Grumpy, elusive creatures defending well-defined territory: evaluation in public policy 🦡
The Westminster TraditionShow Notes
In 1997, Tony Blair’s government inherited a problem: tuberculosis in cattle was rising, farmers were furious, and nobody agreed on whether badgers were responsible. The solution was to commission a gold-standard randomised control trial — 30 sites across the southwest of England, three conditions, run by an independent scientific group. Proper science. No cutting corners. Eleven years and £49 million later, the trial produced findings that made things more complicated, not less. Reactive cu...
More from The Westminster Tradition
In 2016, the Andrews government settled a bitter, years-long dispute with the firefighters’ union in a hotel room, then spent the next two years pretending it hadn’t. In August, Victoria’s anti-corruption commission IBAC tabled its special report on Operation Richmond. It made no findings of corrupt conduct and found no evidence for the blackmail allegation that started the investigation. But most of its 120 pages are about something else: what happens to public servants when a Premier wants ...
We are reliably informed that when this episode dropped a current Cabinet minister rang The Hon Amanda Vanstone and congratulated her. That’s a good enough reason for us to republish this during our hiatus! Note there’s also a follow up episode where we all chat about our takeaways from this episode. **** Former Senator Amanda Vanstone offers a masterclass in ministerial leadership, delivering sharp insights from her 21-year political career that are as relevant today as they were durin...
You might like to get in the mood for AFL footy finals by revisiting this first episode of our three part series on the Essendon Footy club drug scandal! Meanwhile we will keep enjoying our late winter / early spring hiatus 😇 **** “Lack of good governance is why good people did bad things at Essendon Football Club”. So says Lindsay Tanner, former Minister for Finance, and President of the Essendon Football Club from 2015. In this mini-series, Caroline tries to convince us there are lessons f...
In honour of forthcoming Victorian and NSW elections, we are republishing this episode during our late winter hiatus. Enjoy!! **** The starter's gun has gone on Australia's national elections for 2025 and Parliament has been prorogued. In this episode, former head of Cabinet Office and keeper of the Caretaker Conventions, Alison answers Caroline and Danielle's increasingly pointed questions, and we end with arguing about the importance of formatting. Stay tuned to the end for some fabulous in...
Danielle talks with Georgia Heath from Yup Yup Labs about what becomes obvious when you design services from far away, and why remote communities expose the hidden assumptions baked into policy, technology and “digital by default”. We also dig into who gets excluded when the public service recruits narrowly, and what changes when we treat people with lived experience as genuine partners with real power. Other topics include: • what remoteness reveals about telecommunications, emergencies and ...