The cost of policy
August 4th, 2010 at 10:00 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Jobs could “quite possibly” be lost as a result of a Government review of the cost of policy advice across its departments and agencies, State Services Minister Tony Ryall says.
A review was announced today, after total Government spending on policy advice was estimated to have jumped by more than 70 per cent between 2003 and 2009 – from about $510 million to $880 million.
It was important to consider how policy advice could deliver value for money for the taxpayers, Mr Ryall said.
If I was a policy analyst, I’d be somewhat nervous.
Now to make it clear, I think a core role of Government is to have competent policy analysis, and in fact in some areas we could possibly do with further resources.
In other areas I think we have too much analysis. Now this is not the fault of individual analysts, but more reflecting that the Government has set up so many performance indicators etc, that you need legions to monitor them etc.
What Ryall has done in Health is potentially a good model in some other areas – reduce the complexity of the reporting requirements, and the need for so many policy staff may be reduced.
I have not looked in depth at TEC lately, but I have been amazed at how around 20 staff in the Education Ministry used to look after the tertiary sector, and TEC for a while rew to almost 400 staff. I would be surprised if there was not further savings to be made there.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Consultants and policy analysts are the modern equivilant of “the committee”. It to often seems to be the default action in responding to something as plain as the nose on the face but a degree of seraration is needed for when it turns to shit.
Vote:On the positive side however it mops up a large chunk of the surplus graduates with useless qualls on their CV.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:25 am
For better or worse (academics will probably argue the latter), university reporting has grown phenomenally over the last decade to embed performance-based funding models (which can be seen as completely necessary for competing with research quality of overseas universities). The current govt policy of funding based on completions is going to increase that too (again, for better or worse, the bums on seats model was a lot easier to administer).
The system is becoming a lot more ‘sophisticated,’ which is adding significant costs to the universities in an environment of shrinking ‘real’ funding (hence recent and unpopular capping of enrolments). It remains to be seen whether the outcomes of all this policy will show any real improvement however…
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:27 am
As a current policy analyst in a mid-sized department,I can’t say that I am remotely surprised. A surprising amount of my time is spend consulting with policy analysts in other departments, who in turn devote their efforts to consulting with my department.
Another less-noted trend is the relabelling as a Policy Analyst of pretty much every employee falling between the rank of CEO and Trainee Receptionist. We no longer have clerks, administrators, advisors or technical specialists. Just more and more more bloody policy analysts. Among whose ranks I serve.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Let’s unpick what Labour has done.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Inflation adjusted?
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Ah, this is just grandstanding. I suspect most Ministers – of any political hue – believe that policy advice is what other people get. They ask hard questions of their department and expect answers. That’s different. Except, of course, it isn’t.
If you want to spend less on policy advice, stop doing anything. Don’t ask questions, don’t change laws or policies and don’t answer Parliamentary questions or Official Information Act requests. Then you will be able to cut the cost of polciy advice big time. Actually, I think some members of the current Government would be perfectly happy with this.
But otherwise this is the cost of having responsible and effective Government.
Of course the money still needs to be spent well and monitored. But cutting it arbitrarily will not promote responsible or effective Government.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:41 am
bobux.
YOU’RE FIRED !!
(just kidding – seeing what its like to be Terry Serepesos)
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Bill English had an interview on NatRad yesterday evening. I was not impressed.
Link: http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ckpt/ckpt-20100803-1707-The_government_reviews_cost_of_policy_advice-048.mp3
It seems like another naive shot in the dark to reduce the cost of borrowing to pay for tax cuts. English saying straight faced that he did not know what “Policy Advice” actually was, was bizarre. I was laughing out loud when the drink driving limit review, pushed by Stephen Joyce, was given as an example of NZ-based policy advice required by the government, as opposed to the English preferred overseas research (available at no cost, but which may have had untenable conclusions for the govt.)
FM
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:55 am
I think it is quite scary how few analysts there are and how so much influence can be placed in the hands of relatively few people, some of whom are very young and who have never practiaclly implemented what they are advising on.
It can mean that the personal beliefs of individuals can play an over strong role in advice. Cutting the number of people in the process is a risk to diversity of views and the checks and balances that brings on policy capture by individuals.
That said, multiple analysts did not stop skewed advice under the last govt but that was more due to groupthink. Yes MfE I am talking about you.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:00 am
What I don’t understand is why policy analysts supposedly are able to develop policy on the basis of having a degree in policy, or somesuch. Why are they more of an authority on “good ideas” than the average man in the street?
For example I know of a woman who is as thick as two short planks, and has worked in various senior policy roles in the Environment and Health Ministries, and for various councils. I doubt she would be able to name the current PM of NZ, yet by virtue of having a “degree in policy” which she skites about often, she was able to have roles in deciding the direction of large government departments.
Clean out these eggheads and give more power to the real experts on policy, e.g the doctors, scientists, etc, not some morons with a worthelss piece of paper.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Umm! These so called policy advisors are no better than Rasputin (advisor to Nicholas II – Emperor of Russia). In fact these advisors are the modern-day Rasputin. The sooner Tony Ryall sack these morons so they can find meaningful employment out in the real world, so more taxpayer dollars could be diverted to better use (Education, Health, Police, etc…).
Didn’t Jacinda Ardern act as an advisor to Helen Clark? Either Helen Clark herself was naive in getting someone who just got out of University with no real world knowledge or experience to advice her or otherwise, Jacinda was genuinely thinking she was acting as an advisor but her role was probably a communication staff member for Clark.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Everyone is a paid to be a policy advisor from the CEO to the toilet cleaners. I’m not quite sure what the money being spent on this is supposed to achieve. The job of the public servise is to provide advice- if you want better advice you really need to have a look at the entire public service not just one job description dreamed up by bureaucrats.
As an Aucklander, I can tell you the feeling up here, after some the stuff we are getting from M o T and Local Government is rack off, give us our taxes back and leave us alone. So i’d be more than happy to receive less advice from Wellington at least.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Nickb, I total agree — I think they don’t pick enough of a diversity of backgrounds in policy analysts roles. I’m from a science background and have been trying to get into policy analysis — difficult time to get in obviously but my background feels like a big hindrance, many of the depts won’t even list science as a possible option on the application.
Social development didn’t list Phd as a higher degree, so presumably that particular dept isn’t actually interested in people that are educated to that level. I feel like (don’t know) govt wants average, conservative and non-controversial people in such roles — maybe that’s wise for policy analysts, who knows.
It’s too easy these days for people to pick the applied policy courses which seem to be a safe path to jobs, although there is still huge competition for these roles. For example, I would find it difficult to get a policy analyst role in the environment because I have a traditional degree (chemistry) even though I believe I would understand the principles and research around the environment better than someone with a broader applied degree (Environmental sciences). Of course I could be overrating myself and underrating others but I think there’s a danger in the current environment that universities are selling degrees for jobs rather than training specialists who could benefit a range of positions. This is being driven by a narrowly focused employment market that hires conservatively and wants people to be pre-trained before they set foot in the workplace. Like we want somebody who has used X software for three years or we want someone with this specific job title.
(there endeth rant…)
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Nearly $1 Billion and they still managed to stuff up the country!
Vote:No wonder we have so many laws and regs.
Fire the lot and start again.
August 4th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Public sector managers are terrified if being brought to book for a bad decision. They lack to cajones to make decisions within a system that actively discourages innovation of any sort. Policy advisors are a form of insurance against being held accountable in any way. Thus the state sector stumbles on year after year without ever getting anywhere or producing anything. Bureaucrates 10 : taxpayer 0
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:30 am
@bchapman – ironically MoT is a quite small organisation, and it shows in the poverty of some of their work.
Listening to English, this is all about privatising advice. He said it has already worked. I wonder if the energy sector is an example?
This really means that industry and vested interests will be handed the keys to the kingdom and lobbyists will rule, so Hooten and co will grow their bank balance.
Problem is business is good at big ideas but not good at the detail, particulalry when it is in an area of less interest to them.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:31 am
“What I don’t understand is why policy analysts supposedly are able to develop policy on the basis of having a degree in policy, or somesuch. Why are they more of an authority on “good ideas” than the average man in the street?”
That’s no different from questiining why Guyon Espiner should be an authority on political news! Why shouldn’t policy be a valid career choice?
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:36 am
It’s the old paralysis by analysis thing again. Labour’s lot were so lacking in administrative, financial and economic experience, and so full of party-oriented, touchy-feely interferences driven more by knee-jerk than rationale, they really needed help with what they were supposed to think – let alone implement as policy. Even then they couldn’t keep track of their own inconsistencies.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could elect representatives who were in possession of realistic views of the big picture BEFORE they entered parliament?
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Positan- as if thats ever going to happen.
NickB-I agree. we need less career public servants, and we should start employing them in their thirties, not straight from University.They should be free to move between the public ad private sectors.
The problem is not the advice or the advisors, the problem is the decision-makers. As shown by last weeks decision on drink driving, the end result of not being capable or courageous enogh to make a decision is to ask for more information. The information is there but in the end someone has to make a decision.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
David
You keep repeating that canard. TEC superceded parts of MOE, Skills NZ, TAMU, et al. The jobs superceded or transferred over time have been well in excess of 400, not 20. TEC also took on new and additional functions, eg. PBRF, and has increasingly led policy development. It does this with approximately 275 staff and , although not perfect, is generally considered within the tertiary education sector to be doing a far better job than its predecessors, despite the noise always associated with governments and tertiary education.
In case you forgot, the lack of effective policy and administrative oversight in the late 1990s/early 2000s (before TEC was formed) led to major blowouts in poor quality provision, which TEC was able to rein in once the necessary policy and administrative implements were created. While further efficiencies and improvements in tertiary education policy, administration and organisation can undoubtedly be gained, to imply that what TEC does can be achieved with just 20 people is fatuous. Unless, of course, NZ switches to a completely free-market, user-pays model of tertiary education, in which case 20 is too many!
Jim Donovan (former Manfed board member/spokesman on tertiary education to TEAC, tTEC/TEC board member 2002-present)
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
We have policy analysts to (try to) prevent Ministers from making stupid ad hoc decisions – not always effective admittedly In 2003 there was a mjor shortage of experienced policy analysts in the Public Service, and few being trained. SSC embarked on a project to train policy analysts, to ensure adequate supply. National is about to undo that work, for seemingly ideological reasons. If the public really wants to stop wasting taxpayer money, we need to stop political parties changing policy direction (or sometimes just the name, to make it look like theirs) every time we have a change of Government. This cost billions in cash, and a 2 year stagnation in the Service with resultant loss of productivity. We need to set a consensus direction we want NZ to move in, and tell our representatives to do what they are paid for – representing us, not d__king us around to suit their myopic ideological self-aggrandisement.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I don’t agree with MARK: This government is perpetuating the errors of the former government by continuing to employ their Policy Formation Commissions and agents in key positions. On the other hand many of the long winded reports and enquiries
Vote:Tax,catching Australia, liquor,etc cost plenty in cash and effort and are ignored, thank goodness, though others ETS, Environment, etc are slavishly adhered to.. We elect a party to govern us they should announce their policy beforehand and stick to it. The Public Servants should then implement it, not advise the government on what it should be according to their lights.
August 4th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Once upon a time policy advice came from Departmental heads (later CEOs) and perhaps the tier of senior staff beneath them, plus senior staff in Ministerial offices. Experienced people with years of serving various hues of government, an understanding of the machinery of government and an ability to predict outcomes based on experience.
And it was tested at caucus meetings, which were places where policy was debated and MPs could bring their varied experience to bear, rather than explained to compliant List MPs (along with robotic “talking points”) by the handful of people who actually make decisions.
Statistics (later “performance indicators”) were the realm of clerks and statisticians… wearers of grey cardigans and brown shoes who flooded Lambton Quay at prescisely noon and disappeared, leaving a wasteland, at 1 pm. They didn’t imagine for one moment it was their place to go “advising” elected Members what to do.
Now, both roles are filled by bright eyed graduates with freshly minted degrees and no experience of life outside academia (unless you count waiting tables while at university).
Is it any wonder we’ve been headed to hell in a handbasket for quite a while now?
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Step 1: Get all Policy Analysis in a large auditorium.
Step 2: Give each 30mins to write a paper outlining their critical nature of their role.
Step 3: Give the authors of the best 10% their jobs, and a day off for a good measure.
Step 4: Give the rest pink slips, career guidance and re-employment support.
Step 5: Tick ‘policy analysts’ on list. Move to next group. Go to step 1
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
A few good policy analysts are worth an army of mediocre, wet behind ears policy graduates. The problem with government is that you can’t replace quality with quantity. Even worse, the more quantity you have, the bigger your quality problem gets, as the few good people spend all their time fixing up the messes of the useless ones.
I agree with Rex, policy advice should be coming from the senior levels of an organisation, and be based on some level of experience and years of hard knocks. I definitely recall discussions in some of my times in govt with the crusty old guy in the corner. We’d come up with some great new idea, and he’d be all “we tried that in ’79, didn’t work because……” Sure, some of that was no longer relevant – automation or changes in the economy meant it was worth another go. But it sure as hell made us work harder to tick off the objections and avoid pitfalls. Those guys are worth gold, and they’re not around so much any more. And it’s also hard to tell the crusty old guy with some smarts from the general naysayers, do nothings, whingers and whiners. But a competent management team should be able to sort that out over time.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Rex how right you are. However as one who has been involved in giving advice to a current senior Minister it is refreshing that the Nats are prepared to consult with cough “experienced practitioners” to test the advice of the policy advisers.
Without wishing to labour( no pun intended) the point a little experience both of years and at the rock face is worth a ton of Uni degrees.
One remembers oneself 35 years ago all bright eyed and bushy tailed thinking one ideas were revalutionary only to be pulled up short by a grey hair who pointed out the bleeding obvious of why it wouldnt work.
IMHO it needs a balance of the young bright things and we of the mature years to ensure the Ministers get the advice to make the very best decisions.
Afterall that is the essence of good governance.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
If you believe Government is there to provide laws, policing and national security, and as little else as possible, then policy writing and policy analysis is one of the few areas the govt should be spending money.
Big difference between spending money on important functions, and wasting money on glide timers who have nothing to do though. Notwithstanding all the Nat Election’08 rhetoric about capping & reducing the civil service, does anyone really know how much fat if any is in the civil service? Or is it all bullsh!t?
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Lots of dead wood, and still not enough service delivery. Some people in govt can clearly articulate the things that aren’t being done, which they attribute to not enough money. Others would argue that if the people they had were just doing a reasonably efficient job, they wouldn’t need half so much money or people. The truth is probably somewhere in between – fewer better people in policy positions, redirect the money to the frontline service delivery. Also automate some service delivery, and seek efficiencies that let you do more with less.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
@PaulL – you are talking far too much like a crazy right-winger there. Efficiency. Fewer better people! Pffft. Head down that path and we’d actually start to improve our standard of living.
But this won’t happen. The function of government in modern ‘social’ democracies is to grow the state until you have a majority dependent on government largess, be it welfare, pensions or state-funded jobs. We now have fewer than 1.7 taxpayers for every beneficiary for example. That figure is dropping and it scares me.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Have you guys never heard of Parkinson’s Law?? One can always justify employing more people and then those people have to be managed and need HR services, IT support, etc. All of a sudden you have seven people doing the work of what one person used to do.
I find the more people involved, the more rework and disagreements there are – and if the person with the decision making power is an idiot then no amount of good policy analysts being involved will stop a poor decision being made.
A lot the extra work that is being done in Wellington in govt departments nowadays is form over substance – extra time on preparing all the documents that have to be prepared to make it look as though the decision has been well thought through and justified.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
@Anthony – My assessment is that between 50% and 90% of all ‘work’ undertaken in non-frontline public service jobs is either unessential i-need-to-look-busy activity, or simply arse covering risk minimisation/mitigation efforts. There are billions being spent wastefully in my view, and it’s no single governemnt’s fault. It is the result of decades of decline in the value system that underpins what we once called the ‘public service’
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Parkinson’s law first appeared in the Economist, I’ve been looking for this article for a while, that was the hint that I needed to go find it. Brilliant. http://www.spreadsheetdetective.com/berglas/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Krazykiwi – good analysis. The best description I ever heard is that bureaucracy is like cancer, it only survives by growing. These people aren’t malevolent, they need to justify their existence so they make shit up. The problem with that is it stops the real world from getting on with it. Sad, but this is still just touching the surface. We need another 10% slashed from the public service. Sorry people, time to get a real job.
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Parkinson’s Law is very good. “…and n is the number of effective units being administered” must result in divide by zero errors applying this to government
Vote:August 4th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
PaulL, that’s an informative article on Parkinson’s Law (PL). I never knew what PL was about, although I had come across it (I think last year) through a reference in one of the Complexity Digest (newsletter issue) of which I am subscribed to it. I never read the reference to PL in that specific newsletter since I only click or open up the abstract summaries (or full articles) of titles that I think would be of interest to me (ie, I don’t read each and every title in a newsletter since I do subscribe to many newsletters – no time to read each and everyone).
I checked my mail archive and I found the reference. The reference in the newsletter was a paper from Socio-physics (ie, application of statistical physics & complexity theory to sociology). It was published in IOP’s Journal of Statistical Mechanics : Theory and Experiment (2009) and the PDF is freely downloadable (see below). Here is the abstract:
Abstract:
We formulate three famous, descriptive essays of Parkinson on bureaucratic inefficiency in a quantifiable and dynamical socio-physical framework. In the first model we show how the use of recent opinion formation models for small groups can be used to understand Parkinson’s observation that decision-making bodies such as cabinets or boards become highly inefficient once their size exceeds a critical ‘Coefficient of Inefficiency’, typically around 20. A second observation of Parkinson—which is sometimes referred to as Parkinson’s Law—is that the growth of bureaucratic or administrative bodies usually goes hand in hand with a drastic decrease of its overall efficiency. In our second model we view a bureaucratic body as a system of a flow of workers, who enter, become promoted to various internal levels within the system over time, and leave the system after having served for a certain time. Promotion usually is associated with an increase of subordinates. Within the proposed model it becomes possible to work out the phase diagram under which conditions of bureaucratic growth can be confined. In our last model we assign individual efficiency curves to workers throughout their life in administration, and compute the optimum time to give them the old age pension, in order to ensure a maximum of efficiency within the body—in Parkinson’s words we compute the ‘Pension Point’.
Download : Parkinson’s Law quantified: three investigations on bureaucratic inefficiency
Models described in the paper are the same ones used in econophysics (evolving/dynamic network).
I reckon that Tony Ryall and his advisors should read more about Parkinson’s Law.
Vote:August 5th, 2010 at 8:10 am
A good discussion, helped by the absence of the usual ranters. A few further comments, in no particular order:
Nick R
Good points. Opposition politicians, pressure groups and the general public all generate a lot of demand for policy analysts by submitting OIAs, writing to Ministers etc. This is seen to be a Good Thing, whereas some posters here assume having people to write responses is a Bad Thing.
jinpy
My dept has a lot of analysts with a science background, and favours them when short-listing. So don’t assume your science background is necessarily a handicap. Unfortunately, many science grads we interview don’t write well enough to get hired. A key skill in a policy analyst is the ability to read a mound of info on an unfamiliar topic, and summarize it in a few coherent pages. This is a less common skill than you would think.
Rex W
I keep hearing about the Good Old Days when all ministers were advised by a grizzled public service veteran, and concequently made sound decisions. No one can explain exactly when this was, but logic suggests it was probably in the 60s and 70s. Somehow, ‘well-informed decision-making’ isn’t the first phrase that springs to mind when considering governments of that era.
PaulL
You are right that a few good analysts are worth more than an army of bad analysts, and some depts have gone for quantity over quality. Unfortunately, there is no perfect way of predicting in advance who will perform well until they start work. Once hired, public servants have to screw up mightily to get fired, unless there is a general headcount reduction.
I’m less supportive of your negative comments about graduates. I’d far rather work with a bright and keen person who needs the occasional reality check than some time-server who has done the bare minimum of work for the past 30 years.
krazykiwi
I have seen very little actual ‘make work’ in my corner of the public service, but arse covering is pretty much what we are there for. Of course, it is the the government of the day whose arse is being covered, which is why they employ us. Being risk averse isn’t a fault, it is a design feature.
Mark5
Vote:I disagree strongly. A key role of policy analysis is to ensure Ministers are advised of the likely concequences of any decision they make, and what the alternatives are. It isn’t the job of the analyst to supplant ministerial authority. Having different political parties with different visions of how NZ should be, and letting voters choose between them, seems like a good thing to me. It might be superficially less efficient, but technocratic societies have their own set of problems.