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This exploratory article examines the contemporary state of formal government policy staff in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, contributing to the ongoing research seeking to understand the policy capacity of governments. It analyzes the size, composition, and distribution of the countries' formal policy staff across government units. Comparative analysis reveals significant differences in the basic organizing approaches used to categorize policy staff as well as important differences in their numbers, composition, and distribution across government units. While uneven distributions characterize all four cases, there is significant variance in where staff work, their seniority, and functional classifications as "analysts" or "managers". The analysis provides fresh insights into the nature and availability of policy analytical capacity within these governments. It also underscores major gaps in how governments collect and make available basic data on their policy staff, which raises questions about their ability to effectively manage and deploy those staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent case studies and large-Nsurvey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector “policy capacity”. Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for government’s ability to meet contemporary policy and governance challenges. Despite growing attention to these matters, studies have not examined the “elite” policy workers many governments recruit to address these capacity shortages. Using an established survey instrument, this study of two Canadian recruitment programs provides the first comparative analysis of elite policy recruits, as policy workers. Three research questions anchor the study: (1) What is the profile of these actors? (2) What types of policy work do “elite” policy analysts actually engage in? (3) How does their policy work compare by recruitment program? The article provides fresh comparative data on the nature of elite policy work and policy analytical capacity, but, more importantly, a crucial baseline for future comparative study of how elite recruitment may facilitate “supply-side” capacity gains expected from recruitment programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]