Policy Execution

The process of moving a policy idea from its concept stage to its implementation stage is fraught with peril. A recent survey by Deloitte helps explain why.

Deloitte, with the assistance of IPAC, CGE and APEX, conducted a survey of senior government officials across Canada. The same type of survey was also conducted in the US with their senior government officials. The good news is that we are slightly better than the US. But, then again, this is not a contest. There is lots of food for thought for public servants in all orders of government across Canada in this survey.

Some selected results:

41% of respondents deem governments less capable of successfully implementing large projects than 10 years ago, mainly due to increased complexity (28%); lack of focus (20%) and lack of effective leadership (17%);

In terms of policy design, the majority (51%) thought that the government is moderately successful, but there is a high level of disconnect between those that design policy and those that implement it, with 67% of respondents saying that there is little or no input from the front-line and/or those the policy is meant to serve; and

Lack of clear goals or guidance on implementation is cited as one of the issues that face government, with 42% saying they rarely receive this guidance and 42% indicating that they sometimes receive it.

The survey also asked respondents to list the barriers to successful implementation - the top 4 are: poor timing; partisan politics; unrealistic costs and complexity of coordination.

Leadership was seen to be key to the successful implementation of policy. The top leadership traits that respondents listed were all "soft" skills: good communicator, visionary, and consensus builder.

On of the most shocking response was the one to the question on the confidence of the present leaders with the next generation of leaders ability to address future challenges - only 4% are highly confident! 42% are not or moderately not confident. Isn't it the job of the present leadership cadre to ensure that the next generation is able to address these future challenges. I think that the answer to this question says a lot more about the present leadership!

You can get a copy of the powerpoint presentation by clicking www.ipac.ca/policyexecution