[LINK] Online Evidence-based policy for the Global Financial Crisis

[Tom Worthington]

The Chairman of the Productivity Commission, gave a Public Lecture in 
Canberra last night on "Evidence-based policy" 
<http://billboard.anu.edu.au/event_view.asp?id=37383>. This was 
timely as a few kilometers away Parliament was debating spending 
billions of dollars, to address the Global Financial Crisis, with 
minimal analysis and little evidence to support either side of the 
debate. On the surface "evidence based policy" seems a tautology: how 
could you propose policy not based on any evidence? However, Mr. 
Banks took us through some of the not so obvious issues with the process.

At question time I asked about the use of online systems and cross 
agency resources to make the process quicker and more efficient. I 
used the example of the Environment Department, who on Tuesday hosed 
a meeting of industry on how to reduce energy use. One way I 
suggested to reduce energy use was  to conduct such consultation 
online so the participants did not need to fly to Canberra 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/02/national-strategy-for-energy-efficiency.html>.

Given that the Productivity Commission has a mandate to, and 
considerable expertise in, analysis of government policy, perhaps 
they could commission an online system for this purpose. Such a 
system could be initially used by the Commission and then made 
available for other agencies and state governments. The system could 
function in a similar way to AusTender, the Australian Government's 
online tender system <https://www.tenders.gov.au/>. It could use 
similar free open source software to GovDex, the Government's online 
collaboration tool <https://www.govdex.gov.au/>. Agencies could 
upload draft policies for consultation. The system would 
automatically alert those who had registered interest in the topic. 
People could download the draft and upload comments. The system would 
collate the results automatically. The Australian Bureau of 
Statistics National Data Network could be used to support analytical 
analysis of policies across agencies <http://www.nationaldatanetwork.org/>.

Providing an online system for policy analysis could considerably cut 
government costs. I get the impression that much of the resources in 
policy agencies are not devoted to analysis of policy, but to 
arranging meetings to discuss the policy. Eliminating most of these 
meetings would greatly reduce costs. This would also reduce 
accidental or deliberate bias in the process, where only a small 
select group is consulted due to time or cost pressures (or because 
no criticism of the policy is welcome). In the case of something like 
the response to the Global Financial Crisis, a consultation and 
analysis could be carried out in a few days.

More in my Blog at: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/02/evidence-based-policy-for-global.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University