Ade Adewunmi
Government Digital Service, Cabinet Office
Who should we be talking to?
The Ideal Open Policymaking Team voting exercise is still ongoing (it runs throughout January) but even at this stage, two behaviours which require greater engagement with ‘frontline’ colleagues i.e. civil servants who are directly engaged in the delivery of policy, have made it into the ‘top ten’ :
- understanding how the end-user interacts with a policy area in practice and
- prototyping proposed solutions and processes,
Interestingly, the Civil Service Reform plan highlights the need for this too.
So, how do we get the input of our ‘frontline’ colleagues in these open policymaking discussions? In other words, who should we be speaking to and where are they hanging out? What’s the best way to reach them? I’d be grateful for any contacts or suggestions via the comment section, Twitter (on @adewunmi or @demsoc, with hastag #openpolicy) or email.
Also, it would be great to hear about the feedback loops that policymakers already have in place to get insight into how colleagues are grappling with the day-to-day realties of delivering policy.
3 Responses to Who should we be talking to?
Hi – reading this with interest as a policy maker with a comms background, and great to see that open policy making is being brought forward-it’s an idea who’s time has come. There is lots i could say here but I’ll try to keep it shortish:
1) Policy making is often more about tweaking the details than deciding the big ideas.
2) The big ideas tend to come down from the politicians, and the finished policy ultimately needs to satisfy them – this naturally limits the scope of the policy and might perturb some policy makers from opening up the process
3)Most policy people will know of the key thinkers in that area (within govt, academia and commercial world) and will likely work closely with them on the detail already, albeit behind closed doors.
4) Open policy at its most basic should be about making these conversations transparent as often as possible
5)The benefit of actually opening up participation in policy making would vary depending on the policy in question – sometimes it would be of real value but other times impractical or even inappropriate.
6) I suspect many senior (ie usually older) policy makers would be more comfortable with traditional engagement methods rather than faster digital engagement
I haven’t come across too much open-policy making, and haven’t seen many policymakers active online, it might be that at the moment, they don’t ‘hang out’ anywhere online – which is probably not surprising- if they were, open policy making would already be more of a reality!
In terms of feedback loops, sad to say I’m not sure these always exist – at least not in a formal way. Policy is decided, goes out of the door in to the real world, and is left to run. In some areas it would take years for the policy to embed to the point where it could be evaluated, and the political cycle means there is not always time to do that – more emphasis is put on bringing more new stuff in than on getting detailed feedback on what has already been implemented.
Hi John. Thanks for commenting. You’ve made some really thought-provoking points. With regards to ‘feedback loops’, I’d be interested in hearing about even the informal ones. Perhaps there are lessons we can learn and share about how to do this well. I have a hunch that informal feedback loops would be more valuable than the formal ones anyway- more honest feedback and I imagine the teams receiving it will be less defensive and more receptive. Your comment, “… more emphasis is put on bringing more new stuff in than on getting detailed feedback on what has already been implemented” resonated with me. But then it got me wondering: if as you say, “policy making is often more about tweaking the details than deciding the big ideas”, then the use of these ‘feedback loops’ should be really well embedded, no? To be honest, I’m not sure I agree that policymaking is often just about tweaking. If it were, I think we’d have seen the kind of continuous improvement that open policymaking is pushing for now. Finally, with regards to your third bullet point, do you have any insights on how many of these lists of expert stakeholders are refreshed and maintained? As a policymaker, how do you this?
Having read this site with interest I am sad to say I agree in part with the comments above, Policy is defined by politicians, often without a though on how it will be to operate it on the frontline. I have been completing a review following a merger and an issue highlighted in a report and have found several holes in existing policies that when you are frontline and working can cause serious issues yet they are only now being looked at and dealt with three years later.
Yet the decision to merge was political and no-one though how the mishmash of policies was going to work. I can imagine the answer when the decision was made at the top was, just make it work, yet the practicalities of doing such are immense.
There is so much ability in frontline staff to help shape and create these policies yet how often are they asked for feedback or input and the comment about sometimes it being inappropriate then my answer would be why? These policies eventually have to be published so why is it an issue.
I realise that sometimes policy may not be received well by staff such as new terms and conditions or a new sickness policy but it is beneficial to include the staff because they will have to work with the new policy and how many complaint, issues and appeals can be dealt with during the policy creation stage cutting down on the cost after implementation if it is found that the interpretation of the policy is actually incorrect or worse illegal.