Developing design capability at the Australian taxation office

In this third and final case illustration, we focus again on taxpayers and the challenge of public organizations to develop services that fulfill desired policy intents. The chapter centers on the ongoing Integrated Tax Design Project by the Australian Taxation Office. Though its precise starting point can no longer be pinpointed (Terrey 2012, p. 6), there is agreement that things began to happen for real in 1999. 2 A precursor to the design work now underway in many public innovation labs, it predates the ‘lab wave’ by nearly 20 years. The project attests to the centrality of people and services to successful policy implementation and demonstrates how greater design awareness; a more nuanced design understanding and the use of human-centered design methods contribute to better integration of policy making with policy implementation.