Strategy and policy in government

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Strategy and policy in government

• Geoff Mulgan

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There is nothing a government hates more than to
be well-informed for it makes the process of
arriving at decisions much more complicated and
difficult John Maynard Keynes
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What Ill cover
What strategy and policy are forSome
methodsIssues and pitfalls
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Most governments produce large numbers of
policies and strategies ...
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But many are .

• - Unclear about the goals that really matter
• - Poor at maintaining focus
• - Prone to disparate initiatives and programmes
• - Poor at learning, and admitting mistakes

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And too few are

• - Grounded in rigorous analysis
• - Sophisticated about organisational capacity
• - Compelling communicated and shared with those
  who have to deliver them

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What does good policy and strategy mean?

• Clear goals and objectives where do you want to
  go
• Ways to get there
• Ways to learn and adapt

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Common patterns social change and public policy
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1. Understanding unmet needs, anger, blocks,
dislocations through empathy, listening,
conversation, ethnography, politics
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2. Grasping new possibilities technologies (eg
mobile, AI, the Grid), organisational forms,
knowledge (eg under-5s) through analysis,
networks, interdisciplinary teams
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3. Reinterpreting and reframing how people think
(eg idea of disability rights, microcredit,
distance learning, food miles) through the work
of campaigners, social entrepreneurs, thinkers,
designers
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4. Turning ideas into vision and strategy
through synthesis, communication, planning,
alliance building
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5. Using prototypes, pilots to try ideas out
showing early wins, proving impacts
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6. Growing the good ones scaling up and
replicating through franchises, federations,
laws, spending programmes
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7. Continuing to learn and evolve and to find
new needs through constant listening,
networks, open hierarchies
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The relationship between strategy, policy,
delivery and learning
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Pressures Scandals Crises Media Campaigns
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Measurement analysis testing, piloting,
continuous learning
Public and user feedback choice engagement
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measurement analysis testing, piloting,
continuous learning
public and user feedback choice engagement
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Shared tools the Strategy Survival Guide, a
comprehensive set of techniques available on the
web
http//www.number-10.gov.uk/su/su20survival20gui
de/index.html
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Literature reviews
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Issue trees and logical analysis (eg childcare)
Is existing provision best for children?
Is childcare affordable?
Does existing provision allow parents choice?
What childcare provision is needed to allow
parents to return to work?
Is existing provision failing parents?
Is existing provision accessible for parents?
Does and will demand outstrip supply?
Is existing childcare provision and policy
failing, will it fail in the future and, if so,
should and how can the government intervene to
improve it?
What are existing government policies doing to
help?
Will childcare intervention improve
distributional outcomes?
Will childcare intervention help meet employment
aims?
Will childcare intervention help meet educational
aims?
Will childcare intervention help meet government
objectives?
Will childcare intervention help meet more
general govt objectives?
Are there market failures in childcare?
What are the options for financial assistance?
What effect will such assistance have (will it
increase supply)?
What intervention should there be on the demand
side?
How can the government intervene to best effect?
What is the potential role of employers, and
private/ voluntary sector providers?
What intervention should there be on the supply
side?
How is government intervention best delivered?
What support will government need to provide in
terms of finance or infrastructure, e.g. schools?
What are the governments aims and principles?
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Modelling (eg childcare)
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The SU work mapped cycles of decline
Mapping systems
Low private public sector investment
Low pay jobs
Few accessible jobs matching skills
High worklessness among residents
Higher incidence of poverty
Strained health services
Historic industrial/ economic legacy
Poor mental and physical health
Debt problems
Less rent income
Low rate of enterprise
Strained schools
Low level of basic skills, work skills and
education
More disrepair or neglect
Employer discrimination
Benefit farming by private landlords
More crime and fear of crime
Poor housing design (esp high rise) and condition
Low proportion of jobs via Jobcentre Plus/ Poor
JC performance
Unpopular neighbourhood. Empty/cheaper properties
Little motivation to (formally) work among
residents
Teen pregnancy
Lack of information about available jobs in area
High drug use/dealers
Lack of outreach /community development services
Growing exodus of more educated/ entrepreneurial
residents
Lack of affordable / convenient childcare
Lack of youth activities
Poor transport access or high cost
Less social control, more disturbance,
anti-social behaviour, vandalism
Negative peer culture. Low bridging social
capital. Low aspirations
Disincentives from benefits system - low gains to
work
Truancy
Low use of health services
Large proportion of young people
Disincentives from benefits system - slow
processing

• Families with little choice move in.
  Concentrations of vulnerable residents
• sick/disabled
• low-skilled
• people with criminal records
• ethnic minorities
• asylum seekers
• substance abusers
• Lone parents

Less stable, less committed to area, fewer
community links. Lack of bonding social capital
Informal economic activity in area
Reliance on incapacity benefits, perhaps passed
through generations
Social housing allocation system
Doubled headed arrows blue for clarity
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Mapping trends and impacts - using foresight
methods (eg health)
Major Drivers
5 yrs (2007)
20 yrs (2022)
15 yrs (2017)
10 yrs (2012)
Patient Expectations
Consumerism
Meeting needs of older people
Holistic health wellbeing
Medical Advances
WidespreadGenetic Screening Therapy
Pharmacogenomics
Minimally Invasive Surgery
Stem Cell Technology
Major Pharmaceutical Innovation
Information Support Technology
Complete EPR use of IT networks
Robotics
Home Monitoring
Intelligent Devices
Protocol Driven/Expert Systems
Demography Society
Population growth in 45 - 75 age group
Inequalities
Population growth in in gt75 age group
Smaller households, single parents, living alone
Epidemiology
Chronic disease increasing
Focus on managing risk factors
Greater differentiation of diagnosis
Labour Force
Labour force ageing and participation rates
reducing
Portfolio careers
Increasing informal elderly care demands
Lifelong learning
A end to retirement?
Time when we predict that a major change may be
seen in this dimension
Source DH
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Analysing potential impacts and risks (eg energy
to 2020)
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Using scenarios (eg public health and behaviour
change)
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Mapping dynamics
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Using simulations to map dynamics and emotions

• contingency exercises for terrorist attacks and
  other threats
• simulation of NHS internal market in early 1990s
  and of current health reforms changes

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Selecting the right policy instruments
Policy design work should always consider the
full range of policy instruments. Examples shown
in italics. Note categories overlap e.g. most
economic instruments require legislation or
regulation The Prime Ministers Strategy Unit,
May 04
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Systematic approaches to stakeholders
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Targets focused on outcomes
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Designing trajectories to meet and track targets
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Plus Registered Childcare Providers With 200
Metre Zones Around Them
More sophisticated use of information eg mapping
lone parents, childcare and jobs
Lone Parents Notified Job VacanciesChildcare
Providers
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Implementation plans developed as part of the
policy process - and published on the web
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Systematic evaluation of policy

• Systematic reviews of existing evidence
• Policy pilots
• Demonstration projects
• Economic appraisal and evaluation methods
• International benchmarking
• Regulatory impact assessments
• Impact Evaluations
• Randomised controlled trials in employment,
  criminal justice

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Continuous learning
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Strategic Audit a new approach in 2003
Involving ministers and civil servants in a
comprehensive stocktake on UK and government
performance
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Understanding change for example why some
apparently remorseless trends have turned around
or levelled off
Crime has begun to fall after a long period of
steady rises
The fall in birth rates has levelled off
Total period fertility rate
Number of reported Incidents (BCS)
And the rise in divorce rates has also levelled
off
Annual divorce rate per 000 married population
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Future challenges for example soft skills are
becoming more important
Verbal, communication and planning skills will be
more important in 2010 than today the demand for
these skills by the service and creative
industries will continue to grow
Change in importance of skills to 2010
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Survival challenges such as climate change


Temperature change .degrees Centigrade relative
to 1990

• 1000-year temperature record with 100-year
  projection

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Delivery challenges for example variability of
performance in public services
Schools with more deprived children generally do
worse, but this is far from universally the case
There are large variations in almost all
indicators of hospital performance
Highest and lowest rates of death within 30 days
of surgery after non-emergency admission in each
region
15-year old pupils scoring 5 good GCSEs
Least deprived quintile
Most deprived quintile
Source Institute for Fiscal Studies
Source DfES
The range of detection rates varies greatly
across police forces
Source Crime in England and Wales, 2003
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Trust challenges the movement away from powerful
institutions
How much do you trust the following to act in
your best interests?
Source ASC 2003
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New global challenges such as weak/failing
states

• around 90 of UK heroin comes from Afghanistan
  90 of cocaine from Colombia
• 54 of 57 conflicts since 1990 have been inside
  states, not between states
• Resulting in 8 million people killed and 22
  million displaced in the last decade
• 4 million people trafficked through organised
  crime networks
• 58 of UK asylum seekers originate in conflict
  areas or failing states

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Benchmarking
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Future readiness
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Potential?
Continued success?

• The best performers show some common
  characteristics
• -open systems rewarding innovation and
  performance
• high levels of capacity human, social and other
  forms of capital

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Who does it? The UK machinery for medium to
long-term policy
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Who else does it? The best governments on
performance also tend to be good at strategy
(and smallness appears to help, leading to
greater realism about the environment, smaller
numbers )
Singaporeall senior civil service in scenario
exercises helped response to 90s economic crisis
Netherlands used scenarios to build consensus to
change direction in late 80s
Switzerlandall senior officials trained in a
sophisticated set of strategy skills
Finlandstrategy exercises have pushed them near
top of competitiveness league tables
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STRATEGIC AUDIT Published November 2003
what looks insoluble to one generation can be
sorted out more completely than would have been
thought possible but Governments overestimate
their influence and impact in the short-term and
underestimate it in the long term Times, 25
November 2003
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Risks for longer term policy and strategy work

• events, events, events
• volatility (political and economic stability are
  far more conducive to strategy work)
• insufficiently rich methodologies (eg failing to
  understand culture and identity)
• detachment from leadership priorities
• excessive power of tactics
• failure to link long-term to short-term, and show
  benefits

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What counts as success?
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Less driven by events, more driven by goals
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Better prepared for low probability high impact
events
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Pandolfo Petrucci, Lord of Siena, to
Machiavelli wishing to make as few mistakes
as possible I conduct my government day by day
and arrange my affairs hour by hour because the
times are more powerful than our brains
Not in the hands of fate
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