Improving the quality of policy advice across government requires a policy community that is committed to upping its game and sharing best practice. This includes strong leadership of the policy system.
Find out about the various elements of the New Zealand policy community - including at the leadership level - and their relationship to the Policy Project and its resources:
Policy system leadership
The policy system is led by the Head of the Policy Profession, Dr Brook Barrington, Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is supported by the Policy Profession Board, the Policy Project team, and the Tier 2 Policy Leaders’ Network.
Head of the Policy Profession
Dr Brook Barrington, the Head of the Policy Profession, holds this 'functional lead' role - created by then-State Services Commissioner in 2014 - and is responsible for improving the system for providing policy advice and its outcomes.
Policy Profession Board
The Policy Profession Board comprises eight Chief Executives and Deputy Chief Executives of policy agencies. They support the Head of the Policy Profession (Chair of the Board) in playing his policy leadership role.
The Policy Project
The Policy Project team acts as a catalyst. We collaborate across the policy community to co-produce solutions that will help policy organisations and policy professionals improve and innovate.
Tier 2 Policy Leaders' Network
Deputy chief executives with policy responsibilities from across the public service. They meet monthly for information sharing and to consider system-wide improvements in policy capability, design, and delivery.
Tier 2 Policy Leaders' Network
Policy Capability Leads
Policy Capability Leads are people nominated by their agency to lead work on improving policy quality and capability. They meet in Policy Capability workshops to learn about Policy Project initiatives, and to share insights from their own work.
Leadership relationships
A diagram describing the relationships between the different leadership groups in the policy system can be found on this page.
Policy leadership relationships
Policy managers
Those who manage teams of policy advisors across the public service are a key part of the policy system. They manage busy policy advice work programmes, and commission and quality assure decision and other papers. They shape the recruitment, development and promotion processes for their team members and the culture of their team. Find out about the Policy Project resources that can support you, as a policy manager.
Policy practitioners
At the heart of the policy system are the policy practitioners who develop and communicate policy advice every day, on every kind of policy issue. Whatever your job title - be it analyst or advisor, senior analyst or senior advisor, principal analyst or principal advisor, or something else - you are all a crucial part of the policy system. Find out about the Policy Project resources that can support you to deliver quality policy advice and enable good government decisions.
Ways to connect with the policy community
There are a lot of ways for you to connect with your policy colleagues across the New Zealand public service and overseas.
Connect with the policy community
Open Government Partnership
The Policy Project's Open Government Partnership focus is on working across government to improve community engagement in policy making.