The case for reform in Australian public policy – a methodological note

Now that I have started this series, I have been thinking about the difficulties involved in demonstrating beyond doubt the need for change in approaches to public administration and public policy. We can see this if we look at my preliminary posts.

My focus to this point has been on unforeseen consequences, although other issues are already creeping in.

Consider the NSW child welfare case.

I have no doubt that the near collapse of the system as a consequence of mandatory reporting was unforeseen. No Government in its right mind would deliberately inflict such pain on itself. But could the result have been foreseen? After all, unforeseen results are common in public policy. I actually think that it could have been checked through the normal practical operational analysis that should be done in advance of such changes.

Whether this case was unforeseeable or simply unforeseen does not, of itself, support my case that there is a systemic problem that crosses Australian jurisdictions and requires major change to overcome. A few case studies does not make a case. They may be isolated examples of failure. Rather, I have to show that there is a pattern of behaviour and of results.

In doing so, I have to disentangle, categorise and simplify, a variety of interacting variables.

Staying with the unforeseen case, there is a difference between an unforeseen and an adverse effect. An unforeseen effect could in fact be positive. An adverse effect may not be really unforeseen. A Government may argue that you cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, that the illegal detention of Australian citizens is a price worth paying to protect our borders. In this event, we have a new set of arguments. Did we in fact want an omelet? Did we have to break the eggs? Could we have achieved the same result in a different way?

I also have a problem in explaining how things work to a lay reader who does not understand the system and may indeed be part of the problem!

In demanding that the Tasmanian Government link drivers licenses to school attendance, the Tasmanian opposition obviously felt that it was playing to public opinion. The rise of issues politics, the increasing tendency to play too often short term public reactions, is one of the core reasons why we now have a systemic public policy problem.

I will be discussing this a little later in the series, again using case studies to illustrate my points. For the moment, I simply note that it adds to the difficulties in bringing about real change.

Postscript on drivers licenses

Just a personal postscript on the drivers license issue.

Youngest is working part time at the airport in Sydney, starting at 5.30am. This morning she drove.

Both daughters started to learn to drive under the fifty hour regime. When the NSW Government changed the rules from 50 to 120 hours, those who already had their learner's permits stayed on the old regime, but had to acquire their license within a certain time frame.

Eldest busy with university, sport and an active social life let her permit lapse. With parents, public transport and boyfriends with licenses, she did not need to drive herself. Now she is on the 120 hour regime, regrets not moving forward, but is kind of stuck for the present.

There is still a boy thing about cars in that boys are more likely to make the effort. In a very odd way, this has reinforced an old gender stereotype, boys who drive, girls who are driven.

On the way to the airport I asked youngest how many hours she now had up. She said twenty two. She has to get to fifty and her provisional license by 21 December or go onto the 120 hours. So there is now a fair bit of pressure.

At twenty two hours and expressed in skill terms, youngest is not ready yet to get her license. She can drive without turning my already grey hair greyer, but the skills aren't automatic.

Part of her problem is that her driving practice has been sporadic. As she said, you have to do it in solid blocks. A second problem is that she is learning on a manual.

On the way to the airport, I told her about the attempted car-jacking that failed because those doing it could not drive a manual - see A problem with gears. She laughed, and said that she must tell her friends, all of whom are learning on automatics.

Under the old regime, you got your license and then drove without restriction. There were a lot of crashes in my age group because people could drive, but actually pushed outside the envelope set by their skill sets and judgement. We now have quite restrictive provisional license requirements intended to address this problem.

In theory, the whole system was meant to be output (skills) focused. Once you got to a certain skills point, then you got you license. However, there were then restrictions on what you could do for a period to allow skills to build through practice.

In practice, the whole system has become quite rigidly time and input based. It is now actually easier and a lot quicker to get an unrestricted pilots license than a NSW drivers license.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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The case for reform in Australian public policy – a few straws in the wind

In the last few posts in this series I have looked at the unforeseen consequences of policy decisions, starting with rivers of grog in the Northern Territory, then looking at two NSW cases, mandatory reporting of child abuse and the extended hours required to get a NSW driving license

In this post I simply want to provide a few more straws in the wind.

One problem we face is the tendency to load unrelated things togther.

Back in July, the opposition in Tasmania was suggesting that young people should be prevented from getting a drivers' license if their school attendance was not good. How dumb can you get? School attendance has nothing to do with the question of how well can you drive. Those who most need their license for things like work also tend to be poorer school attendees.

A second tendency in a spin dominated world is to claim success for a single event or action.

Again in July, the headline of a NSW a story read P-Plate crashes down 45 per cent. The first paragraph said:

Following the introduction of no-tolerance law reforms in New South Wales, over 88,000 P-Plate drivers have been taken off the roads.

Fair enough you might say. What a good result, crashes down 45%.

A fact first. There has been a decline in the road toll for young drivers in NSW; 38 17 to 20-year-olds died in 2006, while 20 died in 2007.

So there have been over 88,000 license suspensions over two years for a saving of 18 deaths. I wonder where the extra time for a driving license fits?

Staying in NSW, there have always been fines for the growing volume of traffic offences. Then demerit points were added for each offence, so many points and you lose your license. Then demerit points for offences were increased. Suddenly so many ordinary middle class people were suffering license suspension for minor offences that the Government has been forced to back-off.

NSW locks up in jail four times as many young people relative to population size than Victoria. Seventy per cent of these re-offend within twelve months. In July, the NSW Government commissioned a study to find out why the State jails so many.

Part of the answer simply lies in criminal justice rules introduced to get tough on crime. Another reason lies (I think) in the increased numbers of people spending time for non-payment of fines.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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The case for reform in Australian public policy – NSW driving licenses

Continuing my analysis of the impact of unforeseen side effects on public policy, this post looks at the continuing impact of the NSW decision to increase the hours required to get a driving license from 50 to 120.

Again, this was one of those decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time. It also attracted public support because it was seen as a way of reducing the road toll on young drivers.

I first wrote on this issue back in May 2008 in Saturday Morning Musings - the burden of compliance, using it to illustrate a broader point. Leaving aside social and equity issues, my concerns were cost (at least $350 million annually to NSW parents or trainee drivers on my rough back-of-envelope calculations) compared to benefits. I wondered whether the same objective might not be achieved in better ways.

Twelve months later in The continuing insanity of NSW's approach to driving licenses I complained of the way that the extra hours were creating a growing social inequity (poor people could not afford the costs involved), together with a growing tendency of young people to falsify their hours.

All the anecdotal evidence is that both trends have continued.A further trend has also emerged.

Any trainer knows that concentrated practice is required to obtain a skill. The problem with the new rules on NSW driver licenses is that the sheer length of time involved means that kids are doing it in bits with gaps. Those sometimes lengthy gaps reduce the value of the practice.

Postscript:

The NSW Government has finally bowed to the inevitable and introduced two changes to the NSW driving license system.

Drivers over 25 will no longer need to keep log books. The practical effect is that the 120 hours no longer applies to them.

For drivers under 25, every hour of practice with a licensed driving instructor will now count as three up to a limit of ten hours. This means that middle class kids with access to a bit of money will now need to do only 100 hours, including ten hours of licensed instruction, to get to 120 hours.

Kids who do not have access to the money are still stuck with 120 hours. Mind you, if they wait until they are 25, then they do not need any hours at all.    

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming Australian public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.
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The case for reform in Australian public policy - NSW child welfare

In my last post in this series, The case for reform in Australian public policy - rivers of grog, I used a post by Bob Gosford to introduce the concept of unforeseen side effects. This post provides the next example.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

NSW had a problem with child abuse. To help overcome this, the NSW Government introduced rules making it mandatory for professionals such as doctors to report suspected child abuse.

Such a sensible idea. The only problem is that no one foresaw that the consequent volume of calls would bring the NSW child welfare system to its knees.

You see, there was no effective way of triaging the volume of calls to allow for effective follow up. Just as bad, the resource demands and pressures created actually reduced the capacity of the NSW Department to do its ordinary job.

The end result was scandal and a commission of inquiry.

Those interested can find further information in the following posts.

• 11 November 2007. NSW - Problems in Child Welfare looks at problems and a history of the early evolution of the NSW child welfare system.
• 2 January 2008. Australia - failures in public policy points to some of the reasons why child welfare had become a mess.
• 12 February 2008. Musings - Inflation, Volunteering, Child Welfare and Educational Standards includes a discussion of child welfare issues.
• 4 October 2008. Child abuse in Australia - a case of misused numbers? looks at the abuse of child protection statistics.
• 26 November 2008, Wood Commission Report into the NSW Child Welfare System provides a link through the report itself.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming public administration on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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The case for reform in Australian public policy - rivers of grog

Yesterday in We need to reform Australia's approach to public policy I said that I was going to dedicate writing on this blog for one month to just one topic, the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure. You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

My first piece of evidence is Bob Gosford's How Canberra keeps the NT’s “rivers of grog” flowing. Bob lives in the small township of Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs on the southern fringes of the Tanami Desert on land owned by people of the Warlpiri and Anmatyerre language groups.

In considering this piece of evidence, look at the way in which policies designed to be "tough" have in fact had the opposite effect.

This is an example of what are called unforeseen side effects. To some degree these are inevitable in public policy. The challenge is to find ways of minimising them, or of identifying and correcting them once they do occur.

Note to readers:

This is one of a month long series on the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration.

Consider yourself the judge or jury as I present the evidence. Most posts will be short, introductions to other writing. My argument is that we now have a systemic pattern of failure.

You have to decide whether or not I am right and, if so, what you think that we should do about it.

If you want to follow the whole series through, you can click reforming public policy on the side bar. This will bring the whole series up. Alternatively, if you want to follow the whole series through from the first post, click here and then click next at the end of each post.

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We need to reform Australia's approach to public policy

Back in September Economic planning for the longer term - introduction was meant to be the start of a new series. Two months later and I have still to get going, although I have written a fair bit of related material in the meantime.

So much has been happening.

In The Rudd Government's longer term success or failure - straws in the wind I tried to set out some of the process challenges that I thought the Australian Rudd Government had to meet. In a very short post, Ken Henry inspires Ross Gittins' four big bugs, I reported on a senior Australian economic commentator's deeply pessimistic view of the future.

In Saturday Morning Musings - a change in writing direction I provided an initial report on the thinking that I had been doing about my own writing. As part of this, I have decided to dedicate writing on this blog for one month to just one topic, the need for reform in Australia's approach to public policy and administration. This will give me a chance to pull together past writing, as well as set out new ideas.

This is quite a complicated topic, in part because so many people are locked into current thinking.

I hope that you will find the series at least interesting.

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Winton Bates' Freedom and Flourishing

One of the most thoughtful blogs around is Winton Bates' Freedom and Flourishing.It's not always easy to read. That's not a criticism, simply a refection of the subject matter.

Winton's most recent posts ( How do preferences relate to well-being? and Should we expect the rules of a good society to be good for everyone?) bear upon a topic that has worried me, the increasing tendency of Governments to make decisions "for our own good."  This is creating something of a policy and administrative mess.   

Australia increases official interest rates - again!

Today's official interest rate increase by Australia's Reserve Bank has received global coverage. Who would have thought it? We are just not used to this focus! 

Australia's remarkable economic performance

It's really very interesting, and it's also very unusual, for the Australian economy to decouple in the way it has from the developed world. It's also interesting to look back at previous forecasts.

The chart shows official Australian forecasts of GDP at the start of last November. At that stage, Australia was expected to be the only developed country other than Canada to stay in positive growth territory.

Following these forecasts,the global outlook worsened and Australian pessimism set in, something that I tried to fight against. All the forecasts went quite negative.

In recent times, Australia has been clawing back. Interest rates have started to rise, the Australian Government is looking to trim stimulus, and house prices have boomed.

The attached chart shows the latest Australian Treasury forecasts for GDP growth. Australian GDP growth in 2009 is now expected to be greater than that projected in November.

Australia is unusual as the only developed country now expected to show positive GDP growth in calendar 2009.

How real is all this?

It's real enough, although in Australia as in other countries Government stimulus packages played a major role in countering the downturn.

The issue that Australia now faces is what's next. And here there are some interesting variables indeed.                

Interest rate rises, the balance of payments and the Australian economy - August 09 trade figures

I watched the global reaction to the Reserve Bank's decision to raise interest rates with a degree of bemusement. To paraphrase one overseas story, it was a case of a one trillion dollar economic tail wagging the global market dog. I guess it shows how much concern is still around.

A key reason why I was more optimistic about the Australian economic position last year than most was the sudden strengthening in Australia's trade position. To my mind, this gave Australia an added economic buffer. The trade position has now gone into reverse.

   The August trade figures were released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 6 October. They confirmed a continued deterioration in Australia's trade position.

The attached graph from ABS shows the balance of trade on goods and services. You can see clearly how the trade position improved over 2008, then went into reverse in the early part of 2009.

The next graph shows Australia's imports of goods and is quite instructive. You can see how Australia's economic expansion led to the country sucking in increasing overseas goods. This went into reverse at the end of 2008.

Imports of services displayed a somewhat similar trend, although service imports are now displaying a stronger upward trend.    

Now the point here is that our balance on goods and services has deteriorated in spite of a decline in imports of goods.

The reason for this lies in a decline in the value of our exports of goods; service credits are essentially flat lining.

The next graph shows our exports of goods. You can see just how steep the decline in the value of our exports has been since the peak at the end of last year.

I haven't attempted to disentangle the price and volume effects in the figures, nor have I looked at compositional issues. I think that the raw numbers are sufficient for present purposes.

Just as the improvement in Australia's trade position provided a buffer leading into the global turn down, the deterioration now provides a constraint on economic growth.

As the Australian economy expands, additional imports will be sucked in. Without additional exports, the consequent deterioration in the balance on goods and services must constrain growth.

In theory in a world of floating exchange rates, the Australian dollar should depreciate to balance any deterioration. In practice, in at least the short term, the Australian dollar moves at variance to the economic fundamentals. Just as the fall in the value of the ozzie last year was not supported by the fundamentals, I would now question the size of the rise.

During the week I heard one commentator suggest that Australia was now, in economic terms, in a group of its own. Others suggested that demand for commodities especially from China was the proximate cause of Australia's better performance.

If you look at the numbers, it seems to me that Australia is in fact in the same position as most countries, if a little more fortunate. We are just as dependant as other countries on improved economic conditions if the current recovery is to be sustained.