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The United Kingdom and the pandemic: problems of central control and coordination
Open accessAbstract
The UK policy response to Covid-19 illustrates the problems arising where (1) a central government faces few countervailing political pressures as in Westminster systems; (2) the design of intergovernmental relations (IGR) mechanisms of coordination and conflict resolution fails to cope with the realities of a severely, asymmetric devolution settlement; and (3) local government faces serious collective action problems in influencing and mobilising resistance to a dominant central government. Firstly, the UK policy response illustrates the UK core executive’s serious problems in governing strategically and coordinating services across entrenched departmental and multi-level boundariesdespite government ministers enjoying a largely unchecked capacity to initiate major departmental reorganisations with significant IGR implications. Secondly, Westminster ministers resisted pressure from the three UK devolved nations and English city-region mayors to rebalance UK and English IGR mechanisms. Thirdly, the central response illustrates how the UK government, as the ‘English’ central government, maintained its control of local government through financial controls and outsourcing services.
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“Despite the integrated emergency management , which at a formal level delegates clear responsibilities to regional and local levels, risk governance in the UK remained largely centralised, a feature that particularly limited local governance influence during the pandemic (Diamond and Laffin, 2022).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Diamond and Laffin, 2022
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“Diamond and Laffin (2022) point to the serious problems experienced by central government of coordinating services across entrenched departmental and multi-level boundaries”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Diamond and Laffin (2022)
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Research works printed but not linked: 56
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Cited by
Kim, E., Oh, Y., & Kennett, P. (2025) · Social Policy and Society · doi:10.1017/s1474746425000144 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- Diamond, P., & Laffin, M.
- Affiliations
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Laffin, Martin
- Venue
- Local Government Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2021-11-11
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 211-231
- ISSN
- 0300-3930 (ISSN-L)
- 1743-9388
- OpenAlex
- W3211978709
- Cited by
- 53
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 19.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Local Government Studies (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Queen Mary Research Online (Queen Mary University of London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Systems and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Local Government Finance and Decentralization
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, UK government response, intergovernmental relations, central-local government relations, devolution, Westminster system, collective action, financial control, outsourcing of public services, centralized control, policy coordination
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