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Evidence Good policy advice is underpinned by good evidence. This means that the advice is informed by up-to-date data, contextual and other knowledge, people’s experiences and research from New Zealand and overseas. Achieving evidence-...

Communicating advice effectively to a decision-maker relies on the art of good story telling. To tell your story well you need to: know your audience (usually a minister) how best to engage with your audience set the scene or context for...

Public problems are increasingly complex and connected, which requires policy practitioners to tap into creative answers. The business case for innovation is well known. Faced with increasing citizen expectations, technological change, and...

Personas are research-based characters that you create to understand the real experiences of people who will use your service or be affected by a policy. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it...

Journey mapping helps you to understand a person’s experiences by creating a map of their interactions with the system. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal circumstances for use...

Design thinking is also known as human-centred design, co-design and participatory design. On this page: Design thinking for policy Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal circumstances for use...

Policy Capability Leads are people nominated by their agency to lead work on improving policy quality and capability. The Policy Project hosts workshops with Policy Capability Leads to discuss agency experiences using the Policy Project’s frameworks,...

Good policy advice depends on skilled policy practitioners with the right knowledge and tools to do the job. The Policy Project has developed useful, practical resources that policy practitioners can use to develop their policy skills and...

Free and frank advice underpins our system of government. Policy practitioners giving free and frank advice to their Ministers (and Cabinet as whole) is one of the principal tenets of our system of government. It demonstrates and upholds the...

This page collects policy-related publications and resources from past events, including conversation trackers, slide packs, videos, and publications. These events include those hosted by the Policy Project and a range of other organisations. They are...

As part of our commitment to accountability and transparency, agencies include information in their Estimates and Annual Reports on: the quality of their policy advice and the satisfaction of their minister/s with the policy support provided by the...

The Policy Project has built links to its counterparts in other jurisdictions, particularly Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Australian policy professionals There are more than 7000 policy advisors in the Australian Public Service. Their...

There are lots of ways for you to connect with your policy colleagues across the New Zealand public service and overseas. You can find here ways to connect with the New Zealand policy community and the international policy community.

A summary of the different behavioural change models On this page: Nudge, system-thinking, and peripheral - and central-thinking models The theory of planned behaviour and related models of rational decision-making Motivated reasoning and cognition,...

The Policy Project’s newsletter View our latest newsletter to stay up to date with developments in the policy community. Email us at policy.project@dpmc.govt.nz to go on our mailing list. Policy forums The Policy Project regularly holds policy forums...

The Development Pathways Tool identifies the actions a policy practitioner can take to develop their skills at three different levels - developing, practising, and expert/leading. These actions are organised into three ways of learning - on the job...

Why does community engagement matter when creating policy, and how do we make sure it’s done well? Across the public sector, we recognise that community engagement is no longer an optional extra. It’s also not enough to put a discussion document online...

As well as the many tools and resources we provide on these webpages, we also offer a range of services to help the New Zealand government improve its policy performance. Please contact us at policy.project@dpmc.govt.nz if you’d like to talk about the...

The Head of the Policy Profession hosted a roundtable for senior policy leaders with Professor Mark Moore from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The session was designed to learn about the concept of ‘public value’ and how policy...

This document contains guidance on different types of communication with Ministers and Cabinet. Whether you're writing a Cabinet paper, a policy paper, an aide memoire, or an A3, you'll find high-level descriptions of what's involved, links to resources...

The Policy Profession Board supports the Head of the Policy Profession – the policy system leader. The Board does this by: acting as a sounding board for system policy capability and quality issues being champions for joined-up efforts to improve the...

The Head of the Policy Profession wants chief executives and their departments to understand and meet their policy stewardship responsibilities. Policy leaders (Tier 2s and strategic advisors) came together to discuss what success in policy stewardship...

The New Zealand public service has a duty of stewardship, to look ahead and provide advice on future challenges and opportunities. Good policy advice is informed by a strategic view on what’s important in the medium to long term – it takes a...

The Policy analyst forum was designed by analysts, for analysts. It provided an opportunity for 64 early career analysts from across the Public Service to share their ideas for improving policy capability, quality and performance. At the end...

This set of checklists can help policy advisers and law makers with the development and review of legislative reform. The checklists are an extract from Appendix 1 of David Goddard, Making Laws That Work: How Laws Fail, and How We Can Do Better (Hart...

In November 2022, Justice David Goddard made the presentation below on ‘Making Laws that Work’ to a Policy Forum for policy managers and principal advisors from across the Public Service. You can also see a copy of Justice Goddard’s Legislation...

The Tier 2 Policy Leaders’ Network constitutes deputy chief executives with policy responsibilities from every Public Service agency. The Network’s monthly meetings are chaired by Brook Barrington, Head of the Policy Profession. The scope of the matters...

About the Policy Project Great policy advice is the foundation of effective government decision making. It underpins the performance of the economy and the wellbeing of all people in New Zealand. The Policy Project is about building a high...

Engaging individuals and groups from the community to participate in policy design and development through: providing information asking for feedback and reaction involving people collaboration empowering decision making and action....

Laws should give effect to the policy intent while upholding legal and constitutional principles. Careful policy analysis and early consideration of legislative design helps achieve this outcome. It’s important for the policy process to...

Te Tiriti o Waitangi / Treaty of Waitangi analysis applies the terms and concepts in the texts of the Treaty to policy development and implementation. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal...