New Zealand is giving public servants job tips for better policymaking Career Advice The NZ government has set standards for what good policymaking looks like, with the Policy Project, a set of online frameworks and toolkits.
Are there always trade-offs in policy-making? February 10, 2021 By Perry Walker Career Advice There are examples of solutions that conversely deliver win-win results, in which the needs of both parties are met without either having to concede. This approach is just starting to find its way into government.
Three actions you can take to reduce the risk of policy failure February 5, 2021 By Oliver Daddow Australian Capital Territory Developing objective measures of what works and what does not, and what caused a policy to fail or succeed, is nigh on impossible. What we can gather, nonetheless, is that addressing three key issues can certainly improve the chances of producing a successful policy.
Opinion: our political arena is not fit for purpose in 21st century Australia October 12, 2020 By Richard Hames Australian Capital Territory Governments won’t critique themselves a systemic level in ways that open up for structural change. Thus, effective change stays off the agenda.
How to evaluate evidence: three simple tests October 8, 2020 By Jack Martin Career Advice Not all experimental design evaluations and randomised control trials are created equal. Public servants need to be able to assess results’ trustworthiness.
Obesity strategy: policies placing responsibility on individuals don’t work – so why does the government keep using them? August 20, 2020 By Charlotte Godziewski Editors' Picks Health policymakers increasingly acknowledge that many factors outside a person’s control contribute to health inequalities. However, the health policies designed time and again still tend to promote lifestyle interventions as a solution.
COVID-19 crisis future fault lines: managing the conflicts we have to have April 15, 2020 By Paul t Hart Australian Capital Territory 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.
Premium Interviews ‘The talent flooding out of the public service should concern us all’: Glyn Davis on institutional memory loss, staff caps, and other challenges to public service March 11, 2020 By Martin Stewart-Weeks Australian Capital Territory “Accidental public servant” Glyn Davis is a distinguished professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy. Davis talks to Martin Stewart-Weeks about good policy processes and the factors making it hard for public servants to do their jobs well.
Premium Insights and analysis Economic thinking has driven policymaking in the past, but will it in the future? March 2, 2020 By Sean Innis Economy & Industry Economic thinking has clearly played an important role in the prosperity and position Australia enjoys today. For that role to continue into the future, economic thinking needs to respond to the changing nature of our society, the challenges we are now seeing emerge, and deepen the understanding and advice it brings to the policy table.
Transforming public policy for the 21st century: how the NSW Government Policy Lab learned to use modern design methods to create more user-friendly solutions October 4, 2019 By Pia Andrews Editors' Picks When you study ‘policy’ in Australia, you are taught the ‘Public Policy Cycle’, which presents a linear method that doesn’t quite reflect the reality of working in public policy, and throughout public sectors we have lost a common language for what we mean.
Premium Columnists Is long-term policymaking dead? Drop the nostalgia and get your hands dirty with detailed dialogue and design. This is the new advisory model of public service September 24, 2019 By Richard Bolt Education The changing nature of politics and politicians requires public servants to form a new partnership model with government, looking beyond designing big elegant reforms and getting their hands dirty in messy detail.
Premium Expert briefings R&D is in the DNA of every policy person, not just a specialised few. Critics of using human-centred design for policy are missing a golden opportunity August 26, 2019 By Kirsty Elderton Editors' Picks To dismiss design thinking as originating outside the public sector and therefore “not always fit for purpose” is to ignore the common challenge faced by different sectors: understanding a problem, predicting the best way to solve it and then working out what might happen in practice.
Consultants' working on public policy does not threaten democratic accountability August 2, 2019 By Martin Bortz Features There’s a fear that consultants represent some kind of power behind the throne, secretly deciding what should be done with public money. In this view, consultants are a very real threat to democratic accountability.
Premium Expert briefings Most people don’t have enough time in their lives. Here's how government can help them get some of it back July 4, 2019 By Lyndall Strazdins Sean Innis Features The relationship between time and policy is complex. For the most part, policymakers do not consider time impacts for individuals and families. The use of time is, by and large, seen as a matter of personal choice.
Development of a whole-of-government Indigenous Evaluation Strategy is underway June 27, 2019 By Stephen Easton Community & Social The Productivity Commission has begun development of an evaluation strategy for the whole of the Australian Public Service and any policy or program affecting the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
