An investigation of behavioural public policy in social housing in England

Absalom, Hannah Audrey Joy (2023). An investigation of behavioural public policy in social housing in England. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

Preview

Absalom2023PhD_Redacted.pdf
Text - Accepted Version
Available under License All rights reserved.
Download (3MB) | Preview

Abstract

This thesis examines different expressions of Behavioural Public Policy (BPP) in Social Housing in England. The thesis adds to political geography studies of behaviour change policies that focus on how BPP operates within nation-states or internationally. It makes an original contribution to BPP studies by making a case for a new concept of relational public policy making. Through an examination of the different forms of BPP at English housing associations, a case is developed for relational insights to inform co-production processes. Furthermore, it is proposed that such co-production processes can be made rigorous and replicable when informed by the values of social science research. This is an original contribution to political geography studies and has the potential to radically reform the practices within English social housing.

English housing associations are diverse in operational structures, size and scope, and organisational contexts. Studying BPP within English housing associations is a fertile space to focus geographical studies of BPP. First, the sector has a spatially fixed, yet diverse geography expressed through the built nature of homes and neighbourhood. Essentially, how the material nature of the sector differs across England, poses interesting challenges to the idea of scalability and replication that are associated with some technocratic expressions of BPP. Second, the sector has a wide range of organisation structures that operate at different scales. There are national providers with portfolios exceeding 100,000 homes. At the other extreme are small, co-operatively run organisations with a few hundred homes in a singular locality. The sector is also broadly split between local authority-managed homes and homes managed by Private Registered Providers (PRPs). These providers operate under parallel regulatory regimes and have different relationships with the government, the markets, and tenants. Finally, the sector has been influenced by a long history of behaviourist thinking. This can be traced back to the Victorian era of proto-housing management and is evidenced today through practitioner interests in the behaviours of tenants. This is seen through an interest in tenant rent payment behaviours and initiatives such as tenancy-ready programmes that seek to educate prospective tenants on how to manage a home. The social housing sector in England is geographically diverse, has a complex regulatory regime, operates at different scales and has a long legacy of behaviourism. It is these factors that combine to make the sector a rich territory to explore different expressions of BPP through a political geography lens.

The key debates explored in this thesis include claims that BPP is a form of technocratic rule by the knowledgeable that suppresses democratic engagement. A second claim is that BPPs are not concerned with improving citizen well-being; instead, it is a means to legitimise and spread marketisation in the public sector. Finally, there is the claim that BPPs can potentially produce policies and practices that work for citizens and truly enhance their well-being. I make the case that there are problematic expressions of BPP accentuated by variated entanglements of market and technocratic rationales. These formations vary across contexts as waves of welfare reform, an increasing expectation to adopt private sector managerial practices, and the need to maintain the delivery of social purpose outcomes entangle with the choices of decision-makers and practitioners to reach for behavioural approaches. My critical argument then is that market and technocratic rationales influence BPP formations, but in variated ways that trouble monolithic claims.

Furthermore, this thesis claims that within BPP is a relational expression that works for citizens and improves their well-being. This is through creating emotional and psychologically informed frameworks that produce relational forms of knowledge. These frameworks can inform collective decision-making processes and inform new, shared understanding about entrenched problems such as poverty.

Assemblage theory guides the analysis and describes the temporary and differentiated formations called assemblages. These assemblages are always in the process of becoming and can present as stable, yet are always fragile. Assemblage allows for BPP to be analysed as a dynamic process, with different contexts bringing together diverse threads such as national policy decisions, institutional culture, the decisions of human actors and the influence of non-human actors, such as analytic techniques, all entangling to produce different formations of BPP. I analyse a range of examples where BPP has influenced social housing practices in England, including more stable recent-historical formations, emerging ones, and those which could be developed more directly from tenants’ experiences. Assemblage theory allows for a critical analysis of current expressions of BPP while remaining sensitive to its emerging trajectories. Four themes of ‘knowledge, expertise and networks’; ‘the design and evaluation of behavioural interventions’; ‘approaches to the participation of tenants’ and ‘emancipatory expressions of BPP’ have guided analysis in this thesis.

The thesis adopts an ethnographic strategy and qualitative methods. From late 2019 to early 2021, I undertook observational work and semi-structured interviews with housing practitioners and a network of behavioural, technology and housing experts. The research with tenants involved a lived expertise Delphi survey and scenario-based interviews. I gradually transitioned to becoming a consultant delivering training to social housing practitioners on how insights from the psychology of poverty and the geographies of the home can shape BPP in social housing.

My thesis reveals BPP as a fragile project taking different forms in social housing practice. Government policies create a context that makes BPPs appealing to practitioners. This open context creates the conditions for BPP to emerge and sees different networks of practitioners and experts produce variated BPP formations. Second, my findings reveal concerns about unchecked market influences and power. These concerns are amplified when the behavioural economics model of the flawed human cogniser combines with private-sector behavioural technologies and organisation cultures that tend to ‘other’ tenants. Third, I identify a relational BPP formation that reveals new thinking about social housing that challenges the sector to pivot away from dominant marketised practices and towards relational practices that call for services to meet social housing tenants' material and psychological needs.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):