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We've created three policy improvement frameworks to help government agencies deliver great policy advice. They promote a more joined-up and consistent approach to improving individual’s policy skills, organisational capability, and the quality of advice...

Join us as we share stories and insights from New Zealand and abroad that can boost our policy making. What makes great policy? Or what makes policy great? Follow our blog for our posts on initiatives from New Zealand and abroad – there’s a lot they can...

The Development Pathways Tool can help you as a policy practitioner to develop your policy skills. If you are a policy manager, it can help you with development planning for your team. The Development Pathways Tool identifies the actions that a policy...

Achieving the multiple dimensions of quality policy advice can be challenging. Here you will find information on how to develop and deliver policy advice effectively, and what good practice in key dimensions means. Over the years, a number of...

The Policy Project's Open Government Partnership focus is on working across government to improve community engagement in policy making. The Policy Project supports lifting the community engagement capability of policy advisors and agencies...

Quality advice is the foundation of good decision making. The key resources we've created to help you produce high quality policy advice are: Developing papers with the Policy Quality Framework – Checklist for reviewing papers in...

Good policy advice depends on skilled policy practitioners – able to analyse and respond to policy challenges and come up with workable solutions that will add value to the lives of people in New Zealand. To do this, policy practitioners...

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 key resources we've created to help with that are:...

The policy system is led by the Head of the Policy Profession, Dr Brook Barrington, Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is supported by the Policy Profession Board, the Policy Project team, and the Tier 2...

Behavioural insights involves the study of human behaviour, often drawing on empirical research in fields including economics, psychology and sociology. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it...

Using structured deliberation by members of the public to progress policy. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal circumtances for use Limitations References, guides and key readings...

Futures thinking is also known as foresight, strategic foresight and futures studies. On this page: About futures thinking Futures thinking and the policy process Why you should use it What it involves What you'll get out of it Ideal...

A structured process of looking for early signs of change that could disrupt the issue you are studying in unexpected ways. On this page: Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal circumstances for use...

Stories that describe alternative ways the external environment might develop in the future. Why you should use it What it involves What you will get out of it Ideal circumstances for use Limitations References, guides and key...

The Policy Project team supports the Head of the Policy Profession to fulfill his role of building a high performing policy system across the public service. Our work includes: promoting our three policy improvement frameworks amongst...

In 2014, the then State Services Commissioner, Peter Hughes, created this functional lead role. The objective was to provide stronger leadership to those parts of the public service responsible for providing policy advice.   Dr Brook...

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...

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 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 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 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...