It may be a sign of the uncertain times we live in, but David Walker's Public Finance feature, Are you sitting comfortably? left me unsure about its conclusions.
I agree that the government's treatment of evidence in policy making can appear loose on occasion, especially as it embarks on such serious policy change, but that this represents a significant shift away from the previous approach is debatable. Look at the minimum wage or independence of the Bank of England. Policies were developed around principles. It's really not clear that 'evidence' rather than theory was the main driver. Where is the real proof of evidence driving policy as a result of the now extinct Place Survey?
We must also accept that democratically elected politicians have the right to hold fast to what we perceive to be their policy prejudices in the face of apparently incontrovertible evidence from social scientists, economists, demographers and a whole array of policy experts. Objectivity in analysis always was, and always will be, an uneasy bedfellow of political principle and expediency.
Experts have a duty to recognise that there is more than one kind of information and evidence, and that researchers do not have a monopoly on evidence and good policy. Accessing the wisdom of crowds is a new ability we must make the most of.
This is not to present a hopeless case for evidence in policy making. The world has changed, and dramatically so. The point is that the parade of experts have a duty to respond, and must not languish in ponderous contemplation, as the prejudice against them suggests.
What exactly are we responding to though? An administration in a terrible hurry, one that identifies strongly with communication and transparency, and importantly, one that desperately wants to thrive off new (ways of) thinking. See for example, the new Behavioural Insight team in the Cabinet Office, set up to explore alternative ways to influence public behaviour.
Now the Treasury is not about to burn the Green Book, so my guess is the response required will draw on new and established methods alike. The 'how can we value things?' question will still be answered through cost benefit analysis, net present value and utility theory, Take for example, the influential Centre for Social Justice and its work on allocation of budgets across departments. It might talk a new language of consistently valued outcomes which allow comparison of the social value of money of spending across departments, but we are still in the relatively tried and tested domain of cost-benefit analysis.
But then the 'how do we do things (together)?' question, so central to the Big Society idea, requires new approaches from behavioural economics that seek to shed light on moral and social factors that drive the way we behave. In this vein, a recent report by a colleague on welfare reform for the 2020 Public Services Trust points to the need to consider our ability to take cues from others we identify with in new, ambiguous situations, how our aversion to loss is greater than the prospect of gain and to understand how we respond to constraint and reward. Consider the policy goals of the coalition government and tools that deliver this sort of insight become extremely useful.
Real, responsive and purposeful intelligence will understand when the traditional should retreat to allow space for new methods, so that decision makers can understand the reality of what they want to do and the viability of their approach. A highly complex social survey that requires expert analysis to glean its true value must co-exist alongside flexible, qualitative means of understanding how people respond in the moment.
Now to the assertion in the second part of the statement that the army of armchair auditors could never match the quality of evidence provided by experts. Well, of course not, and this misses the point. The language of audit used by politicians and commentators alike is unfortunate. Amateur 'bean counters' replacing a highly qualified profession they are not, and their number may never be comparable with a whole army (even post strategic defence review), but a useful countervailing presence to guard against the complacency of experts they are.
Lest we forget, experts and politicians alike have on occasion been guilty of failing to see the wood for the trees. And just as accountability is forcing politicians to change, the open data movement will drive change among experts as others push for a piece of the action.
Andrew Collinge is assistant director of intelligence and analysis of the Greater London Authority
