Podcast Archive
Policy Monitoring for Change
Resource Type: Audio Seminar || Speaker: Anne Makhoul
Policy Monitoring expert Anne Makhoul from the Caledon Institute discusses the think tank’s experience with policy monitoring and its importance when trying to affect change and influence government policy decision-making. She also highlights the trends that the Institute has identified from its work and the benefits already seen from Caledon’s monthly policy index.
Take the Seminar!
The fourth seminar in the Canada's Cities Reducing Poverty series profiles the Caledon Institute of Social Policy's policy monitoring work. The Caledon Institute publishes a monthly summary of provincial and territorial policy changes across a variety of domains including: disabilities, education, health, housing, income security, poverty reduction, recreation, seniors and youth. In this podcast, Caledon's Principal Project Officer Anne Makhoul discusses the development of their policy monitoring process and tools.
Learning Objectives:
- To understand the role and current context of Canada's cities in reducing poverty
- To learn more about policy monitoring for social change
Access Seminar Highlights
- Role of Policy Monitoring
- Policy Project Led to Monthly Index
- Trends in Policy Announcements
- Next Steps
- Reflection Questions
- Links & Resources
- Meet Anne Makhoul
The Caledon Institute of Social Policy is an independent think tank that focuses mainly on influencing the development of federal social policies. Its principals, Ken Battle, Sherri Torjman and Michael Mendelson, write on a wide range of policy areas, including poverty reduction, disability income, minimum wage and pensions.
Anne explained that, because of the interconnectedness of policies developed at the federal, provincial and municipal level, the Caledon Institute has always been interested in regular soundings of social policy developments. Recently, the Institute has also been interested in at the distinct roles of the community and government in policy development.
Anne talks about the beginnings and the people involved in the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in this clip:
In 2008, with funding from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), the Caledon Institute brought together five organizations and two academics to learn from one another's experiences with collaborations between governments and communities on policy. There was an appetite to increase their collective capacity to influence the development of provincial and federal social policies. The participants included:
Scott Cameron from the City of Red Deer: Scott and representatives from six other Alberta communities had worked with federal officials on the National Homelessness Initiative. From those first meetings, the Seven Cities Partnership was formed and, over its seven-year history, it influenced provincial policy and programs around affordable housing and homelessness.
Maria Basualdo from the Community-University Institute for Social Research: a group of organizations in Saskatoon were working to build a centrally-located food and social services hub, called Station 20 West, for residents of a poorly-served, older portion of the city.
Marc Nisbet from Montreal's Santropol Roulant: This meals-on- wheels organization wanted to better understand the reorganization of the provincial health care network and its impact on their activities.
Peggy Rowe of the Community Services Council (CSC) in St. John's, Newfoundland: CSC had helped encourage inclusion of community-based groups in policy discussions, and had played a role in the development of Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial poverty reduction plan and Community Accounts, a provincial system that helps citizens access data down to the neighbourhood level.
Liz Weaver represented the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction (HRPR): HRPR had engaged senior public officials from all three levels of government and connected with provincial and national organizations to share information, identify resources and discuss policy positions.
Katherine Graham of Carleton University and Caroline Andrew of the University of Ottawa brought academic perspectives to the group.
Over the course of 13 months, the participants gathered in on-line and face-to-face workshop sessions. Caledon's monthly provincial policy monitoring process and a practical tool, a manual titled Community-Government Collaboration on Policy, were the initial results. The project confirmed that regular monitoring of provincial policy sites was useful to community, provincial and municipal organizations, and was vital to Caledon's efforts to influence federal social policies.
In August, 2010, Caledon refined the policy categories they wanted to monitor and started monitoring announcements from the remaining five provinces and three territories. Over the last few years, as more provinces and territories develop poverty reduction and social inclusion strategies, Caledon has reported on developments in those areas as well.
Here, Anne describes how the Community Government Collaboration on Policy project got started, and gives the background and experiences of the people and organizations that were involved.
In scanning policy announcements over many months, Anne has noticed several trends:
- Governments often announce and re-announce initiatives over time. “Newly announced” programs are often continuations of directions set earlier.
- Throne Speeches and Budgets contain most major initiatives, but daily monitoring ensures that nothing gets missed.
- There is a natural ebb and flow of announcements related to the term or mandate of governments. Newly-elected governments take some time to develop a direction and start making policy announcements, while governments that are nearing the end of their mandates usually announce items that build on previously-established work.
- Provinces differ in how they announce policy: for example, in Quebec, the finance department's page is more helpful than the detailed announcements from ministers' press conferences.
In this clip, Anne describes the timing of the New Brunswick government's announcements related to its provincial policy reduction plan.
Anne explained that the monthly policy index simply reports what policy announcements have occurred, but does not analyse them. However, Caledon regularly provides analysis through their papers and commentary, as they did in When is $500 not $500, their commentary on non-refundable tax credits.
Anne pointed out that it can be difficult to get beyond what's on a government website to determine what is actually happening in the field. She hopes that community sources may be able to alert Caledon to changes they observe in the field and at the municipal level, so that there is two way flow of information.
Listen to Anne explaining the impact of the policy updates by explaining how they have informed a paper on minimum wages, and helped compare provincial poverty reduction plans across Canada.
GOING DEEPER
- What provincial policies affect your work in communities? In what ways would monitoring policy announcements in those areas help your work?
- Is it enough to know about provincial policy announcements, if you're interested in social change? What other kinds of information or analysis would you like to see?
Collaboration on Policy: A Manual - Developed by Caledon with partners known as the Community-Government Collaboration on Policy, this manual provides practical lessons for the establishment and operation of effective government-community collaborations on policy. The many examples, tools and references provided in the manual are helpful both to those new to policy work and to groups already engaged in collaborations on policy.
Provincial Policy April 2011 - This is is a direct link to the April 2011 Provincial Policy Index. To get to the reports from Caledon's home page, choose "Special Projects", then Community-Government Collaboration on Policy, then scroll to the Community-Government Collaboration on Policy section.
Provincial Policy March 2011 - This is a direct link to a recent edition of the policy monitoring reports, which are produced monthly. To get to the reports from Caledon's home page, choose "Special Projects", then Community-Government Collaboration on Policy, then scroll to the Community-Government Collaboration on Policy section.
Community Roles in Policy - This audio seminar with the Caledon Institute's Sherri Torjman explores ways communities can participate in shaping government policies related to poverty. Access the seminar here.
Shared Space: The Communities Agenda - This online seminar explores the book by Sherri Torjman, vice-president of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Identifying four “cluster” areas of resilience, Sherri believes that by “joining up” with others who are engaged in similar work, we open the door to innovation and increased efficacy. While acknowledging that working in this “shared space” is not always easy, it can have tremendous rewards – enabling all of us to raise the bar and embrace a common agenda that is greater than the sum of its parts. Access the seminar here.
Anne Makhoul - Anne Makhoul was a classroom teacher for five years and a writer/researcher for two before she joined the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in 2000 to write a series about communities and schools. As she moved with Caledon into work on Vibrant Communities, Action for Neighbourhood Change and other community and policy-focused projects, she became the coordinator and principal writer of Caledon's ‘community stories' series. She also took on special projects for the Institute, including her work on policy monitoring.
©2011 Tamarack — An Institute for Community Engagement