Program Page

This series includes:

While the world of policy is often chaotic and unpredictable, academic concepts and frameworks can help policy makers to understand how policy issues are identified and analysed and the major policy instruments available to government in reaching and communicating its decisions. This Series will explain how policy is made at the national level, highlighting the importance of understanding your minister and the government for whom you work. The Series will demonstrate how keeping a strong focus on implementation improves policy making, particularly in advising on the choice of instruments for implementing a policy. It will also help participants to identify and deal with the challenges in developing evidence-informed policy and programs. The course will explore how to critique evidence when you are not an expert and have little time. There will be a particular emphasis on how to communicate evidence for greatest policy impact and to guide program implementation. 

Course overview

Topics include: 

Policy essentials: what you need to know to design and implement good policy

  • understanding governments and ministers in the Australian context 
  • policy making at the national level including the Budget cycle 
  • employing policy frameworks 
  • key stages in the policy and program cycle 
  • designing good policy and choosing the right policy instruments for effective implementation, including consideration of risk. 

Policy essentials: using evidence and data for good policy design and implementation

  • Challenges in using evidence for Australian policymakers
  • Critiquing data and evidence 
  • The strategies and tactics involved in communicating and employing data and evidence effectively for policy and program design and implementation

 

Learning outcomes:

Policy essentials: what you need to know to design and implement good policy

  • Demonstrate a greater understanding of how governments and ministers operate 
  • Explain how good policy is made 
  • Increased policy design capability 

Policy essentials: using evidence and data for good policy design and implementation

  • Use and critique evidence for policy design and implementation

 

Who should attend?

This course is designed for public servants in the APS4-EL1 range who have limited policy experience or who are aspiring to work in policy and for graduates who have recently joined the public service. It is also good for people who want a more strategic approach to implementation and to link policy and implementation more closely. 

While the course is at the introductory level, it is also suitable for participants in higher APS classifications who are looking for a ‘refresh’ or have principally worked in implementing programs. 

Participants from the ‘third sector’, such as non government and private sector organisations, who are looking to expand their understanding of government and policy processes, also regularly attend. 

Testimonials

This course was incredibly informative and connected a lot of dots for me as a new public servant, but also as a former political staffer. I feel better equipped in the role of a APS6 Policy Officer at DISR and frankly think anyone stepping into a policy officer role in the APS should undertake a course just like this.

Trish and Wendy are SO engaging. it was a pleasure just hearing them speak so passionately. I learnt a lot in this course in terms of over arching policy and the different frameworks and instruments that exist. It was also really beneficial to hear about different types of policy that other people were working on and the different examples that Trish and Wendy provided

The sessions were very thought provoking and motivated me to understand how different policy frameworks could be applied to our current work. I took particular interest in the budgetary cycle and enjoyed identifying which policy frameworks had succeeded in the past and how data can influence the decisions made. There was significant benefit from having two experienced policy makers leading the course. It ensured the sessions educated you on what it takes to implement successful policy.

Presenter

A picture of Dr Trish Mercer
Trish Mercer

Dr Trish Mercer

Trish Mercer is a Visiting Fellow with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). Her diverse career in the Australian Public Service, with over 20 years at the senior executive level, spanned policy development and research, financial management, program implementation, community education and direct service delivery experience (as a Centrelink area manager for Central and North Queensland).

Trish is now involved in public policy research and executive education training. Trish co-edited Learning Policy, Doing Policy (ANU Press, 2021), exploring how theories of the policy process can be transferred and taken into practice. To promote such theory to a wider audience, Trish has worked with the Australian Public Service Commission to publish Policy Theory Bites. She also co-authored a chapter on ‘Making Public Policy’ in the Australian Politics and Public Policy Open Textbook published on-line by Sydney University Press.

A picture of Dr Wendy Jarvie
Wendy Jarvie

Dr Wendy Jarvie

Wendy Jarvie has enjoyed a diverse career, alternating as a government policy practitioner and a researcher. She spent 22 years working in the Australian Public Service, including seven years as a Deputy Secretary in the Departments of Education, Science and Training and Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. She also managed evaluations and strategy development at the World Bank in Washington between 1998 and 2001.

Wendy has been providing Executive Education classes at ANU since 2012. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Public Service Research Group at the UNSW in Canberra, where she is undertaking research on the importance of public servant agency in developing good policy. She also works for the World Bank in the Pacific on secondary education and vocational education and training projects.