The ‘British Policy Style’ and Mental Health: Beyond the Headlines

Recent Mental Health Acts provide evidence of diverging UK1 and Scottish government policy styles. The UK legislative process lasted almost ten years following attempts by ministers to impose decisions and an unprecedented level of sustained opposition from interest groups. In contrast, the consultation process in Scotland was consensual, producing high levels of stakeholder ‘ownership’. This article considers two narratives on the generalisability of this experience. The first suggests that it confirms a ‘majoritarian’ British policy style, based on the centralisation of power afforded by a first-past-the-post electoral system (Lijphart, 1999). Diverging styles are likely because widespread hopes for consensus politics in the devolved territories have been underpinned by proportional representation. The second suggests that most policy-making is consensual, based on the diffusion of power across policy sectors and the ‘logic of consultation’ between governments and interest groups (Jordan and Richardson, 1982). The legislative process deviated temporarily from the ‘normal’ British policy style which is more apparent when we consider mental health policy as a whole. Overall, the evidence points to more than one picture of British styles; it suggests that broad conclusions on ‘majoritarian’ systems must be qualified by detailed empirical investigation. Introduction The term ‘policy style’ refers to the way that governments make and implement policy (Richardson, 1982: 2). The key concern of this article is how best to characterise the British policy style: with reference to a ‘majoritarian’ government that exploits the centralisation of power to impose policy decisions without consultation, or to the diffusion of power across policy sectors and consensual relationships between groups and government? Lijphart (1999) sets up a simple distinction between policy styles in countries which use plurality and proportional electoral systems: the former exaggerates governing majorities, produces a concentration of power at the centre and encourages majoritarian, top-down government; the latter diffuses power and encourages the formation of coalitions and pursuit of consensus. In this light, devolution raises the prospect of differing policy styles within Britain, since the proportional electoral system in Scotland encourages consensus, and devolution produced hopes for