Health, Wellbeing, Nature and Sustainability are the real outcome measures of policy making and place based management.
The EXPLORE framework places Health, Wellbeing, Nature and Sustainability at the heart of local decision making. ADEPT (the voice of local authority place directors and their teams) recently launched EXPORE, endorsing its use for local government and place-based management.
Don’t get distracted!
Many decisions in government policy making, both national and local, come down to deciding what to invest and where. The options for that decision are often captured in an impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis.
This necessarily reductive administative impact assessment process can often distract us from the actual reason why we do anything in government, which is to decide how to use individual tax payer’s money to benefit the society in which those tax payers live now, and in which their children will live tomorrow.
Success in government or place based management requires that we balance a budget and rigorously examine costs vs benefits for individual investment decisions, but the real outcome measures are seen as four domains that reach beyond those accounting calculations:
- The HEALTH of the people
- The WELLBEING of the people
- The state of the NATURE (environment) in which those people live, grow food and the quality of the air they breathe and the water they drink
- The SUSTAINABILITY of all of these things not just for today, but for generations to come.
The challenge is that these domain outcomes are often managed as four separate parts of government and policy making, operating in their own ‘bubbles’ under separate KPIs and budgets. It can sometimes appear as if they are treated as secondary outcomes in an impact assessment driven by the CBA focused on a narrow, single investment such as a new road, or housing, or maintenance contract, when in reality, they are the actual purpose to which those individual investments need to contribute.
What is EXPLORE?
Explore is a strategic planning and facilitation tool that helps to bring together these four different outcome perspectives, their data and sometimes conflicting priorities into a single conversation, at the earliest stage of policy making. The aim is to see that these four outcomes are not treated as unrelated consquences in an impact assessment, but as the primary end goals of policy making. It is deliberately policy neutral, focusing on enabling better decision making through evidence and collaboration.
The development of EXPLORE was led by Natural England through a partnership including the Environment Agency, the University of Exeter and Local Partnerships; the framework draws on research from the RENEW programme and practical experience from across our sector. This combination of academic insight and real-world testing across 7 pilot projects ensures that the toolkit is both credible and user-friendly.
The four domains act as common reference points and are captured in the framework in a single format, lifting conversations above specialised domain language or individual departmental priorities. This enables genuinely strategic discussions across domain boundaries that move action forward.
EXPLORE has four core components, which you can find illustrated in the launch materials
- outcome dashboards providing a snapshot of performance
- factor maps showing relationships between key influences
- horizon scanning tools to explore future scenarios
- a facilitation package to guide structured workshops
Together, these elements create a practical toolkit that can be used to bring partners together and identify shared priorities.
Risk Solutions’ role
Risk Solutions was the primary consultant working with Natural England over four years from the inception of the EXPLORE concept, through to the launch hosted by ADEPT.
We led the work with Natural England and their partners to create the factor maps designing and conducting trials with local government teams on live strategic challenges.
We designed and developed the Facilitation Pack to be used by leadership teams or their facilitators to design and conduct their own EXPLORE conversations, bringing together the four domains and four components of the framework.
“Risk Solutions are expert facilitators in a public policy space and their facilitation made some challenging workshops enjoyable experiences. Their deep experience and willingness to innovate made an essential contribution to the Explore facilitation package“. Client Feedback