UK Policy Lab, Cabinet Office

The Challenge    

In the face of fiscal austerity and government downsizing, the UK civil service was under pressure to be more effective with fewer resources. In response to this, the government launched a ground breaking initiative to professionalise policy making and raise the standard and effectiveness of policy makers across government.

Policy makers apply a broad spectrum of skills and knowledge across various departments and policy areas during their careers. However, this so-called “generalist” nature of policy making makes defining and achieving consistent professional standards particularly challenging.

Our brief was to develop ways to assess the capability of policy makers, as a means for government to measure performance and implement a more formalised system of professional standards and development.

What We Did  

We first broadened the focus of the brief beyond the tactical objective of performance-assessment, to explore the project goal from the perspective of the entire professional context and experience of policy-making.

Depth interviews with senior policy makers explored policy-making contexts and practices, mapped professional journeys, and investigated the barriers, drivers and hallmarks of policy-making “excellence.” Interviews were further informed by cross-departmental workshops, and consultations with representatives from accredited professions outside the civil service.

Result

Our solution embedded small but frequent protocols into the daily work and career planning activities of policy makers, to establish a consistent culture of ongoing professional development across government. These were organised within a new framework for professional standards that adapts to diverse career pathways and guides professional development towards more rigorously defined career milestones.