Indicators and Urban Policy-Making: the British Experience

The use of indicators in policy-making has become a global phenomenon since the 1990s. In Britain it has, however, been closely related to the twists and turns in urban policies and resource allocation frameworks adopted by successive governments over the last 30 years. This chapter focuses on the British experience of indicator usage in urban policy-making. It first highlights the changing ethos of Government over the use of indicators to allocate resources and to monitor the performance of initiatives. It then examines the parallel conceptual and methodological development of indicators research in the urban planning field. The discussion then focuses on the Town and City Indicators framework developed to monitor the visions set out in the Urban White Paper and the key findings that emerged from it. It concludes with some thoughts on the use of indicators in urban policy-making and the main issues to be addressed in future research