Whether civil servants are pursuing external policy goals or internal reforms, they are dropping regulatory methods in favour of a different approach. Suzannah Brecknell reports on the spread of behaviour change.
Reducing onerous regulations and legislation – the dreaded ‘bureaucracy’ which hampers enterprise – is a key coalition priority, and in the opening plenary at Civil Service Live cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell stressed the importance of removing unhelpful or downright “bonkers” regulations (see news, p1). Sir Gus has been taking a personal interest in the ongoing red tape challenge, and explained how he would like to see civil servants find more innovative ways to solve problems than introducing new rules: for example, he suggested that the regulations around alcohol sales are overly complex. He is a particular fan of behavioural economics (or ‘nudge’ techniques) and chairs the team in the Cabinet Office which is looking at ways to apply them in fields such as public health.
The preference for behaviour change over prescriptive process is spreading across government. In a session exploring the role of IT in delivering Universal Credit benefit reform we met Steve Dover, corporate director of major programmes in the Department for Work and Pensions. He has been charged with spreading the ‘Agile’ development methods across government, and explained that he will do this not with a manual, but by “creating behaviours and changing cultures of individuals and groups” through a network of “Agile champions”.
Meanwhile, in a session on equality, the head of the Government Equalities Office Jonathan Rees spoke of a “huge shift from a process-driven, bureaucratic, tick-box way of doing things” towards an approach which focus on outcomes, not processes. “Legislation gets you so far, but actually we’re about cultural change, we’re about behavioural change,” he said.
Simon Fanshawe, co-founder of gay rights group Stonewall, argued that government can make the move away from prescriptive rules because many of the big battles have now been won. “We’ve created a lot of change, and given that we’ve created a lot of change, we ought now to operate on the basis of it,” he said, suggesting that regulation and legislation have already fulfilled much of their potential on equality. While they still have a protective role, “we need to be more localised, more flexible and permissive, if you like,” he said, letting organisations find their own ways to improve equality. However, he added, the permissive approach will do nothing for those who lag behind on best practice – so “we have to find some way of thinking that through”.
One barrier to the behaviour change revolution is the civil service’s tendency to guide, even when it isn’t regulating. In a session on the Big Society, Annabel Turpie of the Office for Civil Society was asked how nascent social enterprises would be able to share best practice “without some sort of central – I don’t mean control, but some sort of general guidance?” The issue is a very important one, said Turpie, but civil servants must “be so careful in responding to that request to not look like we are being prescriptive, because that’s been the relationship for so long.” When central government gives guidance, she said, “it ends up being the parameters of what people can and can’t do. That narrows down very quickly”.
Turpie’s answer suggests that if civil servants are to be really innovative in the way they achieve policy aims, they should try to avoid not just regulation, but the kind of softer levers that have in the past fostered a culture of deference and prescription – in the process reducing people’s need and ability to organise themselves. Look for entirely new ways to interact with stakeholders, she suggested; do so on their terms, not yours. It’s a wide-ranging challenge, but one that comes with endorsement right from the top of government.