As the government moves into its final phase, the pressure is on ministers and mandarins to be seen to deliver. There are some key do's and don'ts
Last autumn, the prime minister told the Commons Liaison Select Committee that 2014-15 was to be the year of implementation. So can government deliver in its final months, and if so – how?
Governments will be judged by what they do rather than what they say. Indeed, how well governments ‘do’ is crucial not only to the impact of individual policies but to people’s faith in government more generally. But policy implementation remains one of the hardest nuts to crack. It often requires feats of coordination, both across and beyond government; working with and through partnerships; developing common purpose; and maintaining links to what is really happening on the ground.
The latest data from the Major Projects Authority suggests government still struggles with implementation; the delivery of a priority project like High Speed 2 is currently rated as 'amber red', meaning its successful delivery is ‘in doubt'.
But the image of government as always blundering or failing is an oversimplification. Despite ongoing challenges, in fact there are numerous examples of implementation success – from the current roll-out of automatic enrolment into pensions, a major reform which requires all employers to automatically enroll their employees into pensions scheme; to older but just as ambitious policies like the London Challenge school improvement programme, which contributed to lifting London’s schools from the worst-performing to the best-performing in the 2000s.
The Institute’s new report, Doing them justice, looks back at these and other examples of when government has delivered policy effectively, and draws together a set of lessons that should guide implementation today. These include:
1. Clarity about the problem: High-level policy goals – like ending fuel poverty – need to be matched with deeper analysis of what problem government is trying to tackle. Number crunching in the Department for Education and Skills about the nature of school underperformance, for instance, turned a sense that ‘something must be done’ about the poor performance of schools in the capital into the London Challenge’s model of collaboration between schools, bespoke support and leadership development.
2. Working with the rest of the system: Policies are never implemented onto a blank canvas; successful policies draw on what is already there rather than re-inventing the wheel. In the case of Sure Start Children’s Centres, using existing buildings in many cases rather than starting from scratch. By contrast, automatic enrolment into pensions – although largely very successful to date – almost fell over early on as government initially failed to consider how the almost simultaneous implementation of Real Time Information (HMRC’s change of the PAYE tax collection system) might distract employers and other supporting industries from changes to pensions.
3. Staying close to people on the ground: Central government needs to keep strong links with where change is happening to understand how policies are working in the real world. This often meant working with intermediaries – people who could help bridge the gap between Whitehall and people on the ground by drawing on their professional connections. The London Challenge brought in former head teachers to maintain close relationships with schools, and the roll-out of Children’s Centres was managed by the delivery body Together for Children, led by former local authority senior managers who were able to build close and honest relationships at a local level to keep track of implementation.
4. Making the most of junior ministers: The grind of implementation - driving the policy forward, chasing progress and making change happen – often falls to junior ministers. They brought and kept people outside of government on board - for instance in the case of the London Challenge, the minister for London schools managed relations with the London boroughs which were singled out for action. Junior ministers also act as internal champions within departments – making sure that the risks of loss of focus and conflicting priorities are managed.
5. Maintaining focus: Continuity is an essential ingredient of effective implementation. Policies are often implemented over a period of many years and this introduces significant risk to achieving goals, including the temptation to switch focus. Excessive turnover of officials is a well-known problem of the civil service that destabilises delivery and should be limited. And given their role described above, junior ministers should only be reshuffled with implementation in mind.
Lots has been written about ‘what works’ in policymaking. But as this government moves into its final nine months, and opposition parties start developing detailed plans for their own policy, it is worth remembering that the ‘how’ it works is just as important as the ‘what’ if you want to deliver.
Emma Norris is senior researcher at the Institute for Government. Doing them justice: four cases of policy implementation has just been published by the IfG
