Implementation-minded policy making

Summary

Successful implementation depends on the interaction between the content or ‘logic’ of the policy and the implementation context – the social, cultural, political, economic, infrastructural and institutional settings in which implementation happens.

Lack of ambiguity in the policy, and the quality of alignment between the policy and the implementation context, are the cornerstones of effective implementation. A range of implementation support approaches embedded in policy work can be used to reduce ambiguity and increase alignment, and to create the contexts and supports for effective policy implementation.

Introduction

Across policy fields, there are many examples of policies failing to achieve their intended outcomes. When policy fails, it’s generally the result of either bad policy (the policy would never have been capable of achieving the intended outcomes), bad luck (circumstances beyond the policy makers’ control) or bad implementation (the policy was not implemented well).¹A team of researchers from the Centre for Evidence and Implementation and the Wales Centre for Public Policy came together to look at the third aspect of these – bad implementation – and to advise on how a more implementation-minded approach to policy making might help to reduce policy failure.

Methods

We drew on two forms of evidence, in both cases looking widely across policy fields relating to human services, and focusing on government-level policies (national, federal, state, regional or local) in high income countries:

• Systematic and other reviews of evaluations of policy which looked at success or failure factors in implementation: We searched seven databases, screened 4,043 texts, identified 50 that met our inclusion criteria and selected 15 for inclusion.
• Policy resources, guidance and toolkits that address aspects of policy-making explicitly or implicitly related to implementation: We searched 22 websites, identified 113 potentially relevant resources of which 22 were in scope, and selected 10 for inclusion.

Framing policy implementation

Policy implementation is not a simple ‘execution’ process. It involves policy moving between levels – national policy makers; regional and local government and governance structures (e.g. health boards or police authorities); intermediary organisations (e.g. professional bodies, sector organisations, charities and other non-governmental organisations), and local organisations, such as hospitals, schools and police forces. Networks, coalitions, lobby and interest groups and local communities also come into the picture. Policies are reinterpreted and reshaped as they move between these levels. ^{2 3 4} In this complex set of processes, ambiguity and misalignment become key explanations of policy failure.

Ambiguity

The reviews frequently pointed to ambiguity, or a lack of clarity, as an explanation of policy failure or success. This meant lack of clarity about:

• The ‘why’ of policy: The problem or perceived need for the policy. The problem addressed may not be a widely recognised one, or there may be competing perspectives on whether or why it needs to be addressed. For example, in a review of policies to improve local food environments, low social recognition of the need and low social support for policy intervention undermined implementation.⁵
• The ‘what’ of policy: The changes it is intended to bring about. The policy aims, goals, objectives or expected results, and what constitutes ‘success’, need to be clear. If not obvious, some explanation of the mechanisms by which the policy is expected to produce those results is also important. For example, in a review of health promotion policies, clarity about policy goals and objectives was a critical factor in success. ⁶
• The ‘how’ of policy: Who needs to do what to turn the policy into change on the ground. Direction about implementation is important to avoid confusion about how the policy should be put into practice, who is responsible for what, and how they are accountable. That direction might be light touch (for example if a lot of adaptation of a policy to local contexts will be needed), detailed (for example in a highly regulated policy area where consistency in implementation is paramount), or delegated to another body to work through. But one way or another there needs to be enough clarity about how the policy should be implemented for the relevant organisations (of which there may be many, at multiple levels) to know how to proceed and who is responsible for what. For instance, in a review of policies to improve nutrition in schools, a lack of clarity about the expectations on schools undermined implementation,⁷ and lack of leadership was widely cited in the reviewed literature as an explanation of policy failure.

When aspects of a policy are ambiguous or unclear, the organisations at the sharp end of implementation (schools, hospitals, police forces and so on, and the local and regional institutions that work with them) can try to work it out for themselves, bringing their own assumptions and interpretations. But, this results in misunderstandings and contradictions – and more frequently in a lack of action – which leads to policy failure.

Increasing alignment

The second foundational aspect of implementation-minded policy making is the quality of alignment between the policy and the contexts where it will be implemented. As we note above, these contexts may involve multiple levels, and social, cultural, political, economic, infrastructural and institutional aspects.

A key explanation for policy failure is that implementation is poor because the policy was not well aligned with aspects of the real worlds in which it needed to work. Precisely what the policy needs to be aligned with varies, and encompasses:

• The policy context: Policies are not introduced on to a blank canvas, but into an array of existing policies and regulations. Where a new policy is poorly alignment with these, inconsistencies and competing priorities play out and hinder implementation, increasing the bureaucratic burden on organisations, opening loopholes and bottlenecks, forcing unintended choices and creating confusion. For example, in a review of infection control policies in hospitals, competing policies undermined implementation,⁸ and legal loopholes arising from contradictory policies impeded implementation of alcohol control policies. ^{9 10}
• The needs and priorities of those involved in implementation: This involves the social norms, cultures, values, preferences and motivations of the communities intended to benefit from the policy, and of people in organisations involved in implementation. Where these are poorly aligned with a policy, there is likely to be conscious or unconscious resistance to the policy, and competing priorities will play out. For instance, policies to improve nutrition in schools were poorly implemented in part because schools saw education, not nutrition, as their main priority. ¹¹
• The infrastructure for implementation: The resources available in the organisations involved in implementation. Inadequate resources are a very frequent reason for poor implementation and policy failure. Funding and people are key here – the availability of time from staff with the necessary skills and knowledge, in implementation settings such as schools and hospitals, intermediary organisations, and among policy makers at local, regional and national levels. Other aspects of infrastructure that may be needed are networks, physical infrastructure, and organisational systems and processes. For example, infection control policies needed to align with the organisational processes, activities and workflows in hospitals,¹² and insufficient resources were cited in almost every review

Some misalignment is inevitable and may even be intentional. A policy might, for example, run ahead of organisational, professional, or social norms and be deliberately intended to challenge or change them. As an example, a review of maternity protection legislation highlighted that the policy aims sometimes challenged current social and organisational attitudes to pregnancy and work.¹³ Like ambiguity, alignment is dynamic and can be addressed by organisations involved in implementation: they can reconstruct or reinterpret policy, find money from elsewhere, train people, change workflows and so on. But implementation-minded policy making can anticipate and address ambiguity and misalignment, and give policy a much better chance of succeeding.

Implementation-minded policy approaches

So how might policy makers do this? What does implementation-minded policy making involve?

The policy resources we reviewed highlighted seven sets of approaches to policy work which can be leveraged to reduce ambiguity and increase alignment. These will be familiar as important considerations or approaches in policy work – but our focus was on the specific roles they can play in creating or supporting the conditions for effective policy implementation. These approaches are:

• Problem and context analysis: Gathering and using evidence to understand the problem, the range of potential interventions, and the landscape the policy is seeking to affect.
• Stakeholder engagement: Using structured interactions with stakeholders to:
  • Support problem and context analysis (i.e. gather information on the problem and/or the potential solution, and on the implementation context)
  • Build support for, or address opposition to, the proposed change.
• Identifying implementation resources and capabilities: Careful consideration of who needs to do what in order to achieve implementation. Using this to assess whether those actors have the resources, capacity and capability to undertake the work needed and identify solutions if not.
• Governance and collaboration: Based on an assessment of the implementation context, putting in place or leveraging the groups or mechanisms needed to provide oversight and accountability, and facilitating that collaboration where this is needed.
• Monitoring, evaluation, learning and risk management: Determining what data is needed to monitor implementation and support learning and accountability, ensuring that there is capacity and capability to support data collection and analysis, and identifying and managing potential risks to implementation.
• Communication and active framing of policy: Packaging and presenting information about the policy, such as the problem statement, objectives, underlying theories and causal mechanisms, supporting evidence, strategies for delivery and implementation, and implementation requirements and responsibilities, with the aim of ensuring supportive responses.
• Leadership: Using context analysis and stakeholder engagement to identify the types of leadership required (e.g. formal or informal, central or distributed), and putting those arrangements in place or enabling existing leadership structures.

The first two of these might be seen as ‘diagnostic’: they help to identify where there is ambiguity or misalignment, as well as being interventions that aid implementation in their own right. The remaining five can then be used to target those issues and support implementation. Some examples of the ways in which each of the approaches can be used to address ambiguity and alignment are set out in Table 1.

Using implementation-minded policy approaches

Each of the seven approaches above can be used at different points in the policy process and for different purposes. For example, stakeholder engagement might be used early in the policy process to understand how the issue addressed is conceptualised or experienced by different groups, and later to plan implementation strategies. Governance and collaboration structures might be used earlier to start to plan implementation, and later have responsibility for supporting or overseeing implementation. Communication and framing strategies might be used earlier to prepare the ground for policy change, and later to reinforce messages or address remaining areas of resistance or misunderstanding.

There are also direct and indirect interactions between the seven sets of approaches. They are mutually reinforcing, in that they are likely to add value to each other. For example, problem and context analysis will inform who needs to be involved in stakeholder engagement. Stakeholder engagement will create the conditions that make distributed leadership more effective. Effective distributed leadership will be an aid to monitoring and collaborative learning as implementation proceeds. 

They are also likely to be compensatory in that gaps in the earlier use of an approach may be addressed, at least to some extent, by the later use of that or another approach. For example, an absence of stakeholder engagement early on might be addressed by using it later, or by devolved leadership that engages the right people, or by communication and framing strategies that build support. Weak or absent problem and context analysis early on might be compensated for by establishing governance structures that allow for collaborative sense-making and policy interpretation. 

The implication of this is that implementation thinking is needed throughout the policy process, and that implementation support approaches need to be selected and used based on what has come before, and how well it has worked.

This also means bringing more people into policy work, and earlier. The implementation gap arises in part because of the distance of policy makers from implementation contexts. Collaborating with those intended to benefit from policy, whose behaviour is intended to change, the organisations and individuals involved in implementation and the vested interests, coalitions and movements at play will help to reduce that distance, and bridge the implementation gap.

Conclusions

Implementation-minded policy work means:

• Building implementation considerations into policy logic and content, and identifying and attending to ambiguity in the what, the why and the how of policy
• Assessing and improving alignment between the new policy and the existing array of policies and regulations; the goals, needs and priorities of those involved or intended to benefit from the policy; and existing resources, networks, structures and systems
• Providing the direction, guidance and resources needed for implementation, and establishing processes and infrastructure that will support coordinated implementation activity across levels
• Using implementation support approaches purposefully and explicitly to reduce ambiguity and improve alignment.

Implementation thinking needs to be part of policy work from early on and throughout the policy cycle – otherwise policy makers are downing tools before the job is done.

WCPP is integrating this learning into its work with policy makers in Wales, helping them to explore emergent policies through the lens of ambiguity and alignment, and to use the implementation support approaches to prepare for and improve implementation. They are hearing encouraging responses and feedback, and will continue to build the thinking into their work.

A policy briefing and the full report are available here: https://wcpp.org.uk/publication/is-your-policy-going-to-fail-heres-how-you-can-tell-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

References

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