The Shared Policy Capability Project is an innovation in capability building because:

1. While efforts have been made to assess departments’ general capability, or the capability of its policymakers. This is the first model, in the UK, that seeks to improve policymaking capability by looking into policy making environments and applying that at department level.
2. It is agile, collaborative, and bottom up, giving policy makers at working level the opportunity to reflect and to drive the diagnosis process. The agility and flexibility of the model allows policy makers to consider unique constraints of their policy making environment in the diagnosis and to adjust it towards their needs.
3. It is people-centred by using experienced-based qualitative data and providing safe spaces for people to share their experiences.

The project currently is in the evaluation phase of prototyping. Therefore, while we are understanding whether the prototyping phase has achieved the desired outcomes, we are also using insight to further refine the model and develop proposals for scaling up. So far, the early data is promising. The next step is to discuss how the innovation could be scaled across government. The aim is to allow more departments to undertake this facilitated self-assessment of their policy making environment, however this requires more work in terms of the operational aspects of the model.

The following collaborators were involved:

• More than a hundred civil servants from different grades and areas in government, who shared their experiences, provided feedback, and helped co-designing a framework for how to define what the policy making environment is.
• Subject matter experts and external consultants from the field of innovation, capability, and government reform, who provided their expertise.
• A governmental department that piloted and tested the model with us.

• Policy makers, who use the model to gain a better understanding of their policy making environment and to inform department’s priorities in capability building.
• Department leaders, who get a departmental view of their policy making capability and ideas for improvement.
• The wider policy profession who learn about leading practice and gains insights into the system to tailor future learning initiative to departmental needs.
• Citizens who will benefit from better policy outcomes.

In essence, the prototype has been successful in helping a department to better understand their policy making environment, to provide a safe space for policy makers to reflect on their conditions and capabilities at a department level and for departmental leaders to get a sense of gaps and priorities for policy making capabilities. Based on results of a pre and post survey conducted with the pilot department, policy makers' understanding of strengths and weaknesses of their policy making environment has increased by 9% and their ability to know what changes to prioritise has increased by 37% (n=10). Participants have also noted the important role of the Shared Policy Capability team and their positive influence in making this a short and concise intervention and making the voice of policy makers at working level heard by valuing their experiencing and letting them drive the self-assessment process. One pilot participant commented: "We got them talking and reflecting on things they wouldn't otherwise”.

Policy makers are very busy and are facing challenging times. One big challenge has been how to fit this self-assessment process into their day-to-day job, making sure it’s not becoming an extra burden, but instead a helpful intervention. In the pilot this has been addressed by focusing on short, intensive, and well facilitated sessions to be as time efficient as possible. Another challenge has been on how to incentivise departments to undertake this self-assessment and to invest into it. We’ve seen great enthusiasm and interest for the model coming from working level and going forward there is more work needed to understand how to best leverage this, as well as ensuring senior buy-in.

The project has been centrally funded by the UK policy profession unit. Continuous funding is essential to have a team in place that facilitates the self-assessments with departments. Furthermore, strong commitment from leadership is crucial to promote the project and to ensure actions are taken based on the results of the self-assessment. The concept of the policy making environment and the shift from just looking at individual capabilities towards looking at departmental capabilities is new to most people. It requires a change in how people think about capability, an acceptance that policy making capability is complex and multi-faceted, and a willingness to try to understand that complexity.

So far, the model has been tested only with one government department. With the required resources and leadership in place it has the potential to be scaled across government. We already have people wanting to get involved and to apply this model to inform their own departmental capability strategies. In the future, other governments might become interested in adopting this model, making it a global approach to building policy making capabilities.

Through the research and the pilot, we learned that policy making environments are very complex and diverse and that a “one size fits all“ approach would not meet the individual needs of departments. Allowing flexibility and considering the uniqueness of the department in the self-assessment has been proven as very important. Leadership and policy makers at working level do not necessarily share the same perception of the strengths and the weaknesses of their policy making environment. It’s important to empower people at working level and to make their experiences heard.