Policy Development and Advice

The process of policy development and advice is an activity that generally involves research, analysis, consultation, and synthesis of information to produce recommendations.  Ideally it will involve an evaluation of options against a set of criteria used to assess each option.

There are a number of steps that need to be worked through to produce good effective policy.

1. Clearly define the issue or problem that needs to be addressed; that requires the policy to be developed
2. Develop a plan that covers research, consultation, analysis and writing tasks – it will likely be an iterative processing
3. Conduct your research – ensure you consult a wide range of resources.  This is an important step
4. Prepare a discussion paper based on your findings so far
5. Conduct your first round of consultation with as wide a range of people and groups as possible – especially those who will be impacted by the policies developed
6. Prepare a draft policy based on the feedback and input from your consultation
7. Second stage consultation – include as many groups from the first consultation as possible. Include other stakeholders, forums and end users where practical. This is the opportunity to fine tune the policy documents
8. Adoption is when the policy is signed off by the senior management and appropriate records are made to record this
9. Clear communication of the adopted policy with the staff, business and stakeholders throughout the process is critical. Training may be necessary to ensure correct implementation.  If the policy is not well communicated, it may fail.
10. Review and evaluate.  It is important that implementation be monitored as there may need to be tweaks if unintended consequences are experienced.  Ideally, those who designed the policy are involved in the implementation and subsequent monitoring, in order to glean as many learnings from the experience as possible.  Regular reviews of the policy should also be scheduled as circumstances and the original reason for the policy may have changed.