Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

improve the making of policy. However, there are relatively few such mundane
problems. Public policy is usually complex and has no easy answers.
Policy process models
There are almost as many models of the policy process as there are public policy
theorists, all deriving to some extent from Lasswell (1971). Anderson’s
model of the policy process has five stages: problem identification and agenda
formation, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation (1984, p. 19).
Quade (1982) also sees five elements: problem formulation, searching for alternatives,
forecasting the future environment, modelling the impacts of alternatives,
and evaluating the alternatives. Stokey and Zeckhauser (1978) also set
out a five-step process in which the analyst is to: determine the underlying
problem and objectives to be pursued, set out possible alternatives, predict the
consequences of each, determine the criteria for measuring the achievement of
alternatives, and indicate the preferred choice of action. There are problems in
using any model, not the least of which would be the temptation to simply follow
a menu, rather than to really analyse what is happening. In order to look at
this more closely, the next section considers in more detail one of the policy
process models – reasonably representative of its ilk – to look at the advantages
and shortcomings of models in general.
Patton and Sawicki (1986) put forward a six-step model, and although, as they
say, there is no single agreed-upon way of carrying out policy analysis, theirs
remains one of the more helpful frameworks for looking at a particular policy
problem. The basic aim of their approach is to assist someone who is required to
analyse a given situation and to derive a policy to deal with it. They derive a list
of headings under which particular parts of the policy process can be formulated.
Step 1: Verify, define and detail the problem
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Before starting to look at any policy problem, the first step is, of course, to
specify what the problem actually is. This is not necessarily a straightforward
point as public policies are often interrelated. It is often hard to define the problem
in the public sector, where policy objectives may not be clear or aim to do
several things at once. Public agencies often have several missions at once, and
need to respond to differing interest groups.
It is particularly difficult to define problems in large areas of policy such as
health or welfare. But without being able to define the problem it becomes
impossible to design a policy. At this point of the policy process, the analyst
should be able to set out the policy problem in a way that separates this particular
problem into something discrete which can be tackled. After this the analyst
should know ‘whether a problem exists which can be solved by the client,
should be able to provide the first detailed statement of the problem, and should