In the sphere of environmental or natural resource management, Crance and Draper observe that “Because of the abundance of interdependencies operative in many resource use situations, management efforts must be redefined to suit unique circumstances” (1996:175) and thus ICZM represents one such example where sharing information, power and decision making are used to make decisions in a way that commands greater support from the parties or stakeholders that will be affected by the outcomes of such decisions. In arguing for a more inclusive and deliberative form of coastal management, Brown et al outline four ways in which this might contribute to the development of coastal management. These are:
Increased awareness and understanding of conflicts of interest, information and related to interpretations of information,
Providing space for learning and participating in decision making,
Facilitating communication that builds trust and shared stakeholder knowledge about resources, Building a platform for collective actions and new institutions of coastal management.
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This collective, deliberative approach to governance is reflected in the use of the term “partnership” in relation to coastal management in the UK, but partnership working more specifically has its roots in the broader changes to politics and the governance of the state which occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Having defined governance in Chapter One as referring to the arrangement of actors collaborating to deliver public policy, Rhodes (1994) and Peters (1993) describe the governance regime of the 1980s as a “Hollowing out of the state”, whereby the decline of citizen participation in electoral politics, reduced state involvement in direct service provision and the increase in arm’s length delivery agencies, and also the influence of supra-national organisations such as the European Union transferring powers upwards or downwards away from central government to regions and local level has resulted in more complex, multi-level governance. Whilst ICZM practice in the UK bears some resemblance to the model of hollowing out in that the central government tier has been the weakest link in delivering a programme of ICZM as set out inICZM Recommendation 2002/413/EC, this has not been accompanied by a loss or transfer of powers because the Recommendation did not require any additional statutory powers to be established in the lower tiers of national, regional or local government and so does not represent hollowing out in its truest sense.
Whilst the history of joint working between organisations to deliver a common aim goes back much further than can be described here, Skelcher describes how, in a similar vein to the comment made by Hajer and Wagenaar (2003) above regarding new arrangements of actors forming out of the need to tackle complex issues, partnership formation has been initiated because the conjunction of hollowing out and cross-cutting issues has stimulated the widespread use of strategies designed to foster collaboration in this fragmented landscape (Skelcher, 2000:8) and contributes to the development of what he terms the “congested” state, comprised of many organisations working to deliver public policy. It is also pertinent to note that Sullivan and Skelcher state that “Very often differing policy fields begin with a bespoke interpretation of partnership that is not shared beyond that policy area” (2002:5) Thus the concept of partnership working in the context of ICZM can describe a range of different
organisational structures based around the delivery of ICZM by more or less formal means, but beginning with the ICZM Recommendation 2002/413/EC principles of:
(f) involving all the parties concerned(economic and social partners, the organisations representing coastal zone residents, non-governmental organisations and the business sector) in the
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(g) support and involvement of relevant administrative bodies at national, regional and local level between which appropriate links should be established or maintained with the aim of improved coordination of the various existing policies. Partnership with and between regional and local authorities should apply when appropriate; (CEC, 2002)
The principles outlined here thus emphasise both integration in the horizontal dimension, that is, between sectors or organisations operating within the coastal zone, but also vertical integration between multiple layers of governance. This necessitates a process of negotiation between a broad range of public, private and voluntary sector bodies at local, regional and national level to reach agreement about the what action is to be taken, but also requires a specific structure in which such negotiations can take place.
In Chapter One a typical coastal partnership organisational structure was described as a partnership officer, steering/management group and sub-groups, and it is usually representatives of core funding agencies that make up the central body of the “partnership”. Beyond this, coastal partnerships may be open to membership by groups or individuals with an interest in their activities. There is great variation in several aspects of coastal partnerships and their work, which can be summarised as follows:
Administrative arrangements: these are closely bound with sources of partnership funding and host organisations, for example many English coastal partnerships are funded by county or local planning authorities such as the Dorset Coast Forum, Sefton Coast Partnership and East Riding coastal Forum. These partnerships receive financial support and benefits “in kind” in the form of office space and support staff. Some partnerships are hosted by university departments where there is a strong academic interest in the local environment, for example the Colne Estuary Partnership is hosted by Essex University’s department of Biological Sciences, whilst the East Grampian Coastal Partnership is hosted by the Macaulay Land Use Institute in Aberdeen. Other partnerships may be linked to specific projects such as English Nature’s Estuaries Initiative, which ran from 1992 to 1998 (see Morris, 2008), and some function as charitable organisations such as the Morecambe Bay Partnership and Solway Firth Partnership. Sources of funding beyond host organisations can include project funding from European Union and national bodies such as the Environment Agency, DEFRA, English Nature, private sector sponsors such as utility companies and landowners, NGOs and small community grants or charitable funds.
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Geographical coverage: again, this aspect of coastal partnerships can be tied to specific funding arrangements, host organisations or pre-existing landscape and conservation designations. In some cases partnerships focus their activities on one water body or stretch of coast such as Durham Heritage Coast, or may cover a broader area including several water bodies at county, sub-regional or regional level, such as Devon Maritime Forum or the North West Coastal Forum. As has previously been noted, the Firths provided the initial focus of activities for Scottish coastal organisations, and encompass large areas of sheltered seas, estuaries and their surrounding coastal communities, which may include large cities and industrial areas such as Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde.
Remit: whilst some coastal organisations may have a specific remit relating to the management of designated areas such as Heritage Coasts, European Marine Sites or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or managing coastal flooding and erosion through Shoreline Management Plans in the case of Coastal Groups, the majority of coastal partnerships are able to define their own terms of reference, visions, strategies or plans. Morris (2008) notes that Estuary Management Plans were perceived in some quarters to be conservation led, but their intended remit
encompassed broader economic development and conflict resolution themes. As was stated in Chapter One, some of the aims of coastal partnerships include facilitating cooperation and conflict resolution, raising awareness of coastal issues and promoting local enterprise and providing research and consultancy functions.
The lack of a prescribed format for partnership working in coastal partnerships therefore provides great scope for individual organisations to define their own ways of working with the resources they have available and the stakeholders or interests present in their local area. English Nature’s Estuary Management Plans: a co-ordinator’s guide (1992) provided an early form of guidance for coastal and estuary partnerships for plan making and stakeholder involvement, but it was not until Lymbery’s (2008) a Guide to Collaborative Working on the Coast – Two Heads are Better Than One that a more systematic process for designing and implementing partnership working practices was applied to analyse the working practices of coastal partnerships.
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In this guide Lymbery summarises some of the key theoretical and practical literature on collaborative working, most notably the Audit Commission’s own guide to partnership working, a Fruitful Partnership (1998), which defines partnership as “otherwise independent bodies who have agreed to cooperate to achieve a common goal and create a separate structure to plan and achieve their goals” (1998:6) and sets out the rationale for partnership working, encouraging organisations to consider first whether they need to work in partnership, and if so then setting out criteria for establishing organisational structures, identifying partners, building trust, maintaining commitment and decision making.
Lymbery refers to two further strands of literature which may be used to structure or evaluate the work of coastal partnerships – these are Barbara Gray’s work on inter-organisational collaboration (see Gray, 1986, 1996, Wood and Gray, 1991) and Chris Huxham’s work on collaborative advantage (see Huxham, 1993, 1996). Both Gray and Huxham provide a step-wise format for understanding the process of collaborative or partnership formation, decision making and implementation in which stakeholders are able to explore theirs and others motives for entering into a collaborative venture, engaging in an open debate which acknowledges differences in expectations, powers and ways of working, for example: “don’t expect other organisations to do things the same way that yours does. Things that may be easy to do in your organisation may, for example, require major political manoeuvring in another” (Huxham and Vangen, 2005).
The frameworks provided by Gray and Huxham thus give practical expression to a wider literature concerning communicative or collaborative approaches to planning, and which form one dimension of the assumption relating to improved integration requiring a continuous discourse between
stakeholders on the nature of problems and their potential solutions.
Whilst the discussion of collaborative planning in this chapter has specifically focused on the delivery of ICZM in the UK as a type of environmental management, such participatory and communicative forms of environmental governance can be applied equally to other coastal planning regimes. The processes of terrestrial spatial planning, shoreline management, river basin management and marine planning all contain an element of public participation, whether this is mandated through legislation and formal statements of involvement (for example Statements of Community Involvement for spatial planning, the Working Together provisions of River Basin Management outlined by the Environment Agency and the proposed Statements of Public Participation for Marine Planning – see DEFRA, 2010b) or recommended practice (such as DEFRA’s 2005 Making Space for Water coastal flooding and erosion management
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document and Shoreline Management Plan Guidance, or the principles ofICZM Recommendation 2002/413/EC).
Whilst participation in each undoubtedly contributes to the plans that are produced, much of this participation takes place in a predetermined framework that specifies when and what form of participation is required in the implementation of a management process. Underpinning such frameworks for coastal management regimes are the social constructions of problems and solutions, which determine the type of policy response that is implemented and are the subject of the first assumption of the research.
Within the framework for coastal integration shown in Figure 1.2, measures such as spatial planning, ICZM, marine planning, river basin management and shoreline management have all developed along different trajectories, coming under the jurisdictions of different levels of government. In some cases, the social construction of a problem may result in more formal, top-down styles of governance in which central or international levels of government and their associated powers are judged to be the most appropriate means to address cross cutting sustainability concerns, such as the European Directives related to water quality and nature conservation. Conversely, bottom-up, voluntary approaches such as the work of coastal partnerships in relation to ICZM, bringing together organisations in collaborative arrangements to develop a shared power may prevail.
Therefore to fully understand the current context of ICZM implementation in the UK, it is necessary to examine the way in which the “coastal problem” was initially constructed and the historical
development of the ICZM regime. By understanding the discourse (or discourses) which surround the construction of coastal problems, it may then be possible to find ways in which a new discourse on the role of communicative action and its significance for improved integration can take place. Following a similar line of investigation for other coastal planning regimes may contribute to this understanding, as they can serve as a useful comparator, highlighting different discourses or different consequences of similar discourses in different contexts.