Crawford School of Public Policy

Dr Trish Mercer and Dr Wendy Jarvie have been convening Policy essentials executive courses at the Crawford School since 2012, after successful careers in the Australian Public Service. Both had joined the public service after completing their PhDs – Wendy’s in Geography and Trish’s in History.

They thought they knew a lot about government. But they discovered they didn’t, and had a lot to learn ‘on the job’. We asked them, what were the top things you both wish you knew when you joined the APS? Here’s what they have to say.

1. Understanding how decisions are made

Trish: I thought I understood from my academic study how governments made decisions and enacted them through legislation. But when I first joined the APS, it was a big shock – I had to discover all the hidden, behind the scenes processes of Westminster government from how issues get onto a government’s agenda through to the decision stage and then implementation.

Wendy: It was the same for me. I knew so little and had to learn on the job about how to brief ministers, how Cabinet and its committees worked, the importance of the ‘central agencies’, and how to work with so many different stakeholders.

We wish we could have done a practical policy training course that would have accelerated our ‘learning by doing’!

2. Every minister is different

Wendy: It took me ages – and lots of experiences – to understand that every minister has an individual style that influences who they trust, and how they process information and reach decisions. Do they like numbers or stories, clear recommendations in briefs or several options? And that goes for governments as well!

Trish: I had one minister who had a photographic memory who never forgot any figure we’d given him – it kept us on our toes!

We wish we had understood early on how important it is to understand your minister, their style and pressure points such as any hot issues for them, any other jobs they hold in their Parliament or their party, who they’re close to and their electorate.

3. Learning from failure

Trish: When we established Centrelink as an integrated service delivery agency in the 1990s, our agency head always stressed that mistakes happen – it’s the ‘service recovery’ that counts. And that became my motto – working out when went wrong, getting back on track, and reflecting on the lessons to be learned.

Wendy: I always learnt more from policy failures than successes! Sometimes the government was not interested in our ideas for new policy, or how to deal with an emerging problem. I learnt that sometimes you have to fail before you get it right. But it’s tough when you’ve put in a lot of work and there is nothing to show for it.

Being curious and asking questions are so important. We would encourage public servants to develop a questioning habit and to learn about one or more of the models of the policy process, such as the policy cycle, Mark Moore’s Strategic Triangle or Robert Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework which explains how policy windows can open – and shut!

4. Communication matters

Trish: Everything you do as a public servant is about communicating – with Ministers, Parliament, other public servants, stakeholders, media inquiries, the Australian community. And being ‘in the room’ is a great way of learning how to communicate, whether it’s in meetings within your agency, with other departments, with senior leaders, with Ministers and their staff.

Wendy: I learnt so much from attending meetings with Ministers, senior bureaucrats and the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet. I saw how the really effective public servants were crisp and focused in what they said. I also saw how relationships mattered and how crucial it is to build relationships and as wide a network as possible of contacts and experts to test ideas and develop your evidence base.

We wish we’d understood that we needed to be able to communicate complicated ideas simply and powerfully – ‘three dot points’ is often all you have in written briefings, and especially in oral presentations.

5. Evidence and bias

Wendy: I had expected when I joined the Public Service that good ideas and evidence would sell themselves – I didn’t understand how ideology and also bias (my own as well as others) could be influential in affecting how policy makers respond to evidence.

Trish: Same for me! I put my efforts into making a persuasive argument for my recommendation, but I learnt that it’s just as important to ensure that decision makers can understand and recall your argument if they’re taking it forward.

We wish we had understood earlier that decision makers are so busy and that you need to help them to slow down to process new ideas or evidence – briefings need to be persuasive but equally they need to be memorable.

And just a few more things: the importance of resilience (to deal with failure), never throw any evidence away – wait for the time to be right to try again, volunteer - the more things you try and do the more you will learn, and if where you work gets you down – move! Life is too short to be miserable.

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If you enjoyed this article, you might appreciate the upcoming Policy essentials series, starting on 7 November.

The two courses in this series – What you need to know to design and implement good policy and Using evidence and data for good policy design and implementation – offer you practical tools, frameworks and perspectives that will will help you deal with the challenges in developing evidence-informed policy and programs.

Early bird registration is still open. Save $300* when you enrol in the series by 14 October 2024. Group discounts are available. Contact csee@anu.edu.au for more information.

*$495 additional savings when booking the series instead of individual courses