Week 2- Working in the Policy World

Question 1

Define policy analysis

Answer 1

• Client centred advice relevant to public decisions and informed by social values
• Dissecting an issues systematically with a view to understanding its component parts and designing an appropriate, effective response to the underlying problem

Question 2

What is the importance of client centricity in policy analysis?

Answer 2

• Client centricity highlights the need for policy work to account for and respond to the priorities of the employer
• Inclusion of social values balances client centricity with awareness of broader public values
• Highlights that making policy almost always entails taking positions on value-laden issues and designing actions to address them

Question 3

How is the quality of policy advice determined?

Answer 3

Determined somewhat by soundness of analysis on which it is based and accuracy with which its elements are distinguished and described

Question 4

What is the core of policy analysis?

Answer 4

Evaluation- a set of techniques and criteria with which to evaluate public policy options and select among them. Involves judgement and considerations including subjective, elusive values and objective criteria

Question 5

Define policy advising

Answer 5

Stitching the parts back together again to create a coherent picture of the situation so that sound policy options can be designed and recommendations developed

Question 6

What role do both policy analysts and policy advisers play?

Answer 6

In the public sector, both help governments develop, evaluate and implement policy options

Question 7

Define discipline

Answer 7

Depends on the capacity to create distinctive new concepts, frameworks, theories and models that advance our understanding of policy related matters

Question 8

How does policy analysis use disciplines?

Answer 8

• Rather than starting from a particular disciplinary framework, policy analysis moves from a presenting problem to select frameworks, and disciplines likely to devise a solution
• Multi disciplinary, interdisciplinary and pragmatic

Question 9

Outline the tools and methods used in policy analysis

Answer 9

• Modelling and econometric approaches- precise measurement and objectivity, struggle to prove policy causation
• Models- abstract and theoretical but may be useful in improving understanding of real world phenomena and predicting consequences of policy change
• Stakeholder analysis, interviewing and qualitative methods- substantial primary data (costly) and provides deeper insights into people’s perceptions of issues than theoretical models
• Methods chosen pragmatically

Question 10

Define normative in relation to public policy

Answer 10

• Contextualises analysis with a view to delivering and evaluating options for decision makers and citizens
• Concerned with values as well as information and evidence
• Confronts competing views about nature of problems and weigh consequences of different courses of action and value attached to outcomes

Question 11

What do policy analysts do?

Answer 11

• Project the consequences of policy options and make explicit links with alternative values
• Draws on data, information, evidence and applies scientific methods
• Combines common sense knowledge with frameworks and skills associated with the professions

Question 12

What have critical theorists and constructivists challenged?

Answer 12

The knowledge and evidence base used in policy analysis, the standing of participants in policy discussion and the authority behind decision making

Question 13

What does Colebatch promote and why?

Answer 13

• Promotes social construction approach, where ‘policy’ and ‘problems’ are not naturally occurring, with an existence independent of participants in process
• Objective: to forge agreement among stakeholders

Question 14

Outline the problem with the Australian education policy

Answer 14

• How could Australia provide affordable and equitable access to higher education?
• 1974-1988: Labour (Whitlam) govt abolished tertiary education fees
• Unsustainable (costs) as there was an increase in year 12 completion rates, but no increase in tertiary education places

Question 15

What must the new education system do?

Answer 15

• Provide sufficient funding to expand higher education places
• Shift financial burden from all taxpayers more to the beneficiary

*System that does not unfairly favour the wealthy

• Encourage easier access for students to higher education

Question 16

What was the government’s solution to the education policy problem?

Answer 16

• Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS)- 1989
• Sought to rebalance burden for taxpayers to higher education students, but only when their income reached a fair threshold for loan repayment
• Utilised theory proposed by Milton Friedman, where students are allowed to find work first and begin repaying education costs once they have a secure income, with repayments commensurate with that income
• Student pays if future income meets or exceeds average Australian wage (max 8% gross income) and do not pay if do not meet that threshold

Question 17

Outline the benefits of the HECS policy

Answer 17

• Tertiary education enrolments increased by 70% including increase from lower socio-economic backgrounds
• Low cost to run and revenue ($1.8 billion- 2013)
• High return on investment
• Increase in university trained Australians = increase in skilled and specialised workforce

Question 18

Outline the problem with Australia’s environmental policy

Answer 18

• Increases in CO2 levels = rise in sea level, more frequent and severe bushfires and storm events
• Those profiting from current practices continue to support the campaign for the status quo, prompting high level lobbying on behalf of emitters to limit cuts by emissions

Question 19

Outline the two basic approaches to achieving emissions reductions

Answer 19

• Market based- price on carbon emissions
• Regulatory- govt buys carbon reductions
  -Fixed price schemes/carbon taxes set price and market decides how much it will reduce emissions quantity
  -Floating price schemes set quantity of emissions and permits to emit (tradeable permits)

Question 20

Outline how Australia met its commitment to the Toronto Target

Answer 20

• Mandated 20% reduction in CO2 levels in each industry and in each region of Australia
• 20% reduction but with tradeable emission quotas so costs of reducing CO2 output are equalised over all industries producing CO2
• Tax- e.g. each ton of CO2 emitted penalised at same rate

Question 21

Outline what Australia’s universal health system should achieve

Answer 21

• Be available without regard to the income, age, type of illness, general health status or personal circumstances of patients
• Costs equally distributed
• Financing should be comprehensive and promote high quality care, facility integration and efficient resource allocation
• Efficient and economical in own operation
• Offer satisfactory rewards, incentives and conditions for health professionals to practice

Question 22

Outline Medicare

Answer 22

• Increased tax levy
• Subsidies for private insurance
• Medicare levy to fund other programs e.g. NDIS
• Part funded by 2% levy on income tax