When I was writing welfare policy, I couldn’t understand why people in the same room, looking at the same data, the same problem, were reaching completely different conclusions.
I’m sure they thought the same about me.
So began a five-year journey exploring policymaking in local government: what influences us, how we rationalise decisions, and how those choices play out in the real world.
What I found was that policy isn’t a rational process at all. It’s social, cultural and psychological. Councils don’t just operate within financial constraints; they operate within belief systems.
Local Government: the same service, 300 different ways
From being a policy writer, through years of qualifications and now as a policy consultant, why we build the policies we do still fascinates me.
Stop and ponder for a minute why there are around 300 different Council Tax Reduction schemes in England. Why some councils offer flexible, people-centred support while others take a hard-line approach.
Finance and demographics play a part, of course. But mostly, those differences come from how officers and members perceive fairness, risk and responsibility.
And it’s not just welfare. We see it in waste management, neighbourhood renewal, customer service, even cultural programming. The differences persist because every council builds policy through its own set of beliefs about what “good” looks like.
Thankfully, I’m not alone in this fascination. Many academics have mapped the biases and heuristics that influence public decision-making, and how we can guard against them.
“This is how we’ve always done it.”
Take system justification. It’s the social psychology term for “this is how we’ve always done it”: how people defend and reproduce the systems they’re part of, even when they know those systems don’t work.
Then there’s path dependency: the policymaking pattern that explains why, once a way of doing things is established, it’s almost impossible to reverse.
Over time, we’ve lost sight of policymaking as a kind of social psychology at scale. Every council is trying to influence behaviour, whether it’s paying Council Tax on time, finding employment, eating healthier, or visiting cultural spaces.
To do that effectively, we have to understand what policy is, how it works, and what levers we can pull to achieve our strategic aims. That’s important for all councils — but doubly so for those in LGR.
What I found
1. Everyone thinks they know what policy is – until they have to write one.
Ask ten officers what “policy” means and you’ll get ten different answers. Some think it’s a process, some think it’s a document, others think it’s a form Legal Services make you complete to cover your back.
But policy isn’t paperwork. It’s the logic beneath it; how an organisation defines fairness, risk, and discretion. When councils merge through LGR, this confusion multiplies: five definitions of fairness, seven bin policies, and a hundred interpretations of “consistency.”
2. Most decisions are inherited, not designed.
Policy change is too often treated as a paperwork exercise, not a design exercise. When legacy authorities merge, a quiet game of policy survival will begin: whose system, whose rules, whose version of “reasonable”? The result? Path dependency disguised as harmonisation.
3. Data doesn’t make decisions, people do.
Councils have more data than ever, but data rarely decides policy. People do. People shaped by their experiences, pressures, and biases. If you want to understand why a council takes a particular stance, follow the psychology, not the spreadsheet.
4. Bias is inevitable, but manageable.
Every policy is an expression of values. The goal isn’t neutrality, it’s awareness. A fair policy isn’t one that pretends to be objective; it’s one that understands its own subjectivity and is honest about it.
Why this matters during LGR
LGR isn’t just merging payroll systems. Many of us wish it was, I’m sure! It’s merging belief systems.
When new unitaries are formed, each legacy council brings its own policy DNA — its assumptions about who deserves what, how discretion is applied, and how far rules can bend. Those legacies run deep.
If you can’t articulate the logic behind them, you end up defaulting to the loudest voice, the safest precedent, or the most restrictive version of fairness.
If LGR is going to work, policy teams need to move beyond merging documents and start merging principles.
Time to relearn the craft
Policy is a discipline. Somewhere along the austerity timeline, we stopped being able to afford to treat it like one.
We expect officers to produce policies that are evidence-based, defensible and fair — but we rarely give them the time, frameworks or space to learn how. Instead, we rely on inherited formats, reactive fixes and unwritten rules. The result is inconsistency, risk aversion and lost opportunities for better design.
That’s why I run Better Policy Masterclasses — short, practical sessions for officers, service leads and transformation teams who want to rebuild clarity and confidence in policy design, especially during LGR.
We cover:
- What policy really is (and isn’t)
- How to test whether a policy is working
- How culture, bias, and risk shape decision-making
- How to design policies that survive scrutiny and deliver fairness
If your council is going through LGR and wrestling with competing legacy policies, this is your chance to reset and to decide what your new authority stands for, how it defines fairness, and how it makes decisions people can trust.
If you’re not going through LGR and want Better Policy, look no further.