How (Not) to Write a Policy Pamphlet

Thinking of writing a policy proposal?

Civil servants and journalists are delighted - after they start reading yet another ominously long document - when they realise that you don’t offer a realistic policy answer so there’s no need to read any further.

What signals suggest that you haven’t found an answer? Here are a few identified by Giles Wilkes and others1:-

a) You call for ‘a national conversation or debate’.

b) You suggest that what is needed is ‘a change in culture’.

c) You point out some factor that matters a lot, don’t really say how you would deploy it, but then you add ‘anyway it isn’t a silver bullet’.

d) You boldly argue that what we need is more data.

e) You savagely decry policy inconsistency, implying that ANY policy, if stuck to, would have been OK.

f) You call for politicians to show a bit more courage.

g) You call for a few more strategies and you devolve responsibility for making each of them happen to the Prime Minister’s monthly table-banging meeting (since the Prime Minister happens to be magic).

h) You imply that AI is going to be so transformative that minor problems like a 20 year productivity disappointment will feel like merely a hiccup.

i) You propose an ‘-ism’. The answer, for instance, to poor language learning in City X is Multi Model Supra-positism. And the answer to the nation’s problems is Manchester-ism2

j) Instead of solving policy problem X, you propose the creation of a review into X, a Royal Commission for X, or perhaps a new ‘Office for X’.

k) For any really assertive take, you bury the justification in a footnoted, unreachable document.

l) You don’t say what the policy should be, but demand that it be aligned similarly everywhere, implicitly calling into existence dozens of meetings between the policy silos.

m) You suggest that we also need to stop thinking in silos …

n) … and accept that nothing is a panacea.

o) There should be a minister, or even better a Czar, for (or against) it …

p) … or a task force.

q) Existing initiatives will need to be leveraged so as to avoid a postcode lottery.

r) Something must be embedded across all policy making. (How do we fix local growth? Embed an awareness of place in every policy discussion) (i.e. more flower gardens.)

s) Ditto ‘mainstreaming’3.

t) Resources should be ‘streamlined’ and more clearly directed to whole of government priorities by a newly created Office of the Prime Minister merging a strengthened Cabinet Office with 10 Downing St to create a … whatever ...

u) If all else fails, just say everything would be better if the Treasury weren’t so mean.

The above was transcribed from Giles’ original Bluesky thread.

I also recommend Giles’ Government Policy Rules - part of Policy Making 101.

Martin Stanley