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Committees of inquiry: Promoting policy change or maintaining the status quo? The case of the 'Marles Report'
Anna Fletcher
Abstract
Committees of Inquiry form a significant proportion of the research undertaken ostensibly to inform and shape government policy. The output of such inquiries, in the form of recommendations for policy action, frequently relies heavily on information and opinion of experts in the particular field or issue under study.
The 'Marles Report' lacked much of the quantitative information and analysis commonly found in reports of inquiries, but its recommendations focused on practical actions designed to resolve the concerns of a very large group of experts in the health field - nurses. The Report and its findings are outlined, and its influence on both organisational and public policy examined using a 'structural interest' perspective.
Recommendations for altering organisational structure and process seem generally to have been implemented. However their success in increasing the influence of nurses on decision-making at either organisational or public policy levels seems to have been limited to those policy areas or activities where dominant structural interests are not threatened.
This paper examines an inquiry initiated by the Victorian Government, and its apparent policy outcomes. It draws on perspectives in sociology and on the 'structural interests' model of policy and organisational analysis to explore the relationships between such research and policy action.
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