What is open policy making?
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Open Policy Making aims to improve policymaking by making it more open, evidence-based, and iterative. It involves broadening engagement with experts and the public, using new analytical techniques from various disciplines, and taking agile approaches to iterative policy implementation, testing, and feedback. The goals are to ensure policies are informed by a wide range of views and the best evidence, consider the user perspective, and are effectively implemented in the real world.
What is open policy making?
- 1. And why does it matter
- 2. Open Policy Making is about opening up the policy process to new ways of thinking and doing policy, to ensure that we prepare policy advice for Ministers that is: Drawn from the best possible evidence Informed by a range of views and cutting edge thinking Considered from the user perspective; and Agile, tested and iterated in the real world
- 3. It matters because the standard of policy making is not consistent. Often policy advice is based on too narrow a range of input and views, prepared behind closed doors and poorly implemented. We need to: Acknowledge that we don’t have monopoly on policy making: we don’t always have the answers we don’t always know what will work we often take too long to find new ideas and solutions and put them to practice
- 4. This is compounded by the pace of change. We need to turn to new tools and techniques for policy making to ensure it is cutting edge, innovative and works: The world is increasingly networked and the digital revolution and advance of social media means that we need to understand how to make policy in a digital age We need to be more curious and collaborative in our approach and allow others to come and help solve problems that are deeply interconnected and complex We need to learn from approaches and disciplines outside of the civil service and bring in new insights and expertise
- 5. Open Policy Making is therefore about better policy making - being open to new ideas, new ways of working, new insights, new evidence and experts – through: 1. Broadening the range of people we engage with 2. Using the latest analytical techniques and trends 3. Taking agile, more iterative approaches to implementation The open policy maker is: humblehumble – recognising that the civil service does not have a monopoly on expertise networkednetworked and collaborative; and digitally engageddigitally engaged
- 6. 1. Broadening the range of people we engage with means: Being networked and connected to experts, thought leaders, stakeholders and users on an on-going basis Understanding cutting edge or world class thinking - in the UK or internationally Going where the dialogue or debate is already taking place, using tools like: • Social media engagement • Crowd sourcing • E-consultations • Collaborative policy processes
- 7. 2. Using the latest analytical techniques and trends means: Understanding benefits from insights such as behavioural economics Being open to new disciplines and learning from other sectors e.g. design thinking and user led design Understanding new evidence from What Works centres and data science Taking account of wellbeing analysis Understanding different models for solving problems such as co- design and co-production
- 8. 3. Taking Agile, more iterative approaches to implementation Designing policy with implementation in mind, including rapid or real time feedback Adopting Agile (at pace), more iterative approaches and testing early “prototypes” to ensure better outcomes Understanding benefits of Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) Using scenario modelling to anticipate outcomes
- 9. What Open Policy Making is NOT A one size fits all approach A quick fix Something new and different to good policy making Synonymous with “public” i.e. being open about everything, to everyone all of the time Crowd sourcing or wikis Something only digital experts can do
- 10. Open Policy Making is underpinned by a mindset that starts with the recognition that openness generally is better, but recognises that this depends on licence and policy context e.g. a spectrum of possibilities 10 Policy contextPolicy context Sensitive/ classified Public/ routine LicencetoinnovateLicencetoinnovate LowHigh Broadening the range of people we engage with Using the latest analytical techniques and trends Taking Agile, more iterative approaches to implementation Multidisciplinary team - external Evidence gathering Expert engagement Consultation Public engagement Internal challenge, e.g. policy scrums Scenario testing Testing, iterating Coproduction Insight tools e.g. ethnography Bring in external expertise Stakeholder segmentation Design tools e.g. user journeys Crowd sourcing Publishing the evidence Policy Labs, “hubs” Social media listening Data science