The policy journey

When we use the mental model of policy-as-a-journey rather than policy-as-an-artefact, we have a better chance of delivering impactful and effective policies. A journey mindset naturally adopts an outcomes based delivery approach that is capable of and willing to adapt as required. One of the challenges with the policy-as-an-artefact mindset is that policy design risks becoming distant from reality, and a set and forget exercise. Policy delivery is considered simply the process of implementing what was written, which fails when implementation inevitably finds unexpected variables or other “unknown unknowns”.

So what does a policy journey look like, and how can it help public servants drive better policy outcomes? Well, to get into this mindset, let’s consider a real journey, by boat! If you had been tasked with mapping the world, or finding new goods for trading, or establishing friendly diplomatic relations with a far away island, how would you go about planning and delivering such a journey?

In broad terms any journey has a combination of preparation and implementation, each complementing the other, but both part of the one overarching activity. Any real journey is more obviously complex than this (and our metaphor obviously skips a few assumptions about having conducted journeys before), but there are a few key concepts that the journey approach helps us to keep in mind:

• Preparation includes the opportunity to question or change destination or purpose, or to cancel entirely.
• Unless a reason to cancel the journey is found, preparation should always be considered only a precursor to implementation, not something to do for the sake of it. The parallel here is where some policy teams produce a policy document and consider the job done, where they should consider implementation of the policy the actual definition of “done”.
• Navigation without preparation creates effort at random without purpose or direction.
• While the destination may be clear and relatively unchanging, the method to get there must be flexible and able to adapt to changing circumstances, including weather and emerging unintended incidents or conditions.
• There needs to be a regular opportunity to assess the destination, and perhaps change it or cancel the journey. What if the desired destination is found to be impractical or undesirable? What if the conditions become untenable or harmful? So what does a typical policy journey look like? Some policy types require parliamentary endorsement, some don’t, but there are a few common steps with different teams involved. Below is a typical legacy policy journey.

A legacy, fragmented public policy journey

A legacy policy approach is fragmented, with different people involved at different steps, largely disconnected from each other. This requires a lot of guesswork and everyone just doing their part, usually without the ability to inform or bring their experience or expertise to other steps. It is also very slow to realise a policy outcome. There can be a tendency to be comfortable with the idea that policy is merely a research, design or writing process, producing a written “policy product”. However, it must be remembered that policy isn’t real unless it has an impact and (ideally) changes lives for the better. Therefore, every person who is involved in developing and implementing policy should be focused on the measurable, meaningful and intended change in the community or broader society. This starts with public servants taking a holistic approach to policy and everyone playing their part, not just those with policy in their job title. The key to improving the policy quality and efficacy lies in applying the lessons learned from our journey metaphor:

• A policy journey can similarly be thought of as two interconnected phases: preparation and navigation (noting that preparation does not equal design).

• Most policy journeys also involve a few ceremonies and/or celebrations with the community across the life of the policy, such as announcing the journey, launching the navigation phase, and arrival at the destination. These are opportunities to share knowledge, create responsibility and accountability dimensions, and attract and engage public support, partnerships and buy-in. All good lessons for policymaking.perhaps change it or cancel the journey. What if the desired destination is found to be impractical or undesirable? What if the conditions become untenable or harmful?

• Policy preparation in the framing of a journey involves:

• Understanding the journey (policy) context, origin, rationale, source.

• Defining the destination (purpose).

• Establishing the right crew and engaging stakeholders for the journey. You need a multi-disciplinary crew to prepare and later implement. Some people might only be on part of the journey, but some should persist throughout the whole policy lifecycle. Your stakeholders might include the people who funded or commissioned the journey, the crew, or those who stand to benefit.

• Exploring the feasibility of the journey including posing curious questions and challenging the mode of transport and available resources set against the likely conditions and journey payoff. This means identifying whether a policy is needed and potential interventions and approaches.

• Ideally testing the equipment (interventions) ahead of setting sail.

• Securing the authority and resources for the journey from the appropriate decision maker(s), setting up the journey for success.

• Policy navigation in the framing of a journey then involves:

• Ensuring crew readiness: ensure the team have the right skills, authority to make decisions and engage broadly throughout implementation.

• Setting sail: starting with policy interventions identified in preparation.

• Proactively navigating through whatever comes: design and delivery of interventions, adaptive management, continuous exploration of policy interventions, which will need to change over time based on what works.Continuous monitoring of conditions and journey progress.

• Assessment of whether to end the journey, return home or continue onwards once the destination (impact) is reached or found to be unattainable.

• In any case, communicating journey outcomes to those back home.

Below is a simplified, modern and streamlined policy journey, which applies the two journey phases, and shifts some of the design work into the implementation phase. If the policy involves a parliamentary process this is part of the navigation phase. Foundational Policy is both part of the environment and constraints you are working within, but also a potential output from a policy journey. An integrated, adaptive approach to managing the entire policy journey brings diverse and domain-specific expertise into the process. All participants work with the same systems and data, and contribute to the ongoing improvement and optimisation of policy settings and interventions through continuous design and feedback loops. Of course, each policy type has some additional journey characteristics worth understanding and being aware of, outlined in the table on the next page.

Policy Type Preparation Navigation Additional considerations Foundational Policy Might be commissioned as part of a Political, Operational or International Policy program, but only progresses with support from Parliament. Often a legislative or regulatory response is called for prior to policy preparation, but it is important to still undertake a preparation phase to validate intent and suitability. New Foundational Policies should be part of a broad suite of complementary interventions. Preparation should involve identifying personas, scenarios and life events that would trigger a policy response, both to test against and to holistically model the policy environment. Navigation (including drafting) of legislation and regulation should be test driven, ideally with a machine readable reference implementation tested with policy consumers during public consultation to identify any unexpected issues. It is important to ensure enough flexibility in the regime for the policy authority to iterate/update policy settings as needed after parliamentary ratification. For instance, the legislation might delegate rules or variables to be managed by a department, or might codify regular updates like benefits rates, or could refer to a reference implementation held outside the legislation. Monitoring and analysis of adoption and impact is critical to drive policy efficacy, and to mitigate any unexpected issues or conflicts over time. It’s also helpful to not codify conditions that limit implementation, such as physical signatures. Once ratified, Foundational Policies don’t fundamentally change very often in most jurisdictions (apart from variable changes in some), but new ones are added regularly. For this reason, it is recommended to create a digital twin of the Foundational Policies you are responsible for (see Policy twins in the Fitness chapter), and the ones that intersect with your portfolio based on your personas, scenarios and relevant life events. This will help you model, monitor and prepare for intersecting policy complexity, and to help ensure new policies don’t contradict, undermine or duplicate existing rules. Without this visibility, increased regulatory and legislative burden is inevitable, affecting policy efficacy and creating unintended consequences. Political Policy Often led by a Minister and their office, usually with Departmental support. The origin is usually political or in response to a public problem, often with an assumed solution in mind. The job of the public servant is to understand the policy intent and provide well analysed, frank and fearless advice on all options, and the broader policy context, constraints and opportunities. Their job is not to simply transcribe or find evidence for pre-defined political solutions. Ministers (and staff) often want to play a role in implementation and may or may not have specific authorities or decision making defined in Foundational Policy, so it is important to establish a good partnership that delivers on the policy intent without overstepping the delegated and codified boundaries of authority. It’s also important to ensure the authority gained in preparation enables modification of the policy solutions so as to remain focused on policy efficacy, not solution delivery for the sake of delivery. Tends to change with a change of government, sometimes even when working well. Public servants should be prepared to provide clear, evidence-based advice to incoming governments. Even effective and beneficial political policies are unsustainable in the long term unless they are codified into the broader system, ideally in new Foundational Policy, or as amendments to the purpose and mandate of public institutions. Operational Policy The need for new Operational Policies might come from a gap being identified, a change in operations, department structure or mandate, or from an extrinsic change, such as new technology or threat. Similar to above, it is worth identifying personas, scenarios and potentially life events that would invoke the Operational Policy, both as a way to test and identify the broader policy landscape so as to avoid contradictions or duplication. Domain specific operational policies, such as specific identity requirements for accessing social services or tax rulings, are usually added or modified to optimise operations. Sometimes new operational policy is simply a means to improve consistency of good practice across the jurisdiction, such as a style guide or AI policy. Most operational policy should be within the delegated authority of the Department head and senior executives, but it is worth being aware of relevant foundational policies as there might be specific operational authority with the Minister, such as visa decisions. Operational policies are critical to the smooth, equitable and effective implementation of policy intent and institutional purpose. So it is important to ensure operational policy teams are well supported, highly engaged and collaborative. They will also need an adaptive and evidence driven operating model for continuous improvement of operational policies in response to continuous change, so they can be confident in leveraging departmental authorities as required. International Policy These policies originate from international sources. Adoption of International Policies likely intersects with foreign policy goals and relationships. We don’t address this policy type in this guide as it is highly variable, but policy teams should be aware of any relevant international policies. Navigation of International Policies is usually in how the jurisdiction ratifies, adopts, adapts and manages them over time. International Policies may turn up in domestic settings, such as international trade requirements found in procurement rules. For this reason, it is important to maintain referenceability to relevant international policies, so that as international policies change, we aren’t left with orphaned policy settings. Due to the variability of adherence and authorities to different international policies, you would likely benefit from engagement with the relevant department of foreign affairs if there is a strong interconnectedness between your policy work and any international policies.

The “journey” approach to policy provides a mental model to proactively plan for and deliver policy outcomes in a more holistic, effective, collaborative and end-to-end way. In the next chapter, we apply this approach in a step by step guide to delivering great policy outcomes.