ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the challenges involved in introducing design into public policy and explores some broad principles for what should underpin a new culture of decision-making in public governance. Policy is a practical concept applied in order to create predictable change and is characterized by an optimistic belief in social reality as programmable. As a consequence of the practical, contextual or temporal reality of innovation projects, a substantial amount of resources goes into managing expectations about the process while much less is spent on imaginative experimentation and learning from practice. The ideal is that formal contractual relationships are replaced by more organic and informal social systems that make use of the resources of society in a much smarter and more efficient way. Governments always want to ensure that public intervention is as effective as it can be in positively changing public behaviour, and this is especially true in a time of constrained resources.
