Evaluating Policy Advice: The Australian Experience
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | Patrick Weller,Bronwyn Stevens |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00118 |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
EVALUATING POLICY ADVICE:
THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE
PATRICK WELLER AND BRONWYN STEVENS
Mandarins give policy advice. The process is shrouded in the mystique of
confidentiality. Policy advising is regarded as the ultimate skill, the height
of ambition for civil servants, far above responsibility for the exercise of
executive authority in the delivery of services. For departmental secretaries
this policy-advising relationship with the minister is a crucial element of
their success; for senior officials access to the minister may be an indication
of their centrality to the department’s interests. The challenge of advising
ministers is the ultimate ambition for many in public service.
But how well is the job done? In part there seems to be an implicit
assumption that good people give good advice. If the system ensures those
who reach the top of the civil service are properly talented, then it follows
that the quality of advice will be based on firm foundations. Where policies
fail, it can be argued, it is because the government failed to listen. Since
ministers take decisions, failures need not indicate the advice provided by
officials was poor. However such assumptions need to be tested. Pro-
gramme evaluation is now routinely undertaken, but the evaluation of pol-
icy advice has been left to more informal mechanisms. Yet policy advice is
a crucial determinant in public sector activity.
Policy advice may be difficult to assess. It is, after all, eventually a matter
of judgement, an art or craft rather than a science (Wildavsky 1979; Waller
1996, p. 12). It usually requires the reduction of a complex problem to a set
of options, based on assumptions about causation, and compatible with
government policies or directions. There is no guarantee ministers will
accept the advice. Nor should there be. Hence in the process of evaluation
the emphasis must be more on the development of advice than on resultant
action. Acceptance cannot be an absolute criterion of good advice. Even
when advice is accepted without change, there may be problems of
Patrick Weller is Professor of Politics and Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Australian
Public Sector Management at Griffith University; Bronwyn Stevens is Lecturer in Politics at the
Sunshine Coast University College, Queensland. They would like to thank Michael Keating and
Glyn Davis for their comments on drafts of this article.
Public Administration Vol. 76 Autumn 1998 (579–589)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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