Policy & Politics Journal Blog

by Andrew Connell, James Downe, Hannah Durrant, Eleanor MacKillop and Steve Martin

The study of Policy Advisory Systems sheds light on the wider network of actors, beyond government, who are involved in generating evidence that informs policy. Early studies of Policy Advisory Systems focused on national governments in Anglophone countries. More recently the concept has been reinvigorated by research in European countries and the global South. But there is a dearth of studies of Policy Advisory Systems at sub-national level.

Our recent research article, entitled Externalising policy advice within subnational governments, addressed this gap by using the concept of a Policy Advisory System to examine the role of a knowledge brokering organisation: the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP). The WCPP provides ministers in the devolved Welsh Government with independent evidence and expertise.

Our study revealed significant differences in the ways that this initiative to externalise policy advice in Wales has played out compared to the results reported by previous studies of externalising policy advice in other settings. And we trace the differences we observed to three key features of the historical, institutional and political context in which the Welsh Government operates.

First, the Welsh Government is relatively new. It was created in 1999 and its powers and responsibilities have constantly evolved over the last two decades. As a result it has not shared the experience of the so-called ‘hollowing out’ and gradual refilling of the state which has been a feature of many national governments since the 1980s. On the contrary, as Welsh ministers have accrued new powers they have been keen to use them in distinctive ways which they believe justifies the creation of devolved institutions and makes the case for greater devolution in the future.

Second, the Welsh Government has limited policy capacity. The civil service is relatively small and took time to develop the capabilities required for more independent policymaking. It has not expanded in step with new responsibilities it has acquired since 1999, and there were very few alternative sources of policy advice in Wales (such as think tanks and independent research organisations).

Third, the Welsh Labour Party, which has led every Welsh Government since 1999, has been more deeply and consistently committed to a traditional social democratic ideology, and has espoused a more interventionist approach than Labour and Conservative governments at UK level.

All of these factors mean that Welsh ministers have fostered the external supply of policy advice as a way to complement state capacity, rather than to compete with or hollow out the civil service. The sub-national Policy Advisory System in Wales is, therefore, distinctive and more statist than might be expected, given experience at UK level and elsewhere in the Anglosphere.

Our research shows how the Policy Advisory System framework explicitly draws attention to the importance of local and temporal contexts. Applying it at the sub-national level has the benefit of reminding us that researchers need to be alert to the differences within as well as between policy and administrative traditions.

Our article also demonstrates how the Policy Advisory System concept is useful across a range of settings, not just at national level, and applying it to a broader range of contexts, including subnational polities, can challenge, strengthen and expand existing theories of policy advice and policymaking.

You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at

Connell, A., Downe, J., Durrant, H., MacKillop, E., & Martin, S. (2023). Externalising policy advice within subnational governments. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2023) from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16883943592187

If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also be interested to read:

Dupont, C., Rosamond, J., & Zaki, B. L. (2023). Investigating the scientific knowledge–policy interface in EU climate policy. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2023) from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16861511996074

Gibson, M., van Lier, F., & Carter, E. (2023). Tracing 25 years of ‘initiativitis’ in central government attempts to join up local public services in England. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2023). Retrieved Sep 25, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16837266852569

MacAulay, M., Fafard, P., Cassola, A., & Palkovits, M. (2023). Analysing the ‘follow the science’ rhetoric of government responses to COVID-19. Policy & Politics, 51(3), 466-485 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16831146677554