October marks the beginning of a six-month period, ahead of the 2015 general election, during which the opposition enters into discussions with permanent secretaries regarding their parties’ policy priorities.
As Whitehall prepares for the possibility of another hung parliament, it can draw lessons from countries where coalition government has become the norm rather than the exception.
Australia’s parliamentary budget office
In 2012 Australia established an independent parliamentary body to provide all parties represented in parliament with fiscal assessments of their policies. Parties submit iterations of policies over the course of the parliament, allowing them to better understand their cost implications. This iterative process is also cited as improving the quality of policies and the honesty of public debate that follows. A distinct difference between this and the Scottish model is that costing requests made within the pre-election period (six weeks before polling day), are automatically published for all voters to view.
The Netherlands’ central planning bureau
This bureau goes a step further than the Australian model; in addition to assessing the financial impact of policies, it also assesses party manifestos against a range of other indicators including employment, carbon emissions, impact on household finances and the country’s long-term debt. These assessments of manifestos are also published a month before polling day. While submission is voluntary, failure to do so undermines the parties’ economic credibility. This approach is credited with helping to ensure policy commitments are evidence-based.
New Zealand’s civil service secondments to the opposition
Seconded treasury officials are available to opposition parties in New Zealand. While costs must be covered by opposition parties, the secondments can run for the entire parliament. These government insiders are able to advise if policy ideas are economically feasible, and on possible challenges to implementation. This approach has also been advocated in research undertaken by the thinktank IPPR.
Sweden’s shared manifesto policy commitments
YouGov president Peter Kellner has predicted the 2015 election may lead to the UK’s first three- or four-party coalition. In such a case, it raises the question as to whether the civil service should have a role in brokering shared policy commitments between parties. The Alliance, a group of four parties, ran on a joint manifesto during Sweden’s 2006 and 2010 general elections. Following the election, the joint manifesto helped establish parties’ pre-negotiated positions, ensuring swift agreement on a programme of government between coalition parties.
Scotland’s ‘separate space’ system
Civil servants in Holyrood supported the formation of a coalition government in Scotland from 1999 to 2007. In preparation, its civil service launched an engagement process with all political parties entitled “separate space”. This facilitated access to civil service expertise, to better inform the respective parties’ pre-election policymaking processes. A key feature of “separate space” is that discussions between each party and the civil service are conducted separately and confidentially, allowing parties to request information which specifically relates to its prospective manifesto pledges.
Read more in the Institute for Government’s report, Year five: Whitehall and the parties in the final year of coalition
Marcus Hobley is a freelance commentator specialising in economic and public policy
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