From Framework to Practice: Lessons for Developing Regulatory Capability Frameworks

Introduction

Regulatory capability is fundamental to effective regulatory practice, yet many agencies have not had a clear or consistent approach for defining, designing and/or developing the capabilities required to deliver their regulatory mandate. A Regulatory Capability Framework (RCF) provides a structured way to articulate what effective regulatory practice looks like, align capability expectations with organisational needs, and support the ongoing development of regulatory agencies and practitioners.

The Regulatory Capability Framework Initiative (the RCF Initiative) was established to support regulatory agencies in exploring how RCFs can be designed and applied in practice. The RCF Initiative brought together practice-based research, comparative research, and practitioner collaboration to examine the role of RCFs in creating the conditions for effective regulatory capability. It comprised a series of papers examining the rationale, design considerations and practical use of RCFs; a cross-agency workshop supporting agencies to develop their own frameworks; and this final paper capturing lessons, reflections and observations from practice.

The RCF Initiative comprised:

• Paper 1: The Case for a Distinct Regulatory Capability Framework (Hudson and Pink, 2026a)

• Paper 2: Designing Agency-Specific Regulatory Capability Frameworks: Learning from Three Frameworks (Hudson and Pink, 2026b)

• Workshop: Build Your Regulatory Capability Framework: From Ideas to Action (July 2026)

• Paper 3: From Framework to Practice: Lessons for Developing Regulatory Capability Frameworks

This article synthesises the insights from the RCF Initiative, drawing together the research, framework analysis, and workshop discussions to highlight practical considerations for regulatory agencies seeking to design, develop and embed an RCF.

The workshop

Build Your Regulatory Capability Framework: From Ideas to Action was a bespoke, interactive half-day workshop designed and facilitated by the authors in July 2026. The workshop was designed to help participants move from ideas about regulatory capability to the first steps in shaping their own RCF. Building on the concepts introduced in the first two papers, participants translated ideas into practical gateway design decisions and considered their next steps in progressing towards implementation.

Designed to bridge conceptual understanding with applied practice, the workshop focused on the early design decisions that influence how an RCF will be developed and function within an agency or organisation. Structured around three rounds of a Knowledge Café, participants shared their experiences, tested assumptions, challenged established thinking, and examined different approaches to designing, implementing, and applying RCFs. Through this process, participants examined some key questions agencies need to consider when developing an RCF, including:

• the rationale for having an RCF,

• its purpose and intended use,

• how it should be designed and developed,

• how it can be aligned with workforce and organisational systems, and

• the conditions required for successful implementation, embedding, and longevity.

Delivered in partnership with the National Regulators Community of Practice (NRCoP) and hosted by the NRCoP ACT Chapter, the workshop brought together 25 regulatory practitioners from 15 agencies across four jurisdictions. Participants represented a diverse range of functions, including regulatory practice, learning and development, human resources, organisational development, regulatory reform, and executive leadership. Agencies were also at different stages of their RCF journey, ranging from exploring the need for a framework, to actively designing one, through to reviewing and refining existing frameworks.

Workshop reflections

The three Knowledge Café rounds explored three fundamental questions at the heart of RCF design:

• Who is the framework for, and who owns it?

• How should an RCF be designed and developed?

• How can an RCF be applied in practice?

The reflections below capture the key themes, tensions, and insights that emerged from these discussions.

1. Purpose and ownership: who is the RCF for? and who champions it?

Purpose and ownership are critical to the practical value of an RCF. Participants explored who would own and champion the framework within their regulatory agency, who it is intended to support, and how these decisions guide whether it becomes a meaningful tool for building capability or simply another organisational document.

Participant’s considered two fundamental questions:

• Who will own and champion the RCF within their organisation (e.g. executive leadership, regulatory operations, HR/L&D), and what does that mean for how it is used?

• Who is the framework intended to support or influence, and how should that shape its focus and design?

Observations and reflections

Ownership: strategic accountability versus enabling support

A range of potential RCF owners were identified, including executive leadership, (operational) regulatory functions, and enabling (corporate) areas such as human resources and learning and development.

The discussion highlighted that ownership of an RCF may be understood in different ways across agencies. This raises an important distinction between strategic accountability for the framework and the role of those who provide expertise (to design the RCF), coordination and support (bringing different voices and experiences together). Enabling functions, such as human resources and learning and development, may have carriage of the framework through coordinating its design, implementation and ongoing maintenance. However, carriage does not necessarily equate to ownership.

The authors suggest that while responsibility for coordinating and implementing an RCF generally sits with enabling functions, strategic accountability for its purpose, direction, design and application sits with those responsible for regulatory practice and the agency's organisational capability.

Without an executive sponsor and a clear connection to operational regulatory delivery and the agency’s regulatory mandate, there is a risk that an RCF is viewed primarily as a workforce initiative rather than a strategic regulatory capability mechanism. This requires more than executive endorsement; it requires a sponsor with enough understanding of RCFs to work collaboratively with HR and L&D to guide the framework’s development, and sufficient strategic influence to ensure it is embedded in how the agency operates.

The experience of agencies involved in the RCF Initiative highlighted the value of this understanding. Even executives with a strong commitment to regulatory maturity may need some additional assistance with the regulatory language and regulatory concepts in order to ask more meaningful questions, provide informed feedback, and ensure the RCF reflects the agency’s regulatory context. Executive sponsorship is therefore not simply about endorsing the RCF; it is about being sufficiently informed to shape its development; and then support its integration into the way the agency operates.

2. How should the RCF be designed and developed?

The importance of co-design and the choices agencies face when developing an RCF were discussed, in particular that development approaches need to reflect the regulatory agencies' context, access to available expertise, and intended outcomes.

Two key questions guided the discussion:

• Who should be involved in shaping the RCF (e.g. regulatory practitioners, leaders, HR/L&D, external experts), and what would each contribute?

• Should agencies build internally, adapt existing models, partner externally, or use a combination of approaches? What are the trade-offs?

Observations and reflections

Co-design: getting the right people in the room

A consistent theme was the importance of bringing together the right expertise and diverse perspectives to design an RCF that is meaningful, relevant and ultimately fit for purpose. Participants highlighted that effective frameworks are built through collaboration and co-design, involving people from across the organisation, including regulatory practitioners, technical experts, leaders, executives and enabling functions such as human resources and learning and development.

Co-design was recognised as more than simply gathering input. It is a process of working with the people who will use the framework to ensure that it reflects the realities of regulatory practice, builds ownership across the organisation, and builds the credibility needed for effective implementation. Establishing working groups or representative design teams was identified as a practical way to bring together the experience and perspectives needed to support this process.

Importantly, co-design also provides an opportunity to test whether the language used within the framework makes sense to the people it is intended to support. This matters particularly where staff are moving from technical or professional roles into regulatory roles. For example, a scientist who becomes a regulator may continue to draw on a strong professional identity and vocabulary associated with scientific practice. An RCF needs to help make the shift in role and expectations clear: what does it mean to apply that technical expertise as a regulator? What is different about the judgement, decision-making and responsibilities expected in the regulatory role?

Using language that reflects the agency’s context, while making the regulatory expectations explicit, can help staff understand not only what they are being asked to do, but why it matters and how it differs from their previous professional role. Co-design provides a way to surface these differences, test terminology, identify areas of ambiguity, and develop descriptions of capability that staff can recognise in their everyday work.

This highlights an important distinction: co-design is not simply about achieving organisational buy-in. It is also a way of ensuring that the framework is understood by the people who are expected to use it. A technically sound framework that uses unfamiliar or overly abstract language may struggle to translate into practice. Conversely, a framework developed using the language, experiences, and reflects the realities of the regulatory work performed is more likely to become a meaningful reference point for conversations about expectations, development and performance.

No single pathway: with numerous options for building

Participants recognised that agencies are likely to take different approaches to developing an RCF depending on their context, access to expertise, and intended outcomes. Approaches discussed included building a framework internally, adapting available models, trialling design with just a small cohort and then scale up, seeking external expertise, or combining these approaches.

There was a strong preference for making sure that RCFs are grounded in the agency’s own authorising environment and operating context, while drawing on available models, evidence and lessons from other organisations. External support was seen as valuable in providing specialist expertise, independent challenge, and additional perspectives. At the same time, participants recognised that agencies need to retain responsibility for developing a framework that is meaningful, relevant, and fit for purpose for their own operating context.

3. How will the RCF be used in practice?

A recurring theme was that the true value of an RCF is not in the framework itself, but in how it influences and supports capability development, subsequent regulatory practice and developing a strong regulatory professional identity. Participants explored how they could embed RCF’s within current organisational systems and processes to support regulatory capability development.

The questions that guided this discussion were:

• Where and how could an RCF be used in practice (e.g. capability development, workforce planning, performance, regulatory decision-making)?

• How should it connect with existing frameworks and processes, so it becomes a useful tool rather than a standalone document?

Observations and reflections

From framework to practice: embedding capability in everyday systems

A consistent theme was that the value of an RCF comes from how it is used in practice, not simply from having a framework in place. Participants identified that an RCF can inform a range of organisational systems and processes that contribute to building and sustaining regulatory capability, including:

• Recruitment: supporting clearer role expectations, including updating position descriptions and strengthening the psychological contract between the agency and its workforce.

• Onboarding and induction: helping new staff understand that they are joining an organisation that performs regulatory functions and/or clarifying their specific role in supporting regulatory outcomes.

• Mindset shift: Supporting staff to shift from an existing mindset, e.g. as from being a technical expert in a field to seeing themselves first as a regulator who brings technical expertise to their regulatory role.

• Training and development: identifying the mandatory and role-specific learning needed to build capability and perform their regulatory responsibilities effectively.

• Learning pathways and career progression: providing a foundation to understand capability expectations, identifying development opportunities, and supporting career pathways.

• Workforce planning: directing future capability needs, identifying workforce gaps and supporting longer-term investment in regulatory capability.

• Performance development: providing a shared reference point for conversations about capability expectations, development, and performance.

• Succession planning: supporting the identification and development of future regulatory capability needs.

The importance of RCF’s being connected to existing organisational systems and processes was also highlighted. This includes organisational capability frameworks, government capability frameworks, performance management approaches, strategic planning processes, and learning management systems. Rather than operating as a standalone document, an RCF needs to be incorporated into the practices and tools that determine how agencies recruit, develop, and support their regulatory workforce. This way the RCF shapes everyday workforce decisions and practice, rather than simply describing the capability the agency wants to build. The discussion reinforced that the impact of an RCF comes not only from defining regulatory capability expectations, but also from creating the connections that enable those expectations to influence development, decision-making, and regulatory practice.

Conclusion

The RCF initiative, through the three integrated papers and interactive workshop, reinforced that an RCF helps agencies to clarify what effective regulatory practice looks like and create the conditions needed to build, maintain, and sustain regulatory capability over time.

The research and discussions highlighted that there is currently no single model or pathway for developing an RCF. However, the authors suggest that a number of broadly applicable principles for regulators and the regulatory profession can be identified from the three frameworks examined in Paper 2. These principles centre on the importance of regulatory practice, regulatory systems, regulatory communication, and regulatory decision-making.

Given the above, RCFs cannot simply be taken off the shelf. Instead, RCFs need to be purposively shaped to reflect each agency’s regulatory mandate, authorising environment, and unique operating context. While agencies can draw on existing frameworks, research and the experience of others, as they provide a valuable evidence base and starting point rather than a template to be adopted wholesale. The process of developing an RCF is just as important as the framework itself. The greatest value comes from creating a framework that is meaningful, relevant, and fit for purpose within the organisation’s own context—one that aligns with its mandate, priorities and operating environment, and is understood and owned by the people who will use it.

In closing, RCFs require clear ownership from those accountable for regulatory delivery and regulatory practice; meaningful involvement from staff across the organisation; and deliberate integration into the systems and processes that enable agencies, managers and staff to develop and apply regulatory capability.

RCFs have greatest utility when they move beyond being viewed as just another organisational document and are instead recognised as a strategic asset – an asset which is integral to how an agency understands, develops, and strengthens its regulatory practice.