Module One: How does our Australian System of Government Work?
TOPIC 1.5: Why is Policy Critical for Ensuring Responsive Government?
Defining policy and policy making
At one point in Australia’s history, the federation of Australian states and a Constitution was a policy position adopted by six colonial governments and then worked forward to implementation. Policy-making and its implementation, becomes the lifeblood of politics, and public servants need to understand their role in the process, and we discussed in this Topic 5.
In simple terms, policy is the main business of government, but it is also the business of many other players, whom modern public servants need to be aware of as they pursue government business. As Althaus et al. (2023)[1] note:
“Public policy is how politicians make authoritative decisions as the elected decision makers with formal responsibility for complex, intricate subsystems of participants and players. Policy is the instrument of governance, the decisions that allocate public resources in one direction but not another. Policy is the outcome of the endless competition between ideas, interests and ideologies that impels our political system.” (Althaus, et al., 2023, p. 1)
There are numerous definitions of policy:
Althaus et al (2023, pp. 5-8) bundle the definitions into four types: Policy as authoritative choice; policy as hypothesis; policy as objective; policy as public value.
| Type | Definition |
| Policy as authoritative choice
|
A response to public issues or problems that is intentional, structured and programmatic.
This is recognition that this type of policy making moves politics to action. There is a decision-making framework through which to move an issue and get a formal government response and commitment perhaps to resources. Often this refers to a compliance context. Various sectors or interest groups use the political process to move their agendas forward. For example, the development of media ownership laws and taxation policy can be tracked through various electoral cycles.
|
| Policy as hypothesis
|
A proposed explanation of cause and effect, to create incentives or disincentives to particular actions.
Some issues are complex and appear as dilemmas and are not able to be tested in a laboratory, so policy makers make an assumption about a treatment and it is tested in its application. An assumption might be made that an investment in R&D will help us transform to a knowledge economy. That becomes the policy in a social experiment. The ideas are often contested as in the Rudd government’s investment program to offset the consequences of the GFC. Did it work or did it create graver concerns for the next Government? If we are to believe the Abbott Government, it created as many problems as it solved.
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| Policy as objective
|
A course of action designed to achieve specific, measurable results.
Government uses a statement of intent to signal its priorities and to channel its authority and to avoid being considered to have ‘lost its way’. Governments signal a ‘smart state’; a ‘green revolution’; an ‘education revolution’; ‘Climate Action 21’; ‘A police service for all’; or ‘close the gap’ as a policy-led approach. Contingent on this approach often are policy cycle, and/or project-based approaches to ensure policy is aligned to the objective. ‘Managerial’ approaches to public sector practice favour this simple cause-effect approach. |
| Policy as public value
|
A means of producing the most effective outcomes to benefit the greatest number of citizens.
Where Policy as objective can be interpreted as top-down directives imposed by the most senior decision makers, Policy as public value looks to identify, recognise and account for the significant ground-up policy contributions of community-based organisations, not for profit sector and the wide range of commercial interests. It requires a different view on engagement in policy making, which might include codesign and coproduction if government is truly willing to meet citizens as peers in policy choices. Developed by Mark Moore from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, it looks to frame policy benefits and costs not only in terms of money but how government actions affect civic and democratic principles (See Moore, 1997; Kavanagh, 2014)[2][3]. Policy is not just a problem to be solved or an objective to be attained, but a net benefit to be delivered. Module 2 and its associated readings consider Public Value in more depth and in the workshop, we will explore Moore’s Strategic Triangle model that will help you apply the theory to your real-world policy development. |
Policy making and the public service
Because policy is central to the work of public servants, it is important to understand where you get involved in policy. Sometimes you may be involved in identifying issues of concern for government, at others in determining a government response, or perhaps implementing a policy. Models of policy-making appear to be driven by where you are positioned within the political system. Policy- making looks different to a political acolyte in a party room than it does to a special interest advocate attempting to get their issue on the agenda, or it does to a professional public servant. In terms of a public servant’s perspective, arguably, the most useful approach is to examine the policy-cycle approach, which, as a model, has excellent face-value credibility and offers a practical (or functional) way to examine how it operates within the bureaucracy.
The following reading fleshes out a policy cycle and pragmatically provides insight into how you may be able to play a role in developing policy. This approach reminds you that policy work is largely about ‘processes’. Through the reading, you will be introduced to alternative approaches such as the systems, value-adding, and risk- uncertainty management approaches, models which you might also reflect upon for the duration of Unit 1.
Required
30 min
After you have read Chapter 3 The Australian policy cycle in Althaus et. al. (2023, pp. 33-41) respond to the following questions:
- What is your experience or observation of how policy is developed and implemented?
- Do you agree with the authors that successful policy follows all these stage steps, or do you think good outcomes can emerge even through more ‘chaotic’ processes?
- What prevents governments sometimes from being thorough in policy development?
Deeper Learning
10 mins
- Althaus, C., Ball, S., Bridgman, P., Davis, G., & Threlfall, D. (2023). The Australian policy handbook: A practical guide to the policymaking process (Seventh edition.). ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/QUT/detail.action?docID=7132571. ↵
- Kavanagh, S. (2014). Defining and creating value for the public, Government Finance Review, Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/defining-creating-value-public/docview/1622247682/se-2 ↵
- Moore, M.H. (1997). Creating public value: Strategic management in government, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ↵