Multiple Streams, Narratives, Evidence and Problem Brokers: Explaining Reforms to the Governance of English Fire and Rescue Services

A key insight of the multiple streams approach (MSA) is that policy entrepreneurs chase problems in order to convince policymakers of the efficacy of their preferred solutions. By coupling the streams of policy problem, policy solution and political context, policymakers are able to push their chosen ideas through windows of opportunity and ensure they are adopted. As such, most MSA studies focus on cases where actors in the politics stream raise awareness of problems and policymakers subsequently address them, rather than examples of policymakers seeking to introduce pet initiatives proactively. This paper draws on publicly-available debates about reforms to the governance of fire and rescue services in seven areas of England. It shows how individuals within small policy subsystems can act as policy entrepreneurs, policymakers and ‘problem brokers’ simultaneously, by using information to construct problems that might help convince others within the politics stream of the need to adopt their preferred policy solution. It therefore introduces a more obvious power dimension into the MSA by showing how ‘straddling the streams’ in this way can enable actors to exert greater influence over policymaking.