Trying it out: the role of pilots in policy-making: report of a review of Government pilots

This report looks at experience in the UK with the of policy pilot programmes, which act as phased introductions of major government policies or programmes allowing them to be tested, evaluated and adjusted where necessary, before being rolled out nationally. This practice has been widespread in the USA but is new to the UK

The report makes a strong endorsement of the case for piloting new policy initiatives wherever practicable. And they provide enthusiastic support for the fact that the practice is now being embraced so widely across government.

The report finds that (costly and timeconsuming as some pilots are) the overall benefits they provide to good governance far outweigh their disadvantages:

• they fulfil an important defensive role in guarding against the inclusion of embarrassing, often expensive and preventable mistakes into new policy initiatives.
• they play a highly constructive role in promoting innovation (via explicit, small-scale experiments and trials), and in helping to fine-tune policies and their delivery mechanisms in advance of their national roll-out.

In the UK a great deal of practice still falls far short of its potential, and by no means all the obstacles to good practice will be simple to surmount:

• there is deep-seated suspicion in some quarters of such programmes, even in circumstances when they would seem to be an ideal mechanism, will take time to overcome, but surely will be.
• there is a routine assumption that any new policy initiative must necessarily be introduced at the earliest possible moment, even when a small delay will help to ensure it is wellhoned, will probably take more of a culture change to rectify.
• the UK still has lessons to learn from abroad, particularly about the methodology of piloting and its role in overall evaluation strategies. Its political and legislative frameworks remain less conducive to an optimal use of policy piloting than in, say, the US, great strides have been made in the past few years in both these respects. Inconsistency remains a problem, as does a reluctance to embrace the best methods in all circumstances. Prior experimentation, trial and error, and the need for transparency all still need to be accorded their due importance in policy formulation.

However, Ministers and senior civil servants who had experienced recent pilots in action have generally been convinced not only of the immense value of piloting in general, but also of the desirability of more experimentation within policy pilots, designed explicitly to try out different models to achieve particular ends.

The report makes a series of recommendations on the development of future policy pilots [adapted from author]