Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction: (‘Academics live in ivory towers’ v ‘All policy makers are charlatans’)
- two The policy process: (If only policy makers would engage with our evidence, we’d get better policy)
- three From policy transfer to policy translation: the role of evidence in policy borrowing: (If it worked for you, it’ll work for us)
- four Policy making through a rhetorical lens: (It's all just rhetoric)
- five Implementing policy: (We’ve given you the policy, now implement it’)
- six From evidence-based to knowledge-based policy and practice: (‘If it's not in a randomised controlled trial, I don't believe it's true’)
- Seven Receptive contexts and the role of knowledge management in evidence-based practice: (‘All we have to do is roll out best practice everywhere else’)
- eight Conclusion : (‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results’)
- Index
two - The policy process: (If only policy makers would engage with our evidence, we’d get better policy)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction: (‘Academics live in ivory towers’ v ‘All policy makers are charlatans’)
- two The policy process: (If only policy makers would engage with our evidence, we’d get better policy)
- three From policy transfer to policy translation: the role of evidence in policy borrowing: (If it worked for you, it’ll work for us)
- four Policy making through a rhetorical lens: (It's all just rhetoric)
- five Implementing policy: (We’ve given you the policy, now implement it’)
- six From evidence-based to knowledge-based policy and practice: (‘If it's not in a randomised controlled trial, I don't believe it's true’)
- Seven Receptive contexts and the role of knowledge management in evidence-based practice: (‘All we have to do is roll out best practice everywhere else’)
- eight Conclusion : (‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results’)
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The evidence base confirming any benefit (or indeed, dysfunctions) of an evidence-based approach to public policy and service delivery is actually rather thin. (Nutley et al, 2007, p 2)
Basing public policy on ‘evidence’ has international dimensions (Marston and Watts, 2003). It also has a long history (Clarence, 2002). For example, the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws led to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (Bulmer, 1982). However, this has increased in importance in recent years with the New Labour (1997–2010) and current Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition (2010–) governments arguing that evidence-based policy making (EBPM) should be a more important ingredient in public policy (Walker and Duncan, 2007; Hudson and Lowe, 2009). For example, the Labour Party Manifesto of 1997 claimed that ‘what counts is what works’. The Modernising government White Paper (Cabinet Office, 1999a, p 20) committed government to making better use of evidence and research and ‘learning the lessons of successes and failures by carrying out more evaluation of policies and programmes’. Similarly, Professional policymaking for the twenty-first century (Cabinet Office, 1999b) argued that policy making should have the following features: be forward looking, outward looking, innovative, creative, inclusive and joined up; use evidence; establish the ethical and legal base for policy; evaluate; and review and learn lessons (Bochel and Duncan, 2007).
Ministers in the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government such as Chancellor George Osborne, Education Secretary Michael Gove and Minister for Science and Universities David Willetts have stressed the importance of EBPM. According to the White Paper Equity and excellence, the Department of Health is ‘committed to evidence-based policy-making and a culture of evaluation and learning’ (DH, 2010, p 11), and the term ‘evidence’ is liberally scattered throughout the document. ‘Science lessons’ covering everything from the scientific method to the use and abuse of statistics, were set up for MPs in the new parliament (Nath, 2010). However, critics are far from persuaded of these claims (see, for example, Goldacre, 2011).
This chapter examines the policy process (rational and incremental models), the place of evaluation within the policy process and typologies of using evidence, before focusing on evidence-based policy making.
The policy process
Most accounts of the policy process discuss the rational and incremental models of policy making. However, these models are complex, with their original authors changing their positions over time (Parsons, 1995; Bochel and Bochel, 2004).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Evidence, Policy and PracticeCritical Perspectives in Health and Social Care, pp. 11 - 30Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011