Quality advice is the foundation of good decision making.
The Policy Quality Framework identifies four high-level elements of quality policy advice: context, analysis, advice, and action. Under each of these is a set of characteristics to guide the policy community in developing good quality advice.
The Policy Quality Framework and associated tools can be used by:
- individual policy advisors developing advice or providing peer review
- policy managers commissioning or reviewing policy advice
- panels or others assessing the quality of a government agencies' written advice before or after it has been delivered.
Policy Quality Framework summary
This summary version of the Framework sets out the standards and characteristics of quality policy advice.
This A3 provides a deeper level of detail to the characteristics of quality policy advice.
Developing advice
Developing papers with the Policy Quality Framework: Checklist for reviewing papers in development
If you're developing advice or peer reviewing someone else’s advice, this checklist can help by providing a set of questions to ask, as you review your own or someone else’s draft paper. It also outlines things to do that will enable a paper to meet the quality of advice standards. Agency quality assurance panels who review policy advice papers before they are delivered may also find the checklist helpful.
Assessing advice
Policy Quality Framework: A guide on panels and processes for assessing policy advice papers
This guide provides advice on how to run a panel-based assessment of policy and other advice papers after their delivery. It includes advice on how to set up and run panels, and assess and score papers. It also provides a paper-scoring template. Where external parties are used to assess an agency’s quality of policy advice, they are also required to use the Policy Quality Framework as the measuring stick.
The original guidance, developed in 2019, has been updated to clarify or provide more information on:
- sampling approaches – size, and papers to include
- documenting panel processes (including induction processes)
- scoring judgements – including assigning half-points and reaching a panel consensus on scores
- timeliness of feedback to authors and managers – to support best practice and improvements in advice
- the importance of agency policy quality improvement plans to improve future performance.
Policy Quality Framework: Checklist for panel administrators
This electronically editable checklist is provided in the guide on panels and processes, and also as a separate product here. It can help panel administrators with setting up the assessment processes of a policy quality panel.
Policy Quality Framework: Paper-scoring template
The scoring template provided in the guide on panels and processes is also available separately here. It can be used by panel members to record their preliminary assessment of each paper they read.
Government agencies with a policy appropriation must use the Policy Quality Framework to assess the quality of their policy advice after its delivery. This includes setting performance targets for their quality of advice score in the Estimates of Expenditure for their agency, tabled in Parliament as part of the Government’s Budget process. They report on their results relative to the performance targets in their agency’s annual report each year.
Independent Review of Papers
Policy Quality Framework: Independent Panel Review of Papers (October 2023)
An independent panel was set up in November 2022 to review policy papers across the Public Service. The panel checked for consistency in assessments and policy scoring by agency and NZIER panels. They reviewed 52 papers from 26 agencies randomly drawn from their 2021/22 policy advice assessments.
The review followed a decision by the Policy Profession Board in March 2022 to assess whether the Policy Quality Framework is fit for purpose and being applied consistently, and if not, to provide suggestions for improvements. Agencies have been using the Policy Quality Framework since 2019 to assess the quality of their policy advice.
The review found that the policy quality assessment process and the Policy Quality Framework are fit for purpose and that there was a high level of consistency in the scoring of policy papers across agencies. The panel did find, however, that some key characteristics of the Policy Quality Framework are often missing in some of the papers. You can read more about the panel’s findings in the above PDF of the October 2023 report.
The benefits of a universal quality framework
The benefits of adopting the Policy Quality Framework as the universal standard for policy advice across the New Zealand Public Service include that:
- most policy issues are of interest to and require input from a number of government agencies – making it sensible for them to have a common standard for quality advice.
- the Framework provides agencies with a learning tool that they can use to help improve their policy performance, by building it into their policy project planning and quality assurance processes.
- having New Zealand Public Service-wide standards for the quality of policy advice enables agencies to benchmark the quality of their advice over time, and relative to their peers.
- policy practitioners don’t need to relearn quality standards when they move from agency to agency – good practice as a policy professional remains the same
- the Framework incorporates up-to-date expectations for how policy advice will reflect the Māori Crown relationship and the Treaty of Waitangi.
Support in using the refreshed Policy Quality Framework
The Policy Project is available to run agency workshops on using the Policy Quality Framework. Please contact us at [email protected].
More information on the features of quality policy advice
You may also be interested in checking out our Policy advice themes page. There you will find information on aspects of producing great advice and how to apply them - including free and frank advice, evidence and evaluation, and innovation.