Discretion and veto effects in policy design and implementation: discovering a cycle of displacement, layering, drift and conversion

Decentralisation is a global governance tool although public policy justifications vary considerably. Institutional concepts of incremental change are used in this paper to explain how a statutory community-led planning policy was introduced in England and the outcome after fifteen years in operation is theorised as a cycle of policy evolution. In analysing direct accounts from elite actors, the study finds both political and policymaker veto significantly influenced the legislative design process and curtailed the displacement with a form of policy layering. Subsequent bureaucratic discretion at local administrative levels through policy drift and inherent unresolved tensions mean policy conversion and a pivot towards a policy of recentralisation is observed. Future research could test the efficacy of the model.