A bit of a wander
A policy objective is a written statement, which aims to be achieved by a policy.
In many instances, policy objectives set out a purpose as it relates to why a policy exists, what it is for, and the behaviours and norms it aims to govern through rules and procedures.
Even if a policy objective lives in one domain or department, it’s likely the case that achieving the objective will require broad partnership and forms of participation from a variety of entities.
These days, it’s rare to find a policy objective that isn’t cross-cutting.
Regardless of whether or not a policy team — or professional — conceives of themselves as a policy designer, the work that is done to develop a policy objective is a form of design.
Policy Design and Service Design
In September, 2017, Dr. Andrea Siodmok wrote a piece for the UK’s Open Policy Lab, that looked at Policy Design and Service Design.
In it, she notes:
Both design and policy in my experience are acts of synthesis, of bringing things together through iteration, sense-making and (increasingly in policy) involve experimentation and exploration.
When design is considered a process, not an artefact, it can be applied to produce many different things. But when policy has its own process, design and policy can often seem — and even feel — quite separate.
Siodmok helps to re-situate this either/or framing when she observes:
For me design offers an approach, what I have defined as ‘purposeful creativity’, which has a lot more in common with policy-making than many might think.
In this article, I begin to look at the integration of systems thinking and service design techniques within policy development activities, as a way to open up conceptions of how policy work is done, what it is, and what it could be.
My aim is to share an idea that if you work in policy, you are already participating and even leading forms of design.
The European Commission’s PoliVisu Data and Results Hub toolkit notes:
Policy Design is the first phase to be undertaken when creating a new policy (basically a change approach or new solution by Government).
This could be identifying a brand new problem to be solved or fixing an existing policy or service.
Traditionally needs were raised through public letters, petitions or political recommendations. However, today many public administrations practice Open Policy Making which brings together different stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences to build a coherent picture of problems and needs that can be resolved by policy.
The Government of the United Kingdom’s Open Policy Toolkit (first released in 2016) remains an excellent resource for open policy making.
The Policy Lab continues to produce publicly accessible content on open policymaking and forms of policy design, to the benefit of practitioners around the world.
Last week, the Lab shared an update on a policy game called “Systemic”, which was developed to help policy teams who work in different departments consider overlapping service environments.
In stating their why, it’s noted:
The problems we face today, such as climate change, aging populations and inequality, cannot be fixed by one team or department alone. They require a systems approach.
The emergence of this game is as much a sign of the turn toward systems design and systems thinking in policy practice, as it is a signal of the deep and interconnected problems many policy teams are faced with.
Authors Vanessa Lefton and Alex Fleming “learnt policymakers don’t often have the time or space to consider the current policy system, and test possible deep-rooted changes.”
And so a game was used to bring people together and help them begin to think about their work differently, within a time-bound activity.
But the amazing thing about this is that the game is, in actuality, a space.
The space provided is about “reflecting on [how] the current policy system works, and then play-testing changes that might lead to better policy outcomes.”
Through playing this game, or holding this space, they found:
Having the space to take a systems approach is key for policymakers working on some of today’s deep-rooted societal challenges. It is particularly useful to understand complexity and intractable problems.
Policy as system
Pia Andrews’ recent piece on end to end policy making demonstrates that there are many systemic challenges within policymaking, itself.
For her part, she notes:
I’m delighted to see innovative approaches being normalised across the policy profession, but it has become obvious that improving design and/or evaluation is still far from sufficient to drive better (or more humane) policy outcomes in an ever changing world. It is not only the current systemic inability to detect and respond to unintended consequences that emerge, but the lack of policy agility that perpetuates issues even long after they might be identified.
She also writes:
Why should we reform how we do policy? Simple. Because the gap between policy design and delivery has become the biggest barrier to delivering good public services and policy outcomes, and is a challenge most public servants experience daily, directly or indirectly. This gap wasn’t always the case, with policy design and delivery separated as part of the New Public Management reforms in the 90s. When you also consider the accelerating rate of change, increasing cadence of emergencies, and the massive speed and scale of new technologies, you could argue that end-to-end policy reform is our most urgent problem to solve.
A policy objective, or, in this case, an objective for policy, could be a powerful way to bring diverse actors, stakeholders, and members of the public together to consider how to work with systemic challenges differently, and how and why this needs to be done differently, in practice.
In many instances, policy can seem a bit intangible. When separation from delivery occurs, from the outset, or when policy objectives are defined independent of the realities of current state delivery, or without a delivery mechanism — or service — in mind, policy can really seem like it is only words. But policy is a system, in practice.
Is there a role for policy objectives in service and system design?
In their review of literature and evaluations available on systems thinking in policy, Le-Khanh-Ngan Nguyen, Cecilia Kumar, Bowen Jiang, and Nici Zimmermann identify that there’s a growing interest in systems thinking within governments, particularly those that aim to act in response to complex problems.
The authors also note that these approaches are often considered due to their offer of an holistic viewpoint, and ability to grapple and work across disciplinary boundaries.
Through their review of existing literature, they found that multiple approaches to systems thinking exist, each with a different emphasis on the system structure, mental models, and underlying cognition that defines what is looked at and why.
In terms of future developments, the authors suggest:
Areas that can be progressed include a conceptual shift among civil servants and policy-makers, impacts of decision-making styles and organisational cultures on ST uptake and use, development of methodological and practical guidance specific to policy-making, and the development of an evaluation framework and benchmark of best practice.
This seems to rhyme with what Pia’s work describes, and what she warns about, and offers potential pathways through, to more responsive or adaptive forms of policy practice.
It also seems to demonstrate something of the arc of emerging approaches, which mature through a focus on methodology and enhanced forms of guidance.
Something I am wondering about is how policy design, systems thinking, and service design might continue to evolve together, methodologically, as available forms of practice and inputs into both policy objectives and how policy gets designed.
Service Objectives and Policy Objectives
Kate Tarling’s work in service design is helpful in many ways, not least of which because it provides a way of understanding how policy objectives and service objectives differ.
Through her work, we see that organizations have purpose, and that a service objective is defined from an end-users point of view.
When we think about mindset shifts, and what it means to see things differently, this turn toward looking at organizations as the site of purpose may stand to shift how we approach or consider policy, particularly when it is applied within or aims to govern systems.
To me, service design is not only valuable in terms of helping to define and deliver value to end users, but to create a tangible way of seeing and understanding systems, within which services tend to operate.
What this has me thinking is, what it would look like if a service objective replaced a policy objective?
What would a piece of legislation, or a regulation, be about?
What difference would it make if roles and functions that are typically embedded in legislation and regulations were written, instead, as identified beneficiaries and stated outcomes?
How would implementation work differently if, instead of prescribing actions, duties, and obligations, policies identified what was to be delivered? With the provision of greater flexibility — or ongoing public communication — on how that was or is occurring?
These are the kinds of questions that will generally encourage people to stop listening to you. I ask them because it can be fun, sometimes, to think about how things could be done differently.
To demonstrate my awareness of varying approaches to policy design, please see Teresa Scassa’s piece comparing and contrasting UK’s approach to AI governance and Canada’s approach to an AI Bill.
Looking at “an Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts”
Updated information on Canada’s Artificial Intelligence and Data Act has since been released.
What’s fascinating to me is that the AIDA is governing AI as a system, which holds many lessons for those of us who work in other types of systems, or who conceive of policy design as an input into systemic design.
What it leads me to consider is that there is no real reason why a policy objective could not be written as a service definition, or from an end-user’s point of view, except for the fact that we write policy objectives, and not service objectives, due to available processes, structures of decision-making, and acceptable approaches to design, via policy.
The public facing web content on the AIDA, for instance, is much easier to read than the Bill, which is not really written for the public, but for legal forms of implementation.
Which brings me back to policy objectives and forms of design.
You can watch as the work on:
Bill C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts
unfolds, here.
I hope very much that none of this reads as any kind of criticism. I find all of this fascinating. This is the main reason for writing it down.
In general, it is a fascinating time to work in policy, service design and systems design/thinking.
Note: There needs to be a snappier name for this.
It must be, most simply, policy design.
