Policy agencies need to keep pace with current issues and prepare for the challenges ahead. Investing in continuous improvement enables maintaining their capability to produce good policy advice.
The Policy Capability Framework is an organisational improvement tool. It describes the key components of policy capability needed by a government agency or team to produce quality policy advice. The Framework provides a common language for government agencies to reflect on policy performance and identify areas for improvement, while being flexible enough to apply in different operating contexts. Senior leaders and policy managers use the Framework to improve the policy performance of their teams and agencies.
At the highest level, the Policy Capability Framework identifies four components of policy capability.
Each of the four components of policy capability is made up of a number of elements. For each element, there are lead questions and lines of inquiry to guide government agencies and teams in conversations about policy performance.
Tools and applications
There are different ways to apply the Framework:
- Self-review – to support internal conversations on policy capability within a government agency or policy team.
- 'Critical friend' peer review – including someone from an external agency in the review team to provide an external perspective and support cross-fertilisation of ideas on how to improve policy capability.
- Detailed capability assessment – internal or external assessment of the policy capability of the government agency or team. This includes prioritising areas for improvement and developing an action plan to improve capability.
The findings from applying the Policy Capability Framework can help inform the agency’s annual work programme for improving policy capability and quality. It can also be used as an input into the reconfiguration of policy teams or review of the policy-operating model in an agency.
Policy Capability Framework: review tool
The review tool supports a detailed policy capability assessment of a government agency or team. It includes a maturity rating scale for each element of capability. The maturity questions help guide decisions on the priority areas for improvement, and the answers form the basis of an action plan to improve policy capability.
Case studies
The following case studies provide insights into the ways government agencies can improve policy capability and quality.
Inland Revenue regularly applies the Policy Capability Framework as a health check, to maintain focus on the policy improvement outcomes it wants to achieve. The case study explores how Inland Revenue uses the Framework and how this has supported the agency's policy capability journey, including tips for other agencies.
Ministry for Culture and Heritage case study
The Policy Branch Manager from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage shares their journey to improve policy capabilty and quality. The case study explores what makes a top-performing policy function in a government agency and how to set expectations and create the right dynamics for policy improvement.
How the Policy Project can help
The Policy Project is available to work with individual policy teams and the overall policy functions in New Zealand government agencies – to support them in improving their policy capability. We are available to support you by:
- leading sessions on applying the Policy Capability Framework to assess current policy capability, prioritise areas for improvement, and develop realistic action plans
- being a member of the review team applying the Policy Capability Framework to provide an external perspective and share what other agencies are doing to improve policy capability
- peer reviewing action plans to improve policy capability
- running skill building sessions in priority areas for improvement, such as commissioning, policy advice, policy project initiation, and risk analysis.
We are happy to tailor our support to what works for your policy team, wherever you are at on your journey to being (or remaining) high-performing. You can contact us at [email protected]