Last week I learned the Commission is going to re-open a sacred cow piece of legislation.
Here is a checklist on what I would advise anyone to do when they know their political, policy or regulatory world is going to be thrown up in the air.
- Get ready. Denial is not a strategy.
- Mirror the policy preparation that the Commission follow
- Make sure you have the time, money, resources on account for the next 3-5 years. You need to plan for the long term.
- Build a credible case. This may be different from the case you want to make.
- Find the real evidence for your case.
- Create the ideal ‘legislative’ text to support your case.
- Put everything down on paper.
- Produce a shadow Impact Assessment.
- Identify and retain real experts to support you. Make sure they are not Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt.
- Make sure your case is ready in time. That 12 months before the issue is officially on the agenda.
- Have a policy playbook – all your policy and legislative asks in one manual
- Have it ready in time and use it. Don’t leave it gathering dust in a cupboard.
- Have the right people to deliver this.
- Answer the questions officials and politicians want to know. Don’t avoid the questions.
- Don’t avoid the questions you don’t like. These are your Achilles heel. They will come out.
- Step in early. The later you step in, the less chance you have of influencing the outcome.
- Make sure your case makes sense to real people and not just policy wonks.
- What do you need to do communicate your case to the public, politicians, officials, stakeholders.
- What are you going to do to both presuade and persuade key decision-makers, influencers and the public?
- Do you have the resources and money to do what is needed
- Do you have the headspace to do this or do you need to bring in someone to do it for you?
Note: Less than 5% of interests do this. Hope is not a strategy. Indeed, I know of too many cases when interests have been shown the text of a proposal going into inter-service consultation and saying it is not real.