In my first blog I noted in passing that the bureaucracy had sometimes been left at the post when it comes to policy development and often offered little more than what the Minister asked for or some divination of what that might be.

In part I think this is a reflection of the growing distance between a lot of Ministers and their departments. Some of this is fed by the ever growing size and influence of the advisors, sometimes it is fed by a paranoia about the ‘loyalty’ of the public service and sometimes it is fed, let’s be honest, by past experience of poor advice.

But departments can work to address these instances of being by-passed. Reading the Grattan Institute’s report “Who’s in the room” (September 2018) made me think about how this might be done and, possibly even more importantly, why it needs to happen. The bureaucracy must work on having its voice heard.

So why is it important? Among other things, the bureaucracy has seen a lot of it before. It has immense experience in what works, what doesn’t work, how to frame a policy, who to engage with and, here’s the Grattan moment – offering a wide view of the policy[1]. All Cabinet templates for policy proposals (should) include a section on who are the stakeholders, what do they think and how will they be affected. This is to take the discussion beyond the vested interests, who may not see beyond their own interests, and even if they do, will have every incentive to colour the wider world view to favour their interests.

The Grattan report also gave me pause when it noted how important access to decision makers is and how the quality of that access, or the influence that arises, is informed by personal links and credibility. One thing that always struck me as a middling bureaucrat with very limited access to Ministers, was the importance of building, developing and maintaining a good relationship with ministerial advisors. This is something that is within all bureaucrats’ reach. You need to create a reason for respect for your ideas and input. You need to build a relationship based on timely, sound and fair advice. You need to be proactive but not pesky. You need to have authority for your views; the backing of senior department or central agency figures can help. But most of all, you need to always maintain a respectful and professional persona yourself. Make your work irresistible. Provide helpful comments, remembering that the backgrounds of advisers are many and varied. Often they have little or no knowledge of an area you are seriously familiar with. Be prepared to be a teacher and a guide. Be prepared too that for all their issues and weirdness – yes advisors I am talking about you – they are nearly all really smart people. They will learn fast. And they can be your strong allies too. The key word is influence. It is the bureaucrats’ strong point – you and your agency have greater access to the ministers than just about anyone else. Make sure you use every opportunity.

I recall at the end of one major piece of work, the team had a celebration function which the relevant minister attended. I was on secondment and so were several others on the team. Two of us were talking to the minister who asked – well what’s next. Without any collaboration or hesitation, we both said X. He looked astonished and said well I was thinking Y. We said yes there are issues there too, but X is much more pervasive, impacts many times more people and has much wider implications. I don’t think anyone had told him that before. Maybe because he wasn’t our Minister, maybe we are just both bolshie folk, but it doesn’t generally hurt to offer suggestions like this.

The next big policy move wasn’t X, or Y. But it sowed the seed – maybe. The policy train had just slowed but not stopped but we were able to have our desired destination heard.

[1] This is not to say that just because ‘this is the way we do it and always have’ is an option it should not be regularly reexamined and new ideas given air. No point in repeating the mistakes of the past – but good to know what they were.