One year into the election win by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in Canada, Prof Dennis Raphael of York University Canada (@DennisRaphael01) assesses progress on the social issues that underpin health. With promises to act on climate change, income inequality, and the inequities experienced by indigenous Canadians, is this government a harbinger of change or a party that "campaigns from the left yet governs from the right"?
Read MoreSocial Services Minister Christian Porter hails his new welfare investment approach as “close to revolutionary”. But how much is it a shift from the hardline approach? This piece, by David Donaldson, was originally published on The Mandarin.
Read MoreToday's post from Dr Helen Dickenson is on how the existence of high-quality commissioning is a bit like a unicorn, elusive and prone to unintended stabbiness. It first appeared on her website.
Read MoreAustralian reform discussions have of late focused around some seemingly new language and ideas concerned with stewardship and commissioning. This is being touted as a fundamental change in what government does, but what does this actually mean and will it really lead to significant reform? Helen Dickinson asks these questions and more in our latest post.
Read MoreNSW Council for Intellectual Disability has been having lots of conversations and engaging with many people about the NDIS Information Linkages & Capacity Building Framework which is currently in consultation. Submissions on the framework can be made until 22 April. This post, originally published on the CID website, explores some of their initial thoughts on the framework and shares some of the ideas and themes that they are developing.
Read MoreIn May this year, Power to Persuade Moderator Luke Craven participated in the Little Heresies in Public Policy seminar series at Newcastle University. Drawing on his experience researching 'wicked' policy problems, his talk explored how systems mapping can be combined with focus group techniques to analyse the strengths of different patterns of relationships within complex systems. Doing so can help us more effectively understand the relationships between complexity and evidence-based policymaking.
Read MoreStructural changes to government have become a common occurrence in Australia. But, in what circumstances are these so-called 'Machinery of Government' changes worth their while? Dr Gemma Carey reports on a comparison between Canadian and Australian contexts.
Read Morer Raymond Young UNSW Canberra
‘Lifting the bonnet on Australia’s schools” is the provocative title of a recent Productivity Commission draft report1. It seems that spending per student has increased by 14% over the past 10 years but performance has not improved. However, it would have been far better if the report “lifted the bonnet on policy in general” because there is evidence that suggests little to none of our spending delivers the desired outcomes.
Read MoreBy Gerard Brody and David Tennant
Gerard Brody is the CEO of the Consumer Action Law Centre and David Tennant CEO of Shepparton–based FamilyCare. Both participated in the Advisory Committee for the CSI/NAB Financial Resilience in Australia 2015 Research.
Read MoreBy Professor Catherine Althaus (@AlthausCat), at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government
Thought-provoking discussions are taking place in Canada and Australia about the future of the public service. Having worked and researched in both jurisdictions, I know there is great value in comparative intelligence that probes the policy transfer between these countries.
Read MoreA social policy whisper piece by Robyn Keast on collaboration.
Read MoreThe Director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science says the ‘big data revolution’ in the social sciences isn’t about data itself – it’s about advances in how we analyse increasing quantities of diverse data to generate ‘usable information’. Professor Gary King contends the emergence of “larger scale, collaborative, interdisciplinary, lab-style research teams” could herald the end of the qualitative-quantitative divide in social science research. This post by Michael Todd originally appeared on the LSE Impact Blog.
Read MoreIn this post, Julie Thompson Klein draws together and guides us through the “abundance of resources” that exist to help teams working on inter- and transdisciplinary projects find common ground and advance common goals. The post includes links to five searchable repositories to assist researchers in this sphere. This post originally appeared on the Integration and Implementation Insights blog and is reposted with permission.
Read MoreLinked data sets could shed much-needed light on how different issues and systems affect people accessing social services. However Brooke McKail from the Victorian Council of Social Service reminds us that sharing data has potential risks as well as potential benefits for service users, calling for careful consideration of how to protect individuals from its negative consequences. This post originally appeared on the VCOSS Voice blog.
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Market models of delivering publicly-funded services are underpinned by systems and processes of measurement designed to change the way citizens and service providers behave and interact. David Beer argues that to understand how markets shape our behaviour, we need to think about the role of measurement in our lives and reflect on how it makes us feel. This post originally appeared on the LSE Politics and Policy blog.
Read MoreIn today’s post, James McDougall examines Australia’s inconsistent record of promoting the rights of children. He argues that instead of simply reacting to policy failure, we must coordinate planning, effort, knowledge and resources across jurisdictions to improve the wellbeing of all young Australians.
Read MoreIn a recent interview on 3CR’s Solidarity Breakfast, Susan Feldman discussed gendered disadvantage and the need to look at men’s and women’s different experiences of ageing.
Read MoreIn this post from Christina Boswell's Politics, Knowledge and Migration blog, Christina and Eugenia Rodrigues look at the implementation of central government 'targets', arguing that the problem-policy 'fit' must be strong for implementation to be effective.
Read MoreIn August 2016 the Department of Employment released the first Star Ratings for service providers under the new employment services regime. The payment structure for providers, as argued by the Employment Minister, Michaelia Cash, is ‘more clearly tied to achieving sustained employment outcomes, with outcome payments heavily weighted towards placing the most disadvantaged people into employment.’ In this post, Kate O’Hara from JobVoice – an independent service operated by Social Security Rights Victoria – helps us understand the Star Ratings basics for jobseekers.
Read MoreIn this post, author and disability advocate Dr Peter Gibilisco offers a perspective on the role of affirmative action as a policy approach to promote inclusion of people living with disabilities. This post originally appeared on the Pearls and Irritations blog.
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