Policy Co-Design: Insights for Leadership
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Why policy co-design?
Co-design is a transformative approach to public policy that empowers stakeholders to actively participate in the creation, iteration, delivery, and governance of policies. By harnessing the collective wisdom and expertise of citizens, experts, and policymakers, co-design ensures that policies are rooted in real-world needs and aspirations. It fosters collaboration, trust, and shared ownership, resulting in policies that are more effective, responsive, and equitable.
Co-design also enhances transparency and accountability in decision-making, as it engages those affected by the policy. By embracing co-design, we can achieve better implementation of services and product delivery, reduce risks and costs, and create policies that truly address the diverse voices and aspirations of our society.
Who is this report for?
Local Peoples has developed this report for policy leaders who are interested in understanding how co-design can transform effectiveness of policy development, improving the ability of policy to deliver on its intended outcomes and building grassroots buy-in amongst community members and inclusion, ultimately reducing costs and risks for policy makers. Our aim is to demystify the process of co-design practice and help you identify where, across your programs of work, a co-design project could provide value.
Public policy – How is it made, and how can it be made better?
The challenges to effective policy-making in Australia
Policy development in Australia is a complex process that is conducted in a number of ways. While the Australian Policy Cycle outlines a model for how policy should be made, it presumes consultation to be a single stage and conducted after analysis, rather than a continual process. Development along this process leads to policy that is not informed by the diverse expertise and experience available in the community. In practice, policy development is an inconsistent process and shaped by many other factors, of which you are no doubt well aware (for example political demands and structured in response to emergency objectives within deadlines that are often incredibly tight. Each phase of the policy development process throws up different challenges to the integrity, equity and effectiveness of the policy.
New policy is driven by a combination of political attention and political will, which is shaped by a number of different stakeholders and considerations, including: Lobbyist groups, political agendas and biases, market forces, crisis events, the perceived availability of viable solutions and market forces, and community needs.
This means that issues and stakeholder groups that do not have public influence or pre-articulated solutions may be lost or deprioritised in legislative agenda setting, leaving gaps in problem area identification. Further, the context in which the agenda is set can affect the quality of the policy itself. A major risk is that a policy might be rushed or short-sighted, due to external events, crises, elections or budget deadlines.
The Australian Policy Cycle
Currently, the Australian Policy Cycle does not always support best practice in trialling multiple potential solutions prior to deciding, leading to an academic analysis of options rather than evidence-based decision making focused around the people whom the policy serves. This lack of guidance on meaningful and monitored policy delivery is exacerbated by the gap between implementation and evaluation in the model, which means unintended impacts and consequences are not identified or mitigated early, and policy is unable to be iterated or managed in response to the real impacts.
When legislative intent is translated into ministerial directives, personal or political biases can lead to a re-shaped policy direction that is not based on best-practice evidence or the needs of citizens. Without consultation with subject matter experts and key stakeholders, and without any test-driven design of policy interventions, policy delivery today usually doesn’t align with the intended policy purpose.
Policy delivery
During policy implementation, challenges become complexified by siloed structures. The practical and logistical work of policy implementation is usually undertaken by people who did not develop the policy and who have no access to policy makers, leading to information being inaccurately conveyed across different teams and stages.
When policy intent is not accurately communicated during this phase it can become disconnected from its intended purpose and the people it aims to serve. Governments around the world are actively starting to close the gap between policy design and delivery to overcome this challenge, with policy participation in product teams, and policy teams starting to reach out to frontline expertise. This multi-disciplinary policy management approach is crucial to achieving clarity of policy purpose through to the realisation of the policy intent. Declining public trust in politicians and government poses a further complication, making it difficult to authentically engage and communicate with citizens during policy development. A 2017 report showed trust in government was at its lowest point since 1993, with only 5 per cent of Australians expressing trust in government.
The following image presents a novel representation of how fragmented the policy journey has become, with teams separated, policy intent lost, impact unmeasured, and point-in-time evaluation always too little and too late.
Adaptive policy
Shifting to an end-to-end and adaptive approach to policy management would have the greatest impact on improving the quality of policy, but would require a fundamental shift in the operating model assumed by the Australian Policy Cycle. This approach would involve policy design and delivery throughout the whole life cycle, with public engagement from the start, and continuous monitoring of intended and unintended impacts to complement (and potentially trigger) formal evaluations as required.
What are the risks for getting policy wrong?
Changing policy once it is in motion is incredibly complex and challenging. Quality research needs to be done at the outset to ensure that the problem being experienced by citizens or the environment is genuinely being solved. Without adequate due diligence, there is a high risk the policy will continue down its path of implementation and incur massive costs in time, effort and taxpayer money to provide ineffective products and services9.
This speaks to two distinct problems for policy making today: firstly, the challenges of getting the initial design of a policy as right as possible; and secondly, the challenges of adapting policy after it has been designed. The only constant in this world is change, and the very assumptions, conditions and evidence that inform good policy design will inevitably change over time, and yet policy management has not been designed to detect or respond to change, even when that change might completely undermine the policy design. A lack of real-time policy or impact monitoring means policy failure can be difficult to pinpoint or define, making it hard to confirm whether a policy is effective or not.
“A policy fails, even if it is successful in some minimal respects, if it does not fundamentally achieve the goals that proponents set out to achieve, and opposition is great and/or support is virtually non-existent.” – McConnell (2015, p. 221)
Of course, there are also examples of unintended harm through poor policy design. “Automation of some administrative social security functions is a very good idea, and inevitable. The problem with Robodebt was the policy, not the technology. The technology did what it was asked very effectively. The problem is that it was asked to do something daft.”
Here are some examples of where policy has gone wrong:
Unintended consequences:
Such as the Home Insulation Program, where inadequate training and safety standards led to a number of deaths and injuries.
Reduced trust in government and public institutions:
Such as the Robodebt scandal, wherein issuing of incorrect debt notices led to public outrage the scheme is now subject to a Royal Commission.
Reduced trust in government initiatives:
Such as the Cashless Debit Card program, criticised for being both discriminatory and ineffective in its goals.
Poor return on investment:
Such as the Building the Education Revolution (BER) infrastructure program, which has been criticised for providing funding for unnecessary or ineffective projects.
Monopolies or near monopolies:
Such as the price monitoring regime failing to impose reasonable restraints on the Port of Newcastle’s pricing system, which saw the owner able to increase charges by 40 per cent unimpeded.
Biosecurity and national security threats or hazards:
Such as the introduction of cane toads in Australia to fight the problem of cane beetles, with the toads going on to become one of the country’s biggest pests.
The potential for co-design in policy-making
Policy co-design is a design-led process that directly involves end-users and stakeholders in public problem-solving19 throughout policy design, delivery and governance. In practice, it uses creative and participatory principles and tangible tools to engage communities, industry organisations, and other government departments to collaborate on policy development in order to make more informed decisions to meet the diverse needs of the community.
By facilitating the direct participation of stakeholder groups and people with lived experience, co-design addresses some of the key barriers to effective policy design. It ensures policies are authentically responsive to the needs of stakeholders, preemptively identifies emergent biases, and increases inclusion by meeting people where they are – all of which helps to increase the effectiveness of policy and de-risk negative outcomes20. Moreover, incorporating creative toolkits into the policy design process can help improve idea generation and provide opportunities for experimental thinking that can elevate evidence-based approaches.
The importance of using co-design processes extends well beyond the policy development phase. While co-design is necessary and valuable at this stage, it is just as important to meaningfully involve end users in the processes of delivery and governance. One of the limitations of the Australian Policy Cycle model is that it assumes problems can be solved within the lifecycle of a single policy, where in reality many systemic challenges take decades or longer to address effectively. Engaging stakeholders in the delivery and governance of policy initiatives allows us to obtain a nuanced understanding of the real-world impact of those initiatives, enabling us to iteratively develop and improve upon past work to build consistently towards positive change.
As Evans and Terrey (2016) point out, co-design done badly can “destroy trust systems”, but when done well it can help “solve policy and delivery problems, stabilise turbulent lives, and improve life chances”.
Key opportunities presented by co-design
Building trust
Involving the public in policy development can improve trust, create a sense of ownership over outcomes, and facilitate greater buy-in to resultant products or services – improving their capacity for impact against policy objectives.
Targeted problem definition
Stakeholder engagement builds a more complex picture of problem areas and can highlight new lines of enquiry, enabling the development of incisive and novel solutions.
Social innovation
Engaging end users and subject matter experts ensures the best possible evidence base for new, creative solutions with cut-through.
Overcoming bias
With a range of perspectives in the room, there are more opportunities to identify bias before it is cemented in policy.
Designing for inclusion
Through a more considered understanding of stakeholders being engaged, empathy for minority and marginalised communities can be designed for to ensure they are represented in decision making.
Future-proofing policies
Improved problem definition and solution generation mitigates risk of shortsighted solutions being based on flawed assumptions.
Unlocking novel source of value
Deeper engagement with experts and end users leads to solutions that deliver tangible and measurable social, environmental and economic impact.
How co-design can be used across the policy development process
Local Peoples’ goal is to support the policy development and implementation process. Ultimately, Public Servants are accountable for making the key decisions around how policy is implemented on behalf of the Australian public. We see our role as advocating for users – especially minorities – to be a part of the design process. In doing so, we deliver research, advisory, design, quality assurance and delivery throughout the value-creation process, depending on what is needed at each stage. Working with different cohorts, we explain legislation and policy, gather feedback, and ensure that the final product meets the needs of stakeholders and, importantly, end users.
Leveraging our research expertise, we help government departments understand how to conduct research related to the policy or service. We also assist in ensuring effective decision-making and change management. We emphasise the importance of creating a consistent service that goes horizontally. This prevents information getting lost.
Looking at how policy is generated today, here is how Local Peoples uses co-design to add value every step of the way:
Legislation
Delivering advocacy for minority groups through the provision of co-designed methods of mobilising representative voices.
Policy
Providing advisory support to Public Sector leadership, facilitating the collection and expert analysis of stakeholder, expert, technical, and environmental data to support good (and avoiding bad) policy outcomes.
Programs/Projects
Providing design-led delivery capability ready to ensure that the original policy intent is embedded in the program/project parameters when planned and mobilised.
Products/Services
Providing deep technical capability for the delivery of effective digital and physical public sector products and services.
How does co-design work?
The co-design mindset
To authentically undertake the co-design process, we must first take on a co-design mindset, aligning our ways of thinking and acting with the values of co-design that we are trying to actualise. Without taking on this mindset, we risk running a process that is tokenistic and does not truly centre the perspectives of those involved. The co-design mindset involves being:
Intentional:
Co-design appreciates that we shouldn’t just ‘design’, but that we should design with intention and purpose27. The purpose of policy co-design is to develop an output that tangibly resolves or improves an issue that community members are facing.
Curious:
Co-design practitioners need to be curious, not certain; to seek questions, not solutions. We must be open to having our own ideas, perspectives and world views changed. Much of our world is informed by ‘hard’ quantitative data and evidence, but forgets to look at the qualitative, that is, the story — the messy grey areas of complexity and context that make up a human life.
Participatory:
Co-design involves taking on a participatory mindset, where all stakeholders actively contribute to the process and decisions are made on consensus of the group. We shift from a hierarchical approach roles and responsibilities, to a horizontal approach.
Centring lived experience:
Co-design appreciates that people are the experts of their own lives. We must value the contributions of those with lived experience equally to the contributions of professionals or experts in the field. Identifying and deeply involving people with lived experience also improves our understanding of the issues at hand, our awareness of complexities, and provides a greater capacity for responsiveness.
Equal, respectful and reciprocal:
A co-design project is a collaborative partnership between all stakeholders. Working with the principles of equality, respect and reciprocity is essential to building an environment that honours the contributions of stakeholders, and acknowledges the vulnerability of talking to one’s lived experience, and ultimately ensures more transformative outcomes.
The co-design team
Co-design brings together policy makers, designers, experts and users to collaborate on policy development. Establishing competent teams requires identifying the appropriate stakeholders to engage and the technical roles that need to be filled, establishing clear roles, responsibilities and communication channels across them to support trustful and effective collaboration.
When co-designing policy, a team typically comprises:
Designers: Facilitators of the process who have the technical skillset to deliver the end product or service. The designer’s role is to plan and manage the project, design and conduct research activities, design and facilitate co-design activities with stakeholders, and ultimately transform research and stakeholder contributions into a functional product or service.
Citizens and users: Individuals who have lived experience of the issue at hand, or are intended to access the products and services that will result from the policy.
Policy professionals: Experts in shaping and implementing policies to address societal challenges and drive positive change. These professionals possess a deep understanding of the policy-making process and leverage their knowledge and skills to develop effective strategies and initiatives.
Industry representatives: Members of public, private and/or non-government organisations that work in the problem area implicated.
Subject matter experts: Individuals who have advanced expertise in the policy area being explored.
Project sponsors: Representatives of the government body responsible for delivering the policy.
Types of design practitioners
Designers, in general, have a refined skillset in leading collaborative problem solving processes, facilitating stakeholders to generate insights and ideas and transforming these into tangible outputs and outcomes. Beyond this, there are a range of specialties within design that bring specific value to a project based on its technical requirements. A design practitioner may be typified in the following ways.
Content designer
Experts in creating engaging and informative written material for a range of audiences and formats. Content designers work closely with stakeholders to understand their objectives and target audiences, and conduct research to ensure content is accurate, credible and reliable. They often work in collaboration with visual design experts to deliver holistically engaging final products.
Design researcher
Experts in designing, conducting and analysing research that is targeted towards the design process. Using targeted research methods and methodologies, researchers work to deeply understand the problem and opportunity area – building a picture of user needs and behaviours and the broader social, cultural, environmental, and technical context that will influence the design outcome. This robust evidence base ensures that design outputs have the best chance of achieving desired outcomes.
Service designer
Experts in planning, designing and improving services for end users. Service designers take a holistic view of the resources, processes, technical components, stakeholders, and user interactions involved in a service to identify pain points and opportunity areas and design new solutions to address these.
Strategic designer
Experts in applying the principles of design thinking to develop strategies that solve complex problems. They work to understand user needs, organisational goals, market and social trends, and then use design methods to create innovative solutions and approaches that align with organisational objectives.
User experience (UX) designer
Experts in understanding how the structure and functionality of a product or service impacts the user experience. UX designers create designs that enhance the overall experience of using a product or service. UX designers use research, prototyping, and testing to ensure that the design meets user needs, is usable, and provides a positive experience.
User experience (UX) architect
Experts in designing the higher level structure and organisation of a product or service to create an intuitive and user-friendly experience. UX architects use information architecture and interaction design to create wireframes, sitemaps, and prototypes that guide the overall user experience.
User interface (UI) designer
Experts in developing visual and interactive elements of a product or service that users interact with. They use design tools such as colour, typography, and layout to create intuitive and visually appealing interfaces that enhance the user experience.
Web designer
Experts in creating websites that are visually appealing, functional, and easy to use. They use design tools and software to create layouts, graphics, and typography for web pages and ensure that the design is responsive and accessible on different devices.
Web developer
Experts in the technical build and maintenance of websites using programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They work closely with web designers to turn their designs into functional websites that are optimised for speed, accessibility, and security.
The co-design process
At Local Peoples, we plan our projects across six stages:
Discover:
This phase is highly interactive, focusing on team-building, research, learning, and benchmarking through collaborative workshops and immersive research with clients and users. We draw out as much as we can from clients’ existing experiences and research to ensure we’re on the same page and know enough about the context today to envision what could be tomorrow.
Types of activities:
– Stakeholder workshops
– Audience mapping
– User research
– Needs identification
– Contextual analysis
– Brand and digital audit
– Content and community audit
– Place and experience audit
– Product and venture audit
In collaboration with the client, we dive deep into aligning the value proposition from both the provider’s and customer’s points of view. It’s here that we prioritise which concepts to take forward into the design phase for further development.
Types of activities:
– Synthesised learnings
– Personas
– User journeys
– Opportunities
– Brand strategy
– Content strategy
– Digital strategy
– Project planning
Design
We evaluate and refine the experience, creating tangible solutions that bring the design concepts and brand positioning together, with consideration for the technical approach and business proposition. We build a compelling story around the design that moves people — and the business into action.
Types of activities:
– Policy co-design
– Service co-design
– Digital product experience co-design
– Brand and communications design
– Websites and apps
– Service design
– User testing
– MVP
Deliver
We analyse the outputs required and leverage our network of delivery experts to bring the project to market – from printing and physical fabrication, to community engagement, to digital design and build.
We have extensive experience delivering brand, digital, content and experience design outcomes of all scales – we love to craft the outcome and ensure the experience lives up to the idea.
Types of activities:
– Finished artwork
– Digital channels rollout
– Beta testing
– Marketing & public relations
– Content
– Metrics tracking
– Growth strategy
– Support
Monitor & Evaluate
We assess the performance of the policy design, service design and delivery in progressing towards its identified goals, gathering and analysing data from its real-world functioning to identify what is working and what is not.
Types of activities:
– Developing performance frameworks
– Usability benchmarking frameworks
– Monitoring and evaluating user experience
– Monitoring inclusive design goals
– Monitoring usage data
Iterate
We take the insights from the Monitor and Evaluate phase to adjust and refine the design to improve its usability and performance against identified goals (cycling through design, deliver, monitor/evaluate as needed).
References
1. “Public Policy”, Legal Dictionary, January 19, 2019, https://legaldictionary.net/public-policy/
2. “What is Public Policy”, Project Citizen, https://civiced.org/project-citizen/what-is-public-policy
3. Tim de Sousa and Elena Berrocal Capdevila, “What’s in a Name? Deconstructing and Defining ‘Policy’”, Digital.NSW, 17 April, 2019, https://www.digital.nsw.gov.au/article/whats-in-a-name-deconstructing-and-defining-policy
4. Catherine Althaus, Sarah Ball, Peter Bridgman, Glyn Davis, David Threlfall, “The Australian Policy Handbook: A Practical Guide to the Policymaking Process”, 7th ed., (New York: Routledge, 2023),
5. Pia Andrews, “Essays: Improving the Public Policy Cycle Model”, Pipka, July 8, 2014, https://pipka.org/2014/07/08/essays-improving-the-public-policy-cycle-model/
6. Cosmo Howard, “The Policy Cycle: A Model of Post-Machiavellian Policy Making?”, The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 64, No.3 (2005): 3-13.
7. Richard Hoefer, “The Multiple Streams Framework: Understanding and Applying the Problems, Policies, and Politics Approach”. Journal of Policy Practice and Research, 3 (2022): 1-5, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42972-022-00049-2
8. Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Hidden in Plain Sight: Building an understanding of how the Australian Public Service can unlock community expertise to improve policy, programmes and service delivery. (Canberra: DIIS, 2017), https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/open_government_partnership-committment_5.2-discover-report.pdf
9. Lucie Cerna, The Nature of Policy Change and Implementation: A Review of Different Theoretical Approaches. (Paris: OECD, 2013), https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/The%20Nature%20of%20Policy%20Change%20and%20Implementation.pdf
10. Tooran Alizadeh, “The NBN: how a national infrastructure dream fell short”, The Conversation, June 5, 2017, https://theconversation.com/the-nbn-how-a-national-infrastructure-dream-fell-short-77780
11. Bernardo Mueller, “Why public policies fail: Policymaking under complexity”, EconomiA 21, no. 2 (2020): 311-323, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1517758019300931
12. Allan McConnell, “What is policy failure? A primer to help navigate the maze”, Public Policy and Administration 30, no. 3-4 (2015), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0952076714565416
13. Ian Hanger, Report of the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program. (Canberra: Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program, 2014), https://apo.org.au/node/41087
14. ABC, “Robodebt royal commission hearings start in Brisbane today. Here’s what to expect”, ABC News, September 27, 2022, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-27/robodebt-royal-commission-inquiry-begins/101473734
15. Luke Henriques-Gomes, “Cashless debit card causes stigma and stress, government study suggests”, The Guardian, May 8, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/08/cashless-debit-card-causes-stigma-and-stress-government-study-suggests
16. Chris Lewis, “Building the education revolution: Another case of Australian government failure?”, International Journal of Public Administration 37, no. 5 (2014), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261099431_Building_the_education_revolution_Another_case_of_Australian_government_failure
17. Rod Sims, “How did the light handed regulation of monopolies become no regulation?”, transcript of speech delivered in Melbourne, October 29, 2015. https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/media/speeches/speech-on-how-did-the-light-handed-regulation-of-monopolies-become-no-regulation
Local Peoples’ goal is to support the policy development and implementation process. In doing so, we deliver research, advisory, design, quality assurance and delivery throughout the value-creation process, depending on what is needed at each stage. Interested to learn more about how co-design can benefit your project goals? Contact pino@localpeoples.com