Policies, Policy Analysis, Policy Making And Implementation

Indigenous people across Australia are in the process of addressing what policies should:-

• Underpin the governance system of our communities and organizations,

• Guide economic and social development strategic planning and implementation,

• Inform the carriage or management of the pertinent issues of the day.

However, what is not taking place is the construction of a policy standards system within which all policies and policy making should be framed.

Policies can be both particular directions and a set of principles that an organization or government choose to create and follow.

A policy standards system relates closely to the set of principles part of policy making, if such a system were to be incorporated within Indigenous communities and organizations, then the necessary political, economic and social solutions will become more coherent, manageable and achievable.

After the initial analysis/critique, discussion and negotiation regarding the current circumstance or status of situations and the required direction chosen, then the infrastructure of the standards system should be constructed.

The Centre assists and support Indigenous communities and organizations at all points of policy development but especially at the last stage of putting in place the policy standards system.

There should not be an assumption that such a policy standards system will be a mirror image of government systems.

A policy standards system is a kind of soft infrastructure with several layers:

• The first layer is the body of technical expertise – a government agency, a national forum or a private association – that writes the standard. In the case of the Centre involvement in writing the standard, this would take place only after extensive research and appropriate consultation with Indigenous stakeholders.

• The second layer is the mechanism for assuring that services, activities (or goods) that claim to meet the relevant standard do in fact conform to the standard, that is, compliance to that standard.

• The third layer is the audit system that ensures that the assessment is working properly. This is like an accreditation and recognition system.

The Centre adds two further layers:

• A layer between the first and second layers - a comprehensive skills training and policy advice and education phase delivered by the Centre to the community councils, organization staff and spokespeople for particular issues.

• A final layer consisting of the documentation of the construction of the whole policy standards system, the process of this documentation would have its own training and education component. Included in this documentation would be the findings of any research (papers, statistics or models) carried out in relation to the services and/or activities in question.

The Centre’s model of policy standards system applied assists Indigenous people to become more familiar in a constructive way with the culture of policy making that would enable them to manage entities and discharge responsibilities more effectively instead of seeing such systems as problematic or overwhelming.