Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Making public policy
• the characteristics of the policy area in question (e.g. some policy areas might
have a long history of recourse to particular models of implementation, and
thispredisposespolicyactorsinthoseareastopreferthosemodels)
• available resources (e.g. some policy instruments might entail significantly
higher establishment and running costs than others, or they might require
skills or technologies that are in short supply, leading to the selection of less
optimal but more feasible options)
• ease of administration and/or administrative traditions (e.g. some policy
instruments might be inherently easier to administer, while others entail greater
complexity and risk; in some policy domains particular traditions – say, centralised,
hierarchical management frameworks, as opposed to decentralised, distributed
frameworks – might predominate, predisposing practitioners towards
the selection of instruments that ‘fit’ with the existing administrative culture)
• the political dimension (e.g. recourse to particular policy instruments might be
precluded because they are not considered to be acceptable to the community
and/or they might be unacceptable to governments on ideological grounds). 29
Policy implementation
The true test of any policy lies in its implementation. The Australian Department
of the Prime Minister and Cabinet sets out a structured approach to thinking about
how a policy or program will be delivered, framed around seven principles drawn
from lessons learnt by frontline staff involved in implementation and delivery:
1. planning
2. governance
3. engaging stakeholders
4. risks
5. monitoring, review and evaluation
6. resource management
7. management strategy.
Implementation gives practical effect to policy. It is a complex process requiring
application of a range of technical and management skills. Many seemingly ‘good’
policies fail in their implementation, resulting in a failure to achieve expected
outcomes or in unintended ‘perverse’ outcomes.
29 Peters 2005.
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