Last week the National Reform Summit brought together leading figures from the community, politics, business and media to examine the big policy issues facing Australia today. Addressing the summit, Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, made the case for reaching out across traditional divides in our community to “reignite participatory democracy”.
Read MoreHow do you lead the type of large scale (or 'compound') collaborations needed to tackle truly wicked, large scale problems? In a recent post on the Policy and Politics Journal Blog Chris Ansell, from the University of California Berkley, discusses leadership for large scale collaborations. You can read his full article at the Journal, which he says is 'essentially about “collaborations of collaborations.”
Read MoreIn recent years, child care has returned as a hot topic in politics and policy. Both the current and former governments have tended to view child care as a means to a similar policy end – increasing productivity, yet neither have adequately considered the centrality of worker’s needs in developing policy solutions to ‘fix’ child care. In this post, Lara Corr (@corr_lara) explains why workers’ mental health and working conditions must be front and centre in child care policy and the ongoing risks associated with policy that promotes the worker exploitation through poor conditions.
Read MoreThe 'innovative finance' model of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) is being hailed as an answer to funding critical social problems. In this post, guest contributor Helen Dickinson (@DrHDickinson) looks at the hype and potential of SIBs and if they really are the best of all worlds.
Read MoreIf only government departments worked together we could solve even the most 'wicked' of problems, right? Well, not, quite. In this post, Gemma Carey (@gemcarey) shares her insights into 'joined up government' implementation and what we can learn about efforts to solve the wicked problem of social exclusion through the Social Inclusion Agenda. This article was originally posted in The Policy Space.
Read MoreThe following is a summary of internal structural changes within government and key policy directions, part of a regular update series developed by The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). This update was developed in December 2014 and updated in early 2015. Thanks to Nicole Barling-Luke at ANZSOG for this contribution.
Read MoreToday delivers Part Two of Paul Smyth's presentation to the Dunstan Foundation's Addressing Homelessness Conference (@DonDunston). In this post Paul explores the ideologies that got us here, and what it will take for a new social policy perspective to rise from the ashes the recent 'market led' approach.
Read MoreToday's post is the first instalment of a presentation by Paul Smyth at the Dunstan Foundation's Addressing Homelessness Conference (@DonDunston). With the conference subtitled Valuing the Homelessness Sector: Humanity, Productivity and Building Futures, Paul's lecture explored the value in the community sector. Tomorrow's post explores how to start re-valuing it.
Read MoreAs we look for new ways to collaborate and adopt 'disruptive' models of practice we need to be aware that just because it is disruptive, it does not mean that it is truly 'sharing' or revolutionary. The term 'sharing economy' is being co-opted as outlined in this post by Olivier Blanchard, which was originally published here.
Read MoreHappy Monday! Something a bit left-of-centre for your Monday morning read. An essay by the famous (and controversial!) political scientist Francis Fukuyama, which outline his views around the decay of the public administration (and public policy) in the United States.
(We hesitate to mention that we are not endorsing his views by publishing, only offering them up for reflection.)
This post is a reblog from the website Foreign Affairs.
Read MoreCo-design, co-production and other terms which emphasise that governments cannot solve social problems from a top down-perspective are becoming increasingly common place. However, given the power differences involved can we truly 'co-create'? Below, Mark Evens explores the emerging popularity of co-design. Professor Evans is the Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. His piece originally appeared on the Policy Space.
Read MoreYesterday we outlined the problem which PTP aims to address. Below, we explain how PTP is working to fill skill and knowledge gaps in policy networks. This is an extract from a forthcoming article on PTP's framework and the lessons it offers for other 'boundary spanning' initiatives.
Read MoreAustralia has experienced a number of high profile policy implementation failures in recent years, such as the 'Pink bats' scheme. Implementation, as a separate part of the policy process and as a scholarly endeavour, is creeping back onto the radar (thankfully). Today's post by Charlotte Sausman, Eivor Oborn and Michael Barrett discus orignally appared on the Politics and Policy Journal Blog as an overview of the paper - Policy translation through localisation: implementing national policy in the UK
Read MoreWith the next Power to Persuade Symposium coming up, we thought it would be useful to revisit why this initiative exists and what it is we do. This will be a two part post, the first (below) focuses on the problem PTP aims to address. The next post outlines our vision and mission of how we do this.
Read MoreIn the latest Social Policy Whisperer, Dr Ben Spies-Butcher discusses the implications of the perceived (and sometimes rhetorical) differences between "social" and "economic" policy. How do we bring these two debates together?
Read MoreHow do we determine who has a legitimate claim to income support - their 'deservingness'? And how can we reduce stereotyping while increasing workforce participation? In this post, social and economic policy analyst Peter Davidson looks to international research for some clues. This post originally appeared on Peter's Need to Know blog.
Read MoreIn this post, Alex Baumann, from University of Western Sydney, examines how programs aimed at 'empowering' or 'engaging' public housing tenants and other service users too often ignore the experience and perspective of the people they are intended to support, and how the failure of poorly designed or implemented programs is unfairly blamed on service users
Read MoreJeff Thompson is community development manager at a disability service provider in the ACT. In this post he explains the implications of the NDIS for existing service providers in an environment that favours the “new” over the known.
Read MoreThis year’s ACOSS conference – Towards the Common Good – took place at Technology Park, Sydney, June 24–26. Rik Sutherland from St Vincent de Paul reports.
Read MoreWhere does evidence stand in the war on ideas within government? What are the barriers to evidence-based policy-making and what does a strategic, innovative, evidence-based policy system look like when you’ve got one?
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