When revolving doors are good, actually
Author: Noah Zon
Image of revolving door
It’s conventional wisdom in politics and policymaking that revolving doors are dangerous things to be feared. Not the actual doors, but the idea that movement between roles in industry and roles in government that regulate those industries leads to regulatory capture, with policy that favors the interests of industry rather than the public interest.
This is a risk that should be taken seriously. Bad actors exist, and even a perceived conflict of interest can be damaging to public trust. And it's true that policy can be skewed towards an industry without a whiff of corruption involved.
Canada has built a range of safeguards to block the revolving door and as a result we have very little of the personnel movement back and forth between government and industry seen in other countries. Instead of policy as a career path, people are typically streamed early on into working in, or out, of government. Government tends to be a career-long employer. Taking the federal public service as an example, the most recent statistics show that one-third of new indeterminate hires were under the age of 30, and public servants were three times more likely to leave for retirement than any other reason.
But are we better off as a result? We are robbing our regulators of the expertise to manage in the public interest and robbing industry of the expertise to understand how policymaking actually gets done in government. These rules are more likely to throw barriers around the well-intentioned people working in the field than they are to slow down people who are trying to work the system for their own self-interests.
While large institutions are hard to move - public services especially - this is something that can be improved through practical changes. We just need senior leaders and rising professionals on both sides of the government/”stakeholder” divide to see this movement as something to be encouraged rather than tightly controlled.
Maybe the real government is the friends we made along the way
When governments and the sectors they work with don’t understand each other’s practical realities, we get bad policy. There are things that are hard to understand without some experience working in a sector. Like how government incentive programs might factor into business decisions. Or what it’s like to navigate annual “accountability” reporting as a non-profit receiving transfer payments.
This goes the other way as well. If we rely on “stakeholders” to make their communities’ and industries’ needs known to governments, we need them to be equipped to provide actionable advice in the right place and the right time. That is easier to do when you can rely on some expertise that you can’t easily get from books or classrooms about how to broker a successful memorandum to cabinet or implement a high-level policy commitment made in a budget or platform.
This isn’t just a question of “sub-optimal”. The safeguards against revolving doors may run counter to their own objectives. If you are concerned about well-resourced industry voices having outsized influence, you should want to ensure that the policymakers on the receiving end of that industry advocacy have the benefit of their own advice informed by the nuances of working directly in the field. The same goes if you’re concerned about a government harming innovation, or layering burdens on the non-profit organizations that deliver the bulk of modern public services because of the same lack of insight.
The upside of this challenge is that to get better outcomes, we don’t need all or most policy professionals to follow sector-jumping paths. We just need it to be more likely that more teams can call on that experience; that someone in the room can add that viewpoint to the conversation.
How did we end up here?
The targeted rules around things like post-employment restrictions for people leaving government only explain a small slice of the lack of movement in and out of government. There are a collection of factors that make it harder for people in government to leave (especially temporarily) and a collection that make it harder for people outside to do a tour of service.
Golden handcuffs and invisible fences
A side effect of good compensation in public service is the “golden handcuff” effect; for earlier career public servants in policy, pay is typically quite a bit higher than the alternatives, while for mid-to-late career folks the defined benefit pensions become nearly-impossible to match.
Beyond the potential near-term pay gap, there are further risks for those who see themselves pursuing public service careers in the long-term. The way to advance in the public service is by moving around in the public service, not by getting outside experience. Leaves of absences are approved reluctantly, if at all, rather than encouraged as part of talent management.
Image of golden handcuffs
These barriers can get reinforced by culture. People tend to emulate the career paths they see. And the leaders that are (hopefully) supporting their careers are more likely to have built their career in a mix of public service roles. The equivalent is also often true within sectors (or there is a clear political staff to government relations pipeline model).
Even if these hurdles are cleared, there are not enough places to go. While there has been an increase in policy-focused roles in both business and non-profit organizations in recent years, there are few mid-level roles appropriate for someone to spend some time mid-career. Compared to peer countries, Canada also has very few think tanks and similar places where someone can go do public-minded work on policy.
Breaking into the club
Looking in the other direction, public service can be an unnecessarily hostile place for someone looking to do a tour of duty. The majority of policy roles are not posted publicly but exist only in a “hidden” job market for people who are already in the public service. Postings are written in insider bureaucratic language, and feature unnecessary credential and experience requirements. Interview practices resemble the most uncomfortable verbal exam you ever went through in school.
And just like for current public servants, culture reinforces these barriers, in terms of the choices people pursue and the perspectives of hiring managers. For those who do enter the public service mid-career or in leadership roles, the cultural barriers can make it very difficult to thrive. In practice, being an effective public servant in a policy role depends on trusted relationships, an ability to speak the jargon-heavy ‘language’ of government, and skill at navigating unspoken cultural norms. While these can be learned, talented professionals who join at more senior levels rarely get support to do so – and many face outright hostility from peers suspicious of those outside roles.
It doesn’t have to be this way
Even if there are many factors working against people moving in and out of government, there are good reasons to be optimistic. There are practical options that can bridge the divide even in the absence of bigger changes. Here are three responses that could pave the way for more people to bring their insights into and out of governments:
Scale up interchanges
The Government of Canada has a formal program in place to support temporary placements in and out of the core public service called Interchange. It allows federal public servants to take outside roles (typically with provincial governments or broader public sector organizations) and vice versa. However it is currently a very small program that requires a slew of signoffs and conditions. At the time of writing, there were a total of three (3) opportunities posted on its job board, though participating organizations and people can create unposted opportunities.
This could be a much more active route. One place to start is to prioritize interchange opportunities in public service talent management. Instead of a reluctant exception, these placements should be encouraged for public servants and used as a way to bring talent and expertise into public service. The federal government does have the Recruitment of Policy Leaders model to bring in talented professionals from different sectors. This could be scaled to other governments and expanded to different points in career. But it is also a practice that should take place in reverse, identifying rising policy talent in government and ensuring they have opportunities to serve in policy roles outside of government.
Another way to support scale would be to reduce red tape and other barriers to placements. Making the interchanges more centrally supported rather than individual quests could open more opportunities. In the US federal government they have also introduced changes to pension design aimed at reducing the golden handcuffs effect (though these have had limited effect to date).
Because it takes two sides to an interchange, scale also means building partnerships with organizations outside of government. Most of these organizations will have zero current awareness of the opportunity to bring in expertise this way, even if potential interest is high.
Image of an office worker looking through a window at other office workers
Create more “tour of duty” type roles in government and outside
To get more circulation in and out of government - and for a scale-up of interchange programs to be successful - we need more roles designed for people to do tours of duty in government or in community. This has been a successful approach to bring in talent for public digital initiatives through programs like Code for Canada. But it has not been attempted at scale for policy roles.
We do have some limited examples, mostly targeted at exchanges between government and policy academics. The Clifford Clark Visiting Economist program at the Department of Finance has brought in a leading economist for each of the last 40 years to provide advice to the Deputy and Minister. Similarly we have seen “in-residence” at Employment and Social Development Canada and at Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada, based in the Deputy Ministers’ offices. Several of Canada’s public policy graduate programs also bring in senior public servants for one-year postings.
These placements have had outsized impacts on the shaping of public policy and on the shaping of future public policy professionals. The only downside is that there are so few of these positions, and that they are targeted to people who are very accomplished and further in their careers. Creating more opportunities for 1-3 year tours of duty would allow more professionals to bring their expertise and insights to new places.
Build more professional communities for policy rather than public administration
Beyond these direct measures, a supportive response would be to build a professional community for policy people that includes people in and out of government. The Institute for Public Administration of Canada and its chapters do important work for bringing different parts of public service together. Community-led initiatives like Maytree Policy School and the Max Bell Public Policy Training Institute build capacity and communities of practice for policy leaders in the non-profit sector. But these are all focused on working within one (broad) sector rather than across the profession.
This is something worth pursuing for reasons beyond the career path effects. We need more spaces to look at what good policy looks like with perspectives from people making decisions, people implementing decisions, and people affected by them. (Thanks, Policy Ready).
Here a little bit can go a long way. A mix of informal and formal initiatives, building on what already exists can help build understanding and expertise for better public policy outcomes. For example, the Canada School of Public Service could open all or most of its programming to policy professionals outside government. Likewise, the public servants learning at the CSPS would benefit from programming to shed light on how their “stakeholder” counterparts see the policymaking process.
A revolving door that works
We need to equip governments with more understanding of the industries and sectors they regulate, rather than treating outside experience like a scarlet letter. Guardrails are necessary, but the ones we have are not offering the right kind of protection. While the public may not be filled with concern about the career prospects of well-educated and well-paid policy wonks, this is a problem that leaves us all worse off.
Noah Zon is a co-founder and Principal of Springboard Policy, where he works with organizations to develop and advance good policy ideas. Before starting Springboard, Noah worked in policy roles in the non-profit sector, think tanks, and the Government of Ontario