Edition #39
This issue
- Indigenous policy making
- Working from home
- Is kindness the blind spot in public policy?
- Tools at the centre of government
Plus what I’m reading.
A paper in Policy Design and Practice, by Craig Ritchie, CEO of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, argues policy impact in Indigenous affairs in Australia has been scandalously minimal. The problem is not a technical one of implementation, leadership failure or lack of resources. Instead, there is something fundamentally wrong with policy design related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Got something you want to tell us? Reader feedback plays a big part in shaping The Bridge, so if there’s a research paper, journal article or report you’d like to add to my reading pile, or a topic you’d like to see explored in The Bridge, just let me know. If you’ve got any other suggestions or feedback, please send them to me at M.Katsonis@anzsog.edu,au
Triggered by the pandemic, the shift to working from home has been described as a forced experiment. A Productivity Commission research paper investigates how this change has impacted the
economy, individuals, health and wellbeing.
Who works from home?
COVID-19 forced up to 40 per cent of workers to work from home. While the technology allowing people to work from home existed prior to the pandemic, very few took it up. In 2019, only 8 per cent of employees had a formal work-from-home arrangement. Management practices and cultural norms in workplaces may have discouraged remote work.
What do workers want?
Most workers want to work from home, at least some of the time. The primary benefit is the avoided commute. In 2019, full-time workers in Australian major cities spent an average of around 67 minutes per day commuting. Few prefer fully remote work with most wanting to spend some time working from the office.
There are actual or perceived costs to working from home such as:
reduced opportunities for collaboration and networking
reduced face-to-face interaction with managers
consequences for long-term career prospects.
How will working from home affect wellbeing?
Working from home can affect various aspects of wellbeing, including physical and mental health, work–life balance, and family functioning. It can improve physical and mental health by giving people more time and control over their day. But it can also worsen physical and mental health due to decreased incidental exercise, increased isolation, and the elimination of the boundaries between home and work life.
Should governments care about the increase in working from home?
Working from home represents a potential overall gain to society. There is a strong case to allow workers and firms to negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes. This negotiation will happen largely outside the formal workplace relations system. But it is appropriate for governments to monitor labour market and regulatory settings to ensure they:
remain fit for purpose
are fair, flexible and efficient
promote the safety and protection of workers.
There is growing recognition of the importance of kindness and relationships for societal wellbeing. But talking about kindness does not fit easily within the rational lexicon of public policy. A Carnegie UK Trust report
argues for a different way of thinking. Today’s policy challenges need an approach that is more centred on relationships and human connection.
The lexicons of public policy
There are two lexicons in public policy. There is the language of metrics and value added, of growth, resource allocation and impact. Then there is the language of kindness and grief, of the ties that bind, our sense of identity and belonging. We can think of these as the rational and relational lexicons.
Emotions in public policy
Public policy and politics are all about emotions. It’s about vulnerability and how we support those at times of greatest need. It’s about homes, security and the places we live. It’s concerned with providing homes, boosting economies, educating children, caring for the sick, dealing with crises.
Yet when we design public policy and evaluate its impact, the lexicon used is that of the rational.
Why be kind?
Diversity demands personalising and kindness: Our population is so different and has such different needs and desires that an attempt to homogenise is bound to fail.
Behaviour change needs emotional intelligence and kindness: Some of the biggest challenges facing public policy are now about behaviour. For this to have any chance of success, it needs to display a deep understanding of emotional intelligence.
Kindness helps us focus on relationships not transactions. It requires us to focus on the reality of people’s lives, not just the data. It means that we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our fellow citizens, understanding motivations and choices. This challenges the core of our approach to policymaking, the nature of evidence and our professional boundaries
How can the centre of government add value when the expertise, resources and responsibilities to make change sit with departments? This question is at the heart of a paper from Oxford University. With the imprimatur of senior government leaders but relatively small budgets and staff, the centre of government has a different set of tools than other agencies.
What is the centre of government?
The paper defines the centre of government as the people and organisations that support the head of government as the ‘guardians of overall strategic direction of government’. This includes departments such as Premier’s, Prime Minister’s and
Treasury.
What are the tools?
The paper presents ten tools across four clusters that the centre of governments can deploy. Collectively, the tools are aimed at transforming the centre from an institution generating top-down requirements to a problem-solving organisation.
1. Planning from the centre: defining success and setting up agencies to improve
Stakeholder engagement and problem identification to set the stage.
Priority setting with clear measures of success.
Reviews of ministry commitment and capabilities to identify gaps.
2. Governing from the centre: creating structures to drive improvements
Cross-agency governance systems to drive decision-making across organisations.
Central delivery units to drive progress on top priorities.
Centres of technical expertise to spread adoption of leading practices.
3. Improving implementation from the centre: creating routines and driving change
Data-driven review meetings to engage leaders in implementation.
Employee recognition programs to recognise employees and model behaviours.
Collaboration platforms for creating communities of practice.
4. Improving service delivery from the centre: supporting and offering provision of cross-cutting services
Service delivery improvements from the centre to drive transformation by integrating policy and implementation.
The Centre for Social Impact has released a step-by-step guide to planning, measuring and communicating social impact. Outcomes measurement is only effective as part of a wider, ongoing process. The guide uses the following process as the basis of the roadmap:
Each of the stages is discussed in detail including:
key concepts
their importance to outcomes measurement and impact assessment
A range of tools are presented such as:
problem trees to identify the root causes of a problem
the theory of change and logic models
evaluation criteria and types of evaluation
quantitative and qualitative research designs.
what they mean in practice.
Figure 1: Stages of impact assessment
What I'm reading
1. China - a lonely superpower
As the United States, United Kingdom and Australia move to form a new AUKUS grouping, reports have emerged of a new Quad led by China and featuring Iran, Pakistan and Russia. This Lowy Institute article examines China’s willingness and ability to build alliances.
2. Typos, tricks and misprints
English spelling is ridiculous. Sew and new don’t rhyme. Kernel and colonel do. When you see an ough, you might need to read it out as ‘aw’ (thought), ‘ow’ (drought), or ‘uff’ (tough). An essay in AEON discusses the complexity of English spelling. The answer has to do the timing of technology. The rise of printing caught English at a moment when the norms linking spoken and written language were up for grabs and could be hijacked.
‘Til the next issue
Maria Katsonis
Maria curates The Bridge. She is a Public Policy Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a former senior Victorian public servant with 20 years’ experience. She has a deep understanding of public policy and public management and brings a practitioner’s perspective to the academic.
We acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples of Australia and Māori as tangata whenua and Treaty of Waitangi partners in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
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