Better policy implementation through more informed political decision-making

A lot can go wrong in the relationship between politics and agencies implementing policies and this regularly leads to policy fiascos (think of the child care benefits scandal). In a report by Utrecht University on the relationship between politics, civil servants and executive organisations, researchers argue for something that should be self-evident: to work on human connections between politics and implementation based on knowledge of human behaviour. Four concrete recommendations can already lead to improvement in the short term, such as a high-quality implementation test for all bills and amendments.

The research report Politiek en uitvoering verbinden als mensenwerk (‘Connecting politics and implementation as human work. A behaviourally informed agenda for information utilisation on implementation by politicians.') is part of the 'State of implementation', the annually recurring analysis of bottlenecks in implementation practice commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK).

The amount of information about policy and implementation is humanly incomprehensible. If you search between the documents of the Senate and the House of Representatives, you will come across hundreds of thousands of documents. Civil service experts are not easily accessible to MPs. Moreover, the debate in parliament focuses much more on policy than on the implementation of that policy. As a result, available information about implementation is often not included or policy is formulated that is so complex that it leads to problems in implementation. How can members of the Senate and House of Representatives make the easiest and best use of information about the implementation?

An ordinary human decision-making problem

The researchers looked at the information utilization problem of MPs as an 'ordinary' human decision-making problem. There is a lot of knowledge from behavioural research about general human barriers to information utilisation and about general circumstances that promote information utilisation. 

The research may sound abstract, but it is about very concrete things that should actually be normal. For example, doing an implementation test as standard when you adopt or amend a law, says Thomas Schillemans. Without a good test, you don't know what the consequences will be for implementation and society. Then there is a good chance that policy fiascos will occur, resulting in unintentional damage. Of course, we have experienced many harrowing examples of this in recent years with the Toeslagenaffaire and in Groningen, for instance.

The research shows that there are all kinds of obstacles to information utilization. On the one hand, they have to do with the context of politics, administration and rule of law. For example, the policy implementation is very large and complex. Also, a lot of the information about policy implementation is technical and difficult to fathom. Due to the ministerial responsibility, MPs often cannot easily have direct contact with experts from agencies implementing policies to be properly informed. And in the House of Representatives, there is little talk about the feasibility of the policy they are debating. 

On the other hand, there are also human obstacles that are well known from behavioural research and are pre-eminently discussed in parliament. These have to do with the strength of existing beliefs, the occurrence of thinking errors (such as biases) as well as reasoning patterns that negatively influence information utilization (such as motivated reasoning and dichotomous thinking). General behavioural research has revealed factors that increase the likelihood of information utilisation by reducing the influence of beliefs, thinking errors and similar reasoning patterns. These insights help to humanly facilitate the use of information about the implementation by MPs. 

Humanizing the connections between implementation and politics

Behavioural insights into knowledge utilisation provide four concrete points for attention for the connections between implementation and politics that can increase the chance of information utilisation:
 

• Make information about the implementation standard, uniform and easy to find for MPs.
• Build a relaxed relationship between implementation and politics, in which MPs can have direct contact with civil service experts when they need information
• Set up meeting formats in the House in such a way that implementation issues are discussed structurally and substantively
• Make sure that MPs receive feedback on what their decisions bring about in the implementation

Four short-term recommendations

The connection between politics and implementation can be strengthened in all kinds of ways with knowledge of human behaviour. The researchers argue that small but meaningful steps should be taken to humanize the connections between politics and policy implementation. This is in line with developments that have already been set in motion after the major problems that have arisen in policy implementation, for example with regard to Allowances and Gas Extraction (see: https://www.eerstekamer.nl/nieuws/20260528/uitvoerbaarheid_wetgeving_hoog_op (in Dutch)):
 

• 100% implementation test. For a good connection between politics and policy implementation, it is logical that a high-quality implementation test is made available for 100% of the bills and amendments. 
   
• Contact person of policy implementation. In the short period prior to legislative debate, contact persons of the implementation could be directly, easily and as much as possible permanently accessible to (employees of) MPs. 
   
• Rapporteur for policy implementation. A permanent rapporteur for implementation in the House could contribute to strengthening the use of information about implementation.
   
• ‘Friend of policy implementation’. An annual prize for the friend of the implementation, to be awarded to a member of parliament with special merits for the implementation of policy in the past year, could be a small reward for an important contribution.

Research team

Thomas Schillemans (project leader), Isa Bertram, Erik-Jan van Dorp, Judith Langerak (VU University Amsterdam) and Sam Muller.

More information

Would you like to have more information? Please download the full report Politiek en uitvoering verbinden als mensenwerk. Een gedragsgeïnformeerde agenda voor informatiebenutting over de uitvoering door de politiek. Een onderzoek in het kader van de Staat van de Uitvoering’. ('Connecting politics and implementation as people's work. A behaviourally informed agenda for information utilisation on implementation by politicians. An investigation in the context of the State of Execution'). 

Or contact  Thomas Schillemans: t.schillemans@uu.nl.