DETR official in the Research,Evaluation, and Analysis Division said, “That’s a matter close to my heart.

There seems to be a lot of material promoted as good practice that would-n’t stand the light of day if it were seriously evaluated.” And an officialin one of the Government Offices for the Regions replied, “You can’t trustthem. Everyone has to be seen as ‘succeeding.’ We are supposed toproduce ‘good news.’”

Utilizing Information

To what extent and how do regeneration partnerships utilize the infor-mation they receive about the regeneration activities of other local author-ities? Over 40% of our respondents said that the experience of other localauthorities always or often played a role in their decision-making (Table1), and an additional 50% indicated that it occasionally did so, with fewerthan one in ten saying that it played a role “rarely or never.” However,in general, partnership officials did not rate this kind of learning asplaying a major role. While only 17% said it had very little or no effect(Table 3), even fewer (13%) believed it had a significant or big effect. Over

two-thirds believed it had “some” effect. As one official commented,“There are many factors that are much more important. Our projects haveto be very sensitive to local circumstances . . . Good practices elsewhere


TABLE 3What Effect Does Information about RegenerationActivities in Other U.K. Local Authorities Have onDecisions on Regeneration Within Your Authority?


Big effect 7 2.4A significant effect 31 10.8Some effect 200 69.4Very little effect 47 16.3No effect 3 1.0

Total 288 99.9a

aPercentages do not add up to 100 due to rounding.



don’t matter that much.” Another noted, “In the immediate and short-term decision-making it’s not that important. The regeneration programsare locally made to deal with local problems. We devise a custom-madesolution.”

When read in the context of the earlier discussion about the extent to

which and why partnership officials seek out information about the expe-rience of other local authorities, it appears that the overall statement theseofficials are making is: while it is good to know what is going on else-where so that one can get good ideas and not reinvent the wheel, nonethe-less, the problems of my locality are so unique that there is not much to

be learned from the experience of other local authorities. A researcher whohas served as a consultant over a long period of time to several localauthorities summed up his views on the use of information about theexperience of other local authorities by commenting, “Much of this ishighly politicized. Mostly this kind of information is used for legitima-tion rather than analysis.”

Correspondingly, the impact of experience drawn from other countriesis even lighter (Table 4). Only 2% of respondents felt the experience of other countries had a significant or big impact, and only 21% felt it had“some” impact. The large majority—over three-quarters—replied thatforeign experiences had little or no impact.

CONCLUSION

We use an information-theory framework that permits us to identify andexamine some testable propositions about the policy-transfer process,to place them in the context of existing knowledge from other policy-transfer studies as well as those from policy learning and innovationdiffusion, and, through research informed by this framework, to con-tribute to existing knowledge, generalization, and, thus, theory about

the policy-transfer process.


TABLE 4What Effect Does Information about RegenerationActivities in Foreign Countries Have on Decisionson Regeneration Within Your Authority?


Big effect 4 1.4A significant effect 3 1.0Some effect 60 21.0Very little effect 119 41.6No effect 100 35.0

Total 286 100.0



In particular, we have identified a communications and informationsystem consisting of linked networks of receivers, producers, senders, andfacilitators of information. The ultimate receivers of information (regen-eration partnerships) express an interest in obtaining information about

the experience of other regeneration partnerships in order to generatenew ideas and to avoid “reinventing the wheel.” However, while a highproportion of regeneration partnerships agree that learning from theexperience of other local authorities is important and indicate that theyengage in such activity, only a small minority of partnership officials statethat it plays a big or significant role in their decision-making. In addition,our interviews indicate that both receivers and producers of informationabout the regeneration activity of other partnerships have virtually no

means of assessing the validity of the information they receive and thatmost do not even recognize this as a problem. They also indicate that animportant motivation for looking at the activities of other partnerships isto gain information about what kind of proposals the government is likelyto fund.

Our findings suggest that informal contacts with peers are the mosttrustful and useful sources of information among urban regenerationpartnership officials, while some of the other more formal mechanisms—

seminars and conferences and the production of good-practice guides—are less useful. Increasingly, these informal contacts are taking placewithin formal or quasiformal networks. Both of these results are consis-tent with existing findings from the social-learning and innovation-diffusion literature. In addition, officials search for ideas primarily fromtheir local and regional neighbors.

Our evidence also suggests that the institutional structure of the policysystem has an impact upon patterns of borrowing and diffusion. The

regulations and procedures for program delivery create incentives for dif-ferent kinds of search activity. While believing the evidence from one’sown eyes tends to lead to a bias towards learning from one’s neighbors,in the case of regeneration partnerships, the models of success from whicha local authority might learn, as well as the competition it has to beat inorder to be successful, are other local authorities in the area dealing withthe same regional agency of the national government.

The information theory framework we applied has also directed us to

examine aspects of the policy-transfer and policy-learning process thathave been largely ignored in existing literature. In particular, we havefocused on producers, facilitators, and senders of information in thepolicy-transfer process, as well as recipients. We have found that infor-mation senders frequently shape the information they send to supporttheir own objectives and to enhance the reputation of their own programs,activities, and policies.

Our framework also directed us to look at the question of informationassessment, again a topic not dealt with in the existing literature. Neither,does it appear, is it dealt with in a conscious way by practitioners. We




believe that a critical finding of our study is the lack of ability on the partof regeneration partnerships and local authorities to assess the qualityand veracity of the information they receive. Are claims of success forregeneration activity elsewhere really valid, or are they some combina-

tion of hype and wishful thinking? Are “good”- and “best”-practiceguides really useful roadmaps for action, or do they reflect unique cir-cumstances of other partnerships, difficult to transfer? These questionsare all the more critical because it appears that partnership officials receiv-ing information are rarely cognizant of their importance or of the need toask them. Nor do the producers and senders of information appear to paymuch attention to the problem of assessment in selecting the informationthey choose to disseminate.

It is interesting to note that, despite the fact that enormous effort has been devoted to disseminating “good practice” in the field, the findingsof our survey, when reported back to some of our original respondents inagencies involved with dissemination, were unexpected and surprising.As one of them put it, the survey “throws a bucket of cold water” overthe idea that the resources devoted to this activity actually “paid off.”

We obviously cannot say whether a similar analysis of other issue areaswould produce the same results. However, the survey and the wider

study have shown that, even where it is well resourced and pursuedactively, what is being achieved by spreading lessons and “good practice”is not very well understood by those involved in the processes of dis-semination. In this respect, the results are not likely to be unique to thisarea. It is much easier to offer a compendium of practices and ideas andleave it up to the recipient to decide which is the most appealing than tooffer an evaluation of what works best, let alone what works best forhighly differentiated audiences.

For their part, recipients are likely to react to large amounts of dis-seminated good practices by seeking their own trusted methods of assess-ment and evaluation. Above all, such methods consist of relying onimmediate personal experience, trusted individuals, and informationrelating to the institutional structure of the policy area in which they areoperating. If one adds to these considerations the constraints of time andresources, the focus of a policy borrower’s attention is likely to be on thevisible and the local as a source of policy learning. Indeed, such a focusmay well be a rational way of prioritizing the large number of essentially

unevaluated ideas that arrive on their desks.We believe that, while our findings in the area of urban regeneration

may not all hold in other policy areas, the information-theory frameworkhas allowed us to identify some program characteristics and variablesthat affect patterns of policy learning. Thus, we believe that theframework has proven its utility by offering a useful way of movingtowards generalization and theory-building in future policy-transferresearch.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was partially funded by a grant from the Joseph RowntreeFoundation. Harold Wolman’s participation was also aided through

receipt of an Honorary Simon Visiting Professorship at the University of Manchester during spring 1998.

NOTES

1. Interestingly, the economic development and regeneration functions of theGovernment Offices for the Regions were transferred to the newly createdRegional Development Agencies (RDAs) in early 1999.

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Interviews

Interview with consultant, 15 May 1998, conducted by H. Wolman.Interview with deputy chief executive, local authority, 21 May 1998.Interview with development corporation executive director, 21 May 1998, con-

ducted by H. Wolman.Interview with official, Government Office for the Regions, 22 May 1998, con-

ducted by H. Wolman.

Interview with official, regeneration partnership, 22 May 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with director, Planning Exchange, 26 May 1998, Glasgow, conducted byH. Wolman.

Interview with local authority official, 26 May 1998, conducted by H. Wolman.Interview with local government association executive, 26 May 1998, conducted

by H. Wolman.Interview with BURA chief executive, 29 May 1998, London, conducted by H.

Wolman.Interview with official, Local Government Management Board, 29 May 1998,

London, conducted by H. Wolman.


http://www.regen.net/





Interview with development corporation executive, June 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with civil servant, DETR, 1 June 1998, London, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with director, Dissemination Unit, Department of Environment, Trans-port and the Regions (DETR), 1 June 1998, London, conducted by H. Wolman.

Interview with editor, Urban Environment Today, 1 June 1998, London, conducted by H. Wolman.

Interview with officer, Research, Analysis, and Evaluation Division, DETR, 1 June1998, London, conducted by H. Wolman.

Interview with deputy chief executive, local authority, 3 June 1998, conducted byH. Wolman.

Interview with director, regeneration partnership, 3 June 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with local authority chief executive, 3 June 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.Interview with consultant, 15 June 1998, conducted by H. Wolman.Interview with civil servant, Research, Evaluation, and Analysis Division, DETR,

16 June 1998 London.Interview with officer, Research, Analysis, and Evaluation Division, DETR, 16

June 1998, conducted by H. Wolman.Interview with official, Local Government Association, 16 June 1998, London,

conducted by H. Wolman.Interview with consultant, Roger Tym and Partners, 17 June 1998, London, con-

ducted by H. Wolman.Interview with chief executive, development corporation, 18 June 1998, conducted by H. Wolman

Interview with development agency officer, 18 June 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with director, development corporation, 18 June 1998, conducted by H.Wolman.

Interview with director, economic development unit, 13 September 1999, con-ducted by E. Page.

Interview with director, regeneration partnership, 13 September 1999, conducted

by E. Page and H. Wolman.Interview with officer, economic development unit, 13 September 1999, conducted

by H. Wolman and E. Page.Interview (by telephone) with editor, New Start, 4 January 2000, conducted by H.

Wolman.


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