Modernising Policy-making for the Twenty First Century: The Professional Model

The article critically reviews the ‘professional’ policy-making model advanced by the Cabinet Office’. report on Professional Policy-making for the Twenty-First Century. It argues that it is inadequate as a model of strategic policy making on three levels. First, it fails in its own terms by setting out to be a model predicated on the philosophy of what works, and yet it is unable in so many ways to demonstrate that what it prescribes works. Second, it tends to ignore the fact that politics and democracy are important dimensions of policy-making. Finally, it neglects the contribution which other schools of strategic thought could make to the formulation of a strategic model which may be more appropriate and relevant to policy-making in conditions of ignorance, unpredictability, uncertainty, and complexity.