EVALUATING POLICY ADVICE: THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE.

This article describes the Australian process of policy advice as it relates to the civil service. Policy advice may be difficult to assess. It is, after all, eventually a matter of judgment, an art or craft rather than a science. It usually requires the reduction of a complex problem to a set of options, based on assumptions about causation, and compatible with government policies or directions. Since advice is usually confidential, there may be some problems in seeking to judge its quality. Ministers have many sources of advice and disentangling them is difficult, so there can be no certainty that the civil service's policy, for better or worse, was responsible for the outcome. Good advice is what ministers should hear. To avoid giving unpalatable information because that advice may be unwelcome is an exercise not in politicization but in servility. The working party emphasized that policy advising must be confidential, to protect the relationship between ministers and their advisers. Any review must appreciate this confidentiality which restricts the available options for evaluation and people who might be able to undertake them.