ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the unique, insider perspective of the Project Leader and his team at the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. It therefore benefits from access to key informants in an in-process case study of policy transfer. As policy transfer takes places within a multi-organizational setting the analysis of policy transfer requires a methodology that provides empirical tools for understanding inter-organizational politics. Policy transfer analysis should be restricted to action oriented intentional learning - that which takes place consciously and results in policy action. The emergence of a policy transfer network begins with the recognition by a decision-making elite, politician or bureaucrat, of the existence of a public policy problem that requires, due to contextual factors, pressing attention. The absence of acceptable alternative policy responses may lead an agent to engage in a search for policy ideas. The policy transfer network approach has proved a useful heuristic device for organising the case study analysis and studying the process of policy transfer.
