Policy Analysis (Developing)

70% on-the-job learning

• Know your agency’s policy guide (if they have one) and quality assessment criteria for policy advice, including the Policy Project’s Policy Quality Framework.
• Read the Policy Project’s resource materials in its Policy Methods Toolbox on Start Right, design thinking, community engagement, behavioural insights and futures thinking.
• Familiarise yourself with Cabinet Office guidance on Cabinet papers (see Cabinet policy paper template).
• Read policy tools likely to be required in your work (e.g. the Treasury’s Impact Analysis Requirements).
• Learn about Treaty settlements affecting your policy area.
• Read the Treaty of Waitangi analysis material in the Policy Methods Toolbox, which includes the Cabinet Office circular Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi Guidance developed by Te Arawhiti – The Office for Māori Crown Relations, on how to apply the terms and concepts of the Treaty of Waitangi to policy development and implementation.
• Peer review more senior colleagues’ work to build understanding of how different analytical frameworks, techniques and tools have been applied to different policy issues.
• Learn about diversity and inclusion tools and resources that may assist your policy analysis (e.g. Ministry for Pacific People’s Pacific Policy Analysis Tool Kapasa, Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People’s Disability Toolkit for Policy, Ministry of Social Development’s Child Impact Assessment Tool, Ministry for Women’s gender analysis tool Bringing Gender In).
• Develop a problem tree for a current policy issue that documents the relationships between adverse economic, social, environmental or cultural outcomes and their root causes.
• For all policy options that your team has identified in regard to a policy issue, diagrammatically document the intervention logic of each (what inputs and activities will produce which outputs and outcomes).
• Assist your team with analytical work on policy issues, or lead analytical work on small tasks or projects.
• Work with a more senior colleague to develop a Regulatory impact statement or a simple Cabinet paper on a policy project.
• Investigate opportunities to help with quality assurance of Regulatory impact statements that inform policy in your subject area.
• Attend seminars in your agency or other departments that will extend your thinking.

20% learning from others

• Ask colleagues to recommend and discuss good briefings and Cabinet papers, as well as books and articles on the practice of policy analysis.
• Seek on-the-job coaching from your manager or senior colleagues on the policy development cycle, from defining the problem to setting policy objectives, identifying and assessing options, recommending solutions, implementing solutions, monitoring and evaluation.
• Ask colleagues about how they apply Te Ao Māori and mātauranga Māori to their policy work.
• Ask colleagues about how they apply other frameworks that have a population lens (e.g. Ministry for Pacific People’s Pacific Policy Analysis Tool Kapasa).  
• Check with principal and senior analysts for other informative books and articles on ‘wicked problems’ and test your understanding of these through discussion with your team members and manager.
• Seek peer review or coaching from more experienced analysts or your manager.
• If possible, accompany your manager or a senior colleague to meetings with the minister, so you can see how key messages are communicated and how officials interact with the minister.
• Improve your understanding of policy analysis by reading key text books, for example:
  • A practical guide for policy analysis: the eightfold path to more effective problem solving (Bardach 2009)
  • Adding Value to Policy Analysis and Advice (Scott and Baehler 2010)
  • The Australian Policy Handbook (Althaus, Bridgman and Davis 2017)
  • The Art and Craft of Policy Advising (Bromell 2017)
  • Routledge Handbook of European Public Policy (2017).

10% formal learning

• Take an in-house course in basic policy analysis if available.
• Attend seminars at the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies, Motu, or other departments on analytical topics.
• Take introductory short courses for policy staff on the role of policy analysts, policy tools and frameworks (e.g. from Wellington Uni Professional).
• Treasury can run courses on Regulatory Impact Analysis on request. G-Reg and ANZOG both schedule workshops and seminars from time to time on regulatory design and practice.
• Take introductory courses on using economic analysis in the policy development process by the Government Economics Network (GEN).
• Take a cost benefit analysis course (e.g. Introduction to Cost Benefit Analysis by GEN).
• Consider taking a tertiary course, such as Public Policy Fundamentals by Wellington Uni Professional.
• Consider taking one of the Government Economics Networks’ introductory courses (e.g. Microeconomics for Policy Analysis, Macroeconomic Principles for Policy, Cost Benefit Analysis, Behavioural Economics for Policy)’.