Creating public value in the policy advice role

"As a public servant I live with the tension captured in Richard Mulgan’s question: ‘How much responsiveness is too much or too little?’ (Mulgan, 2008). On the one hand, my job is to be responsive to portfolio ministers and to the prime minister and Cabinet. On the other hand, Westminster conventions of public service imply that I ought not to become over-responsive and merely reactive. The role of a permanent, politically neutral civil service is to be loyal to the government of the day, yet with sufficient independence, knowledge, expertise and experience to influence and shape government priorities and policies, not only to implement these. In this article I explore Mark Moore’s public value approach as a possible theoretical framework to help manage this tension in ways that are creative, rather than frustrating and destructive. I offer it as a personal reflection ‘from the front line’, as a stimulus to more systematic development of public value theory in relation to the policy advice role in New Zealand." • Dr David Bromell is a Principal Advisor and acting Chief Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Social Development. He lectures in the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, and is a Senior Associate of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies. This article was first published in Policy Quarterly – Volume 8, Issue 4 – November 201

Why (not) political philosophy?

Why political philosophy? Why do I read it, teach it and encourage others to engage in it? Simply, because I am driven to it by my practice as a public servant. I have spent a great deal of my working life in meetings where we discuss, decide or make judgements about public policy. I notice how often we express or imply ‘big ideas’ in our discussions with one another, but mostly in an unthinking (even unconscious) way. So we skate over confusions and contradictions in our own and others’ thought and too frequently talk past each other.&nbsp

Creating public value in the policy advice role: a reflection from the front line

As a public servant I live with the tension captured in Richard Mulgan’s question: ‘How much responsiveness is too much or too little?’ (Mulgan, 2008). On the one hand, my job is to be responsive to portfolio ministers and to the prime minister and Cabinet. On the other hand, Westminster conventions of public service imply that I ought not to become over-responsive and merely reactive. The role of a permanent, politically neutral civil service is to be loyal to the government of the day, yet with sufficient independence, knowledge, expertise and experience to influence and shape government priorities and policies, not only to implement these.&nbsp

Censored! Developing a framework for making sound decisions fast

Public sector leadership often demands fast thinking and rapid response. Our decisions are more likely to be sound, however, when they are informed by ‘slow thinking’ when we are not in crisis mode. The art of ‘thinking, fast and slow’ (Kahneman, 2011) is illustrated by decisions of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (the Classification Office) in the days following the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March 2019. This article engages with political philosophy to support the Classification Office in applying its decision framework and encourages public sector investment in ‘slow thinking’, so that public administration can be both responsive and anticipatory, pragmatic and principled

Summary of Panel Discussion on Skills and Social Mobility

This paper follows the discussion of a number of factors surrounding skills and social mobility by a broad panel of participants

Summary of Panel Discussion on Skills and Social Mobility

This paper follows the discussion of a number of factors surrounding skills and social mobility by a broad panel of participants

‘A fair go’ in public policy

In the context of the 2013 retirement income review (CFLRI, 2013), Kathryn Maloney and Malcolm Menzies from the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income put the question to me: what does ‘a fair go’ mean in public policy? I mentioned this in a chance conversation with Colin James, who suggested tackling the question in an active, verbal sense (‘a fair go’), rather than attempting to elaborate on ‘fairness’ as an abstract noun. Consequently, this paper does not propose ‘a theory of fairness’ as a proxy for, say, a theory of distributive justice, or a theory of social justice, even a non-ideal theory of justice (cf. Arvan, 2014; Simmons, 2010). My aim is more modest: to provide a framework for public reasoning in contexts where there is argument across the political spectrum about whether a public policy gives people who are affected by it ‘a fair go’. &nbsp

Income inequality and the economy of ideas

Among OECD countries, New Zealand has moved from having relatively low income inequality in the early 1980s to having above average inequality by the mid-2000s (OECD, 2008). Research conducted by Bryan Perry (2009) at the Ministry of Social Development shows that in New Zealand in 2008 the percentile ratio of income inequality (equivalised disposable household income before deducting housing costs) for P90 (top decile) to P10 (bottom decile) was 4.0, compared to 3.3 in 1984. The ratio for P80 (top quintile) to P20 (bottom quintile) for before-housing costs in 2008 was 2.6, compared to 2.3 in 1984.&nbsp

Diversity and democracy

A challenge for public policy in New Zealand, as elsewhere, is how to keep a diverse society democratic and, conversely, how to make democratic practice more inclusive in an increasingly diverse society