Understanding Public Policy Making

• Public indifference to policy making is problematic because policy shapes social, economic, and physical environments.
• Policy making involves rational problem-solving and political considerations, balancing public opinion, competing interests, social relations, and power distribution.
• Policies often originate as statements of values and intent, frequently linked to an ideological foundation on a left-to-right spectrum.
• Right-leaning policies favor market forces, individual rights, and unilateralism, while left-leaning policies support government intervention, collective rights, and multilateralism.
• Policy affects nearly every aspect of life, from birth and education to healthcare, environment, employment, and even death.
• Policy represents preferred responses to problems, precluding other potential responses.
• Policy provides a framework for actions in prescribed situations but is adaptable to changing circumstances.
• Changes in expectations, attitudes, technology, environment, and the economy drive policy changes.
• Public policy is an expression of political intent and a framework for action, ideally forming a coherent narrative for governance.
• "Policy salience" requires recognition of a problem deserving a policy response.
• Testing problem propositions and solutions occurs within communities, interest groups, expert circles, and political parties.
• Agreement on policy problems and solutions is challenging due to differing perspectives shaped by varied experiences and beliefs.
• Policy makers must consider "winners and losers" and the potential for interest groups to mobilize for or against policy proposals.

Theoretical Perspectives

• Understanding the policy-making process can be achieved using theoretical perspectives that consider social, cultural, historical, and political influences.
• Institutional accounts often incorporate rational actor thinking but no single approach tells the whole story.
• Public policy involves influences from institutions, groups, networks, exogenous factors, and ideas from expert communities.
• Public policy is a marketplace of ideas and prescriptions requiring difficult choices and trade-offs.

Political Parties Influence

• Policy practitioners must understand the ideological leanings of governing and non-governing parties to anticipate resistance and find compromises.
• Australian parliaments are dominated by multiple parties, and even non-governing parties can influence policy.
• Party platform statements offer insight into policy predispositions, but governments may deviate due to pragmatic needs.
• Policy settings can become captive to particular interests and are often contested within political parties.

Influence From Outside Politics

• Policy proposals can face challenges from industry, professional groups, unions, civil society, and consumer lobbies.
• Policy makers consult with affected interest groups, but politically powerful interests can have disproportionate influence.
• Policy responses ideally have an evidential basis, including research, analysis, consultation, and evaluation.
• "Policy-based evidence making" involves finding evidence to support pre-defined positions, potentially influenced by consultancy firms and lobby groups.
• Policy making is subject to bounded rationality, constrained by problem complexity, information availability, and time.
• Contradictory evidence may be suppressed to protect policies based on ideology rather than objective appraisal.
• Effective systems must integrate new information into decision making, addressing the common failure to use evaluative data for policy adjustments.

Public Service Duties

• Governments set policy objectives, and the public service advises on feasibility and risks.
• The public service implements policy by developing strategies, budgets, identifying capabilities, and consulting stakeholders.
• Policy implementation faces constraints like short time frames, resource availability, technical practicability, legal authority, and stakeholder resistance.
• The public service often faces fallout from ineffectual policies.
• Australian public servants typically gain policy skills "on the job," with limited formal training in public policy.

Policy Making Models

• Policy practitioners find an extensive but not easily applicable theoretical literature characterized by debates about models' limitations.
• Policy making was initially seen as rational analysis, but Charles Lindblom proposed incrementalism, emphasizing concrete problem-solving.
• Incrementalism focuses on building on past policies and reaching agreement among stakeholders, described as "muddling through" via trial and error.
• The 'Australian policy cycle,' developed for practitioners, is a practical model of the policy development process.
• Practical approach captures policy development and implementation, but does not supply causal explanations of policy.
• The policy cycle assists public servants to develop new policy and guide it through government institutions.

Policy Value Chain

• The 'policy value chain', based on Michael Porter's value chain, identifies activities to shepherd policy from conception to implementation with the organizational capabilities required to support it.
• Primary activities are analogous to the steps in the 'Australian policy cycle', a common model of policy creation.
• Activities encompass organizational and management capabilities and assets.
• The policy value chain substitutes outcomes as well as public (or stakeholder) trust as the the primary value created by public policy.
• Policy generated in one area impacts others, requiring central agencies to coordinate and review proposals, identifying unintended consequences.
• Vetting requires expertise in statutory basis for government programs and services as well as a pragmatic understanding of public policy.
• Policy decisions involve compromises between interests, political acceptability, and feasibility.
• Policy is the art of the achievable.

Policy Analysis Requirements and Frameworks

• Policy analysis assesses the implications of decisions on problems, unintended consequences, soundness, impacts on stakeholders, and whether the current policy needs iteration
• Consideration of a wide range of factors is needed for the analyst to make key judgements.
• Policy instruments include law, money, direct government action, narratives, and advocacy.
• Instrument choice is often a function of familiarity, rather than optimal fit.

Implementation Challenges

• True test of any policy lies in its implementation.
• Factors include fitness, evidence, and capacity to deliver on the intent of the policy.
• Structured approach to thinking about how a policy or program will be delivered,
• Implementation failure results in failure to achieve expected outcomes or in unintended 'perverse' outcomes.
• Implementation failure entails costs in terms of resources, reputation, and trust.

Policy Considerations

• Policy making is 'political', and 'policy success' is a contested assessment.
• Policy design and implementation is a complex and imperfect 'craft'.
• Policy professionals learn on the job
• Policy is rarely conducted in accordance with formal, rational models.
• Effective policy craft involves working within networks inside and outside government.
• Critical reflection and risk anticipation are the foundation of sound policy practice.