Week 4- Identifying Policy Issues

Question 1

Outline who is involved in creating the policy agenda

Answer 1

• Parties and interest groups, parliament and media departments and private companies all compete to draw attention to their key concerns
• Contending voices use parliament, the media, public events and private lobbying to press their case
• Politics becomes an argument about which topics and which interpretation of any particular topic, have a legitimate right to government responses and public resources

Question 2

Outline what the policy agenda is

Answer 2

• Represents the narrowing of an infinite array of possible policy problems to those few that command govt interest
• When an issue is identified, it becomes part of the policy cycle, subject to analysis, policy instrument development etc
• Crucial moment in policy cycle as private concern is transformed into a policy issue

Question 3

Outline what policy officers must do

Answer 3

• Develop sensitivity to the nature of issues
• Minimise surprise
• Anticipate problems
• Understand how lobbyists work to influence govt agendas
• How social media can draw attention to aspects of issues
• Self interested nature of many proposals

Question 4

Agenda metaphor

Answer 4

When cabinets meet, ministers have an agenda- a list of topics for discussion, but this lists is only a small sample from the policy agenda, in turn a tiny selection from an abundance of possible topics

Question 5

Outline political issue drivers

Answer 5

• Election commitments and party political platforms
• Areas of particular interest to key government supporters
• Ministerial and governmental changes

Question 6

What is a charter/portfolio priority letter?

Answer 6

• Passed from the prime minister to each minister and sent at the start of the term
• Identify election commitments and outline the leader’s expectations and priorities
• Typically state broad policy directions and particular targets
• Complement the Administrative Arrangement Orders that set out the responsibilities in terms of Acts of parliament and functions

Question 7

Who are the voices seeking attention for concerns?

Answer 7

• Policy researchers
• Policy promoters
• Policy designers
• Policy guardians

Question 8

Who controls the policy cycle, theoretically and realistically?

Answer 8

• Theoretically- ministers
• Reality- politicians are subject to external influences

Question 9

Who may influence priorities of the agenda?

Answer 9

• Rise and fall of a prominent minister can shift priorities
• Independents and minor parties can have a powerful influence on govt’s policy agenda
• Minority govts create particularly fluid environment for selecting some issues over others

Question 10

What influences govt’s decisions to include certain issues in the agenda?

Answer 10

• Ideology of the govt party will dictate certain issues. Clearest after change in govt, however after years in office, will rely more on policy advice and issue identification within public sector and alternate sources
• Long established govts may be overtaken by new issues or driven by events beyond their control, causing them to redefine their agendas in response to events
• Policy can be overtaken by arguments about evidence. Govts must must arbitrate on what info is heard and what is ignored and reinterpreted
• Policy professionals learn that an individual minister’s preference is important and must be accommodated. Also observe that politicians cannot set the agenda; responding to problems and complaints consumes much ministerial time

Question 11

Outline external drivers (with examples)

Answer 11

• Economic forces (e.g. share market fluctuations, interest rate adjustments, credit crunches, employment rates, business fortunes)
• Media attention
• Legal shifts (e.g. High Court Judgement)
• Natural disasters
• International relations (e.g. refugee arrivals, diplomatic representations over human rights issues, wars between other nations)
• Technological development (e.g. bitcoin as a vehicle for moving currency outside the existing tax net)
• Demographic shifts (e.g. population growth and movement change patterns of demand for govt services)
• Market forces are the most powerful, as they are largely beyond the regulation of governments

Question 12

Outline internal (within govt drivers (with examples)

Answer 12

• Emerging issues monitored by govt policy specialists, who structure info and so shape the political domain’s view of the matter
• Monitoring policy issues in other jurisdictions (e.g. overseas responses to particular problems, successes or failures of policies in other states)
• Ongoing monitoring of wicked problems and intractable issues of perennial govt concern
• Coordination of policy issues across govt and between govt structures and agendas
• Regular, programmed reviews, built into the budget cycle
• Statutory ‘sunset’ dates
• Budget overruns
• Unfavourable audit reports
• Performance audits and benchmark failures

Internal factors require constant monitoring and activity by govt. Early detection of issues is valued skill in policy professionals

Question 13

Outline how big data challenges govts

Answer 13

• How to capture and analyse tech data and decide what should be exploited
• Can be mined to promote better issue identification and to target services better and more efficiently, through privacy and confidentiality are limits
• To capitalise support, govts must improve how large data sets are accessed and used by decision makers
• Care must be taken to avoid embedding assumptions and cultural biases

Question 14

Define data visualisation

Answer 14

Presentation of large data sets in visual forms to make sense of big data for decision making, and attracting attention to critical topics

Question 15

Define an unsaleable issue

Answer 15

Defined “as ambiguously as possible, with implications for as many people as possible, involving issues other than the dispute in question… as simple as is feasible”

Question 16

Outline characteristics of a typical policy agenda

Answer 16

• Arises from competition among voices seeking attention
• Determined politically, no guarantee significant issues are heard
• Biased to areas already receiving attention or with political interest capacity
• Limited bandwidth
• Agenda often set by influential elites, not policy opinion/media

Question 17

Outline the issues attention cycle

Answer 17

• Pressure groups try to attract attention for serious problem but must often wait for dramatic event or media coverage to carry onto policy agenda
• Alarmed discovery and brave promises inspire scramble for solutions
• Realisation of costs of achieving change
• By the time institutions and budgets are established, public has lost interest and issue is largely forgotten about

Question 18

Outline the process of identifying issues

Answer 18

• Agreement on a problem
• The prospect of a solution
• An appropriate issue (opportunity cost)
• A problem for whom?

Question 19

Why might identifying an issue be challenging?

Answer 19

A challenge is to ascertain where an issue fits into the accepted structures and methods of dealing with public problems. May otherwise fall from attention
- Political risk calculation- run risk filter over issue
- Issue identification is like natural selection

Question 20

Outline unacceptable issues

Answer 20

• Do not fit policy community values
• Will costs more than the budget allows
• Will have opposition in the mass or specialised publics
• Would not have repetitive audience with elected politicians

Question 21

Define visible participants

Answer 21

Public politicians, political parties and media

Question 22

Define hidden participants

Answer 22

Specialist bureaucrats, policy advisers and ministerial staff

Question 23

How are ill structured problems addressed?

Answer 23

• Ill structured problems e.g. poverty are addressed by being broken down into smaller well structured issues
• To define a problem is to shape the options for a solution. How we perceive the problem will have a powerful influence on the range of potential policy solutions
• Only some issues make the agenda, and these may be presented in ways that assist particular interests while ignoring others

Question 24

Outline intractable problems

Answer 24

• A problem must be given structure before it can become the subject of public policy
• Often, problems are complicated and complex, with cause and effect barely discernible, or only after the event. No matter how much expertise is garnered, there is little or no ability to define the issue and cause and effect relationship
• Some issues are not open to solution, no matter how well structured the problem may be
• Historical factors, competing interests or sunk costs can make all parties unwilling to compromise and these are known as intractable problems
• Intractable problems cannot be settled and will not go away

Question 25

Outline wicked problems

Answer 25

• Dilemmas that cannot be defined, or at least, are not open to easy formulation
• Unstable, as they are characterised by embedded interdependencies where a possible ‘solution’ can create yet another interlocking complex problem
• Difficult to obtain clear or definitive expertise about possible solutions because either the problem is ‘shifting’ or there is no way of learning about the issue without trying potential ‘answers’ that come with unintended consequences
• Impossible to neatly isolate the problem or work out what to do about it

Question 26

Outline the Australian Public Service Commission’s recommendations to deal with wicked problems

Answer 26

• Holistic, not partial or linear thinking
• Innovative and flexible approaches
• Ability to work across agency boundaries
• Effective stakeholder and citizen engagement, problem and solution definition
• Understanding of behavioural change by policy makers
• Tolerating uncertainty and accepting a long-term focus

Much of social and economic policy is about managing rather than solving intractable and wicked problems

Question 27

Outline non-decisions

Answer 27

• One way to avoid wicked and intractable problems and difficult ones is to not make a decision at all
• A decision deferred is a decision made
• Non decisions can express the same biases that keep issues from the agenda. They are an important exercise of power and assertion that some matters do not warrant govt attention

Question 28

Why do govts make non decisions?

Answer 28

• Happens when govt refuses to define a topic as a problem requiring a public policy
• Also possible that policy makers suffer from risk aversion that prevents issues from emerging onto the policy agenda in meaningful ways. A community’s tolerance of govt experimenting and taking risks is rarely high
• Individuals and groups outside govt can also shape agendas through public protest and other action, elevating an issue to the point where govt attention is necessary

Question 29

Outline what is involved in the skill of issue identification

Answer 29

• There is nothing necessarily rational or fair about those issues to which govts attend
• Defining policy agenda is the point at which creativity, chance and politics, rather than analytical method are most likely to hold sway
• Problems are ‘not objective entities in their own right, “out there” to be detected as such, but rather are the product of imposing certain frames of reference of reality’
• The imprecise and subjective nature of public problems requires a commitment to scanning by policy advisers. Must be prepared to also look at pressing needs which do not find articulate advocates