Policy work can be difficult enough without contending with ghosts of the past. I’m so tired of having to shape and mould my work around obsolete policies that are hanging around from the dawn of time.
I’m trying to design new accountability measures, which have robust supporting evidence, but am constantly thwarted by a whole heap of existing constraints, including policies and awards, that restrict and prevent them.
My colleagues and I have had to compromise on the design of the new accountability measures – which is fine, because making compromises is a normal part of policy development – but there’s hardly enough reform left that’s worth bothering with once you take as a given the old policies and agreements that we cannot get around (and that nobody is prepared to take on).
It wouldn’t matter if the existing policies made sense. They did, once upon a time, I suppose, but now they’re just embarrassing fossils with no reason to remain in force. They don’t help to address any material current issues, and the things they were once designed to address are no longer pressing concerns. They just hang around, worn as talismans by vested interests, warding off sensible policy reform.
On top of this, all the extra policy complexity means more work for others – managers, lawyers, judges, etc. – to interpret messy new policies and how they work with even messier old policies. All of that work is a waste of time and public money that could be better spent on doing something useful.
I really think we ought to do away with the baggage of crusty, old policies that no longer make any sense, so we can adopt reforms that’ll make a real difference.
