Look at any list of Democrat presidential contenders for 2016 and you’re likely to find Maryland’s Governor, Martin O’Malley. And if he does decide to run he’ll certainly point to his track record of delivery in office – helped by combining a delivery unit with data science and transparency. O'Malley is one of a number of case studies that feature in our new report, International Delivery.
At a breakfast roundtable at the Institute for Government last Thursday, O’Malley himself credited an institutional innovation from the UK – the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU) – with helping him maintain a “relentless” focus on achieving his strategic goals in office.
His Governor’s Delivery Unit, created in 2008, closely mirrors the original PMDU model established under Tony Blair’s premiership back in 2001:
- The Governor’s 16 strategic goals –from education attainment to job recovery – are tracked by the Delivery Unit, whose staff analyse a constant stream of data gathered from departments
- Any delivery problems detected are then investigated by the Unit
- The Governor receives regular progress reports
- The Delivery Unit organises bi-weekly “stocktake” meetings between the Governor and departmental executives. Here, executives are held to account and solutions to delivery problems are brainstormed.
- Undertaking front-end scrutiny: The UK’s Implementation Unit, like most delivery units around the world, tends only to scrutinise initiatives once they’ve gained political approval. The problem here is that poor policy design offers a poisoned chalice to those tasked with implementation. For this very reason, Australia’s delivery unit (the Cabinet Implementation Unit) now devotes the majority of its time to scrutinising the feasibility of departmental policy proposals before they become agreed policy.
- Building distributed capability: It’s too easy for delivery units to focus their efforts on challenging departmental performance. As centres of expertise in delivery they also need to help build capacity. Australia’s Cabinet Implementation Unit, for instance, offers training in implementation planning to policy professionals across the Australian Public Service.
- Innovation labs: Most delivery units develop action plans to resolve implementation problems in partnership with departments and heads of government. But this approach is not always enough to solve particularly complex implementation challenges. Units in Malaysia and Tanzania have enjoyed success in using pop-up “delivery labs.” These 6-to-8-week labs bring together a more diverse range of stakeholders (from inside and outside of government) to develop an action plan.
- Topic
- Policy making
- Publisher
- Institute for Government