Dialogue and consultation in higher education policymaking: a critical policy analysis of the tertiary funding review in England, 2017–2019

The UK government’s “Review of Post-18 Education and Funding” (Tertiary Review), 2017–2019, should have been highly influential on the shape of the further and higher education sectors in England. But a period of policy inaction and political turmoil arising from Brexit meant that the policy process, when judged against its own ambition, was a damp squib. I focus in this inquiry on the consultation which formed part of the evidence-gathering approach to support the report from Philip Augar’s expert panel. From this I draw conclusions which have value for practitioners, as the outsiders in the policymaking process, to support their future engagement with policy consultation exercises. This critical policy analysis explores the context of the Tertiary Review and deconstructs its texts following David Hyatt’s (2013a) critical higher education policy discourse analysis framework, adapted to suit this inquiry. I also use elements from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to consider dialogic aspects of policymaking. The application of Bakhtin provides the epistemic foundation for the thesis, meaning-making through dialogic interanimation, to which I return throughout the analysis. I contextualise the review four ways: medium-term socio-political context; epoch; immediate socio-political context; and contemporary socio-political individuals, organisations and structures. These chapters develop understanding of the Tertiary Review’s position within the political, policy and academic discourses. I then deconstruct the review’s official texts, considering in turn the concepts of authority, consultation and influence. I use the contextualisation and deconstruction to draw conclusions which identify what general lessons can be drawn from the specific case, and I articulate the contribution that this thesis makes to the higher education policy and policymaking literature. I propose a dialogic policy consultation framework as a practitioner tool, and I invite the application and testing of the framework in practice as the natural extension of this practice-oriented, but theoretical, work.