Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Making public policy
Figure 1 The policy value chain. Source: adapted from Porter 1985.
• human resources (capacity to assign people with relevant knowledge and skills
toataskandsupporttheminthattask)
• technical capability (including information technology, communications and
business platforms)
• capacity to procure external capability (including the ability to recruit people
with relevant skills or to engage consultants with relevant expertise).
Where Porter’s original model posits margins (profit)astheprimaryvalue
producedbythedeploymentofcapabilitytosupportthecreationofvalue,inthe
policy value chain we might substitute outcomes and public (or stakeholder) trust as
the primary value created by public policy. The public value of policy is sometimes
overlooked by policy theorists – who focus instead on the character of political
or power relations culminating in a particular policy – and by those analysts who
look only at the ‘craft’ aspects of the policy process, while being agnostic about the
impact of policy on the public good. Our adaptation of Porter’s value chain model
expressly invites the policy maker to keep public value creation ‘front of mind’.
Cross-portfolio policy co-ordination
Policy generated in one ministry or portfolio can have impacts on policy in other
ministries, portfolios and agencies. Similarly, policies originating in one jurisdiction
can have consequential implications for intergovernmental relations, including
between national (federal) and subnational (state, territory and local) governments
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