Paul ‘t Hart

The buck stops here, now: critical decisions need to be made across all departments and agencies. We will be judged on how well we ‘do politics’ at this critical time. Here is a provisional inventory of current and foreseeable hot issues facing the public service and public sector.

‘Why doesn’t the government do something about this?’ is a complaint often heard in legislatures, TV debates, opinion pieces, letters to the editor and cyberspace.  Why do policymakers do nothing and what contributes to policy inaction? At a glance In paper for Policy Sciences, Allan McConnell (University of Sydney) and Paul ’t Hart (Utrecht University) […]

Like policy failures, policy successes are in the eye of the beholder. They are not mere facts but stories. To claim a public policy, program or project is a ‘success’ is effectively an act of interpretation. How can we identify and analyse examples of policy success?  Where can we find case studies on successful policy […]

Without doubt, the current times present major challenges for all governments. And new challenges will surely arise in the years ahead. Here are six recurrent patterns that seem to promote successful policy outcomes.

Evaluation of policies and programs together with a culture which learns from success and failure is pivotal in producing evidence for effective policy development and

Royal commissions often spend more energy apportioning blame than finding policy solutions, a scholar of governmental failures tells The Mandarin. There are better ways to learn from failure.

Would switching off the phones and cameras in parliament for a year improve government? Professor Paul ‘t Hart argues it might. Although there are benefits to greater openness, one needn’t be as cynical as Sir Humphrey Appleby to identify there are costs too.