Nicholas Gruen

The opportunity of Government 2.0 is the ability to reimagine government and work towards fundamentally better public outcomes in accordance with the values and culture of the society you serve. This necessarily means we need to shift from a 100% reactive approach to megatrends, threats, and even opportunities and start to ensure at least a reasonable proportion of our efforts, time, and resources are committed to proactively designing better futures towards which we can progress.

For every $1 invested in the Census, $6 of value was generated to the Australian economy, according to consultancy firm Lateral Economics. The Australian Bureau of Statistics commissioned Lateral Economics to undertake an independent valuation of the Census. In their report, the firm estimated an annual benefit of $800 million from the Census, compared to […]

The buck stops with you and the problems start with you: Are you after accountability or accountability theatre?

When policy problems are complex, we need to understand and learn from the front line. Nicholas Gruen explains ways to improve the early, middle and late stages of institutional learning and change-making, to enable successful policy development. It’s election season in Australia. I can feel the announceables coming on; indeed whole focus groups of them. […]

New ways of looking at our complex world can lead to policy hacks with clear and easily identifiable benefits. But do they stand apart from politically-driven reforms?

An evaluator-general should lead a renewed focus on understanding the impact of government programs, independent of their delivery and insulated from the demand for appropriate ‘messaging’ in other parts of the system. It could lead the way beyond bureaucratic fads to a new professionalism, writes Nicholas Gruen.

Too often evaluation is an afterthought and the report sits in a drawer. Two experts discuss how to shift attitudes to make evidence-based policymaking meaningful.

There are some commonsense ‘hacks’ government could use to improve Australians’ wellbeing, argues economist Nicholas Gruen.

As policymakers look back for answers to what worked — like PM&C’s $40m for evaluation of Indigenous programs — the pass/fail approach won’t, in itself, help find the answers that government will need as circumstances change.

Dump the jargon, tell the brutal truth and get over change fatigue. Martin Hoffman’s vision of a high performing public service is frank, gutsy and very human.

Not having enough time to talk strategy is a common gripe for organisations. Even when they do get the chance, it’s often unproductive or ignored by employees. What’s going on here?

Infrastructure Victoria’s experience shows citizen juries can play a vital role in delivering major milestones. This lends weight to the idea of institutionalising deliberative democracy.

DETOXING DEMOCRACY: Citizen deliberation is a powerful tool for legitimisation, but can it become institutionalised? Just as Yarra Valley Water consulted its community in a way that encouraged their close deliberation on the issues, agencies could cultivate councils of people reflective of community makeup for ongoing capacity to reflect community deliberation.