An article in Policy Design and Practice presents a process model to guide the production of quality policy advice. Called the 5D model, it defines five key domains of inquiry: understanding demand, being open to discovery, undertaking design, identifying critical decision points and shaping advice to enable delivery. Developed and tested through an extensive process of engagement with senior policy practitioners, it is a repeatable and scalable model for supporting policy practitioners to provide quality advice to decision makers.
The 5D model – principles
The following design principles informed the development of the model:
- adaptable and transferable. It should something that could be used in a range of organisations and jurisdictions.
- practical and applicable to the day-to-day work of policy. The model needed to be useful for big transformational policy projects as well as everyday transactional tweaks to existing policies and programs.
- a framework to anchor related tools and methods such as such as consultation and engagement guidelines, evaluation protocols, project planning as well as quality assurances processes.
- simple without being simplistic, easy to use, and accessible to new public servants as well as experienced policy leaders.
The 5D model – elements
The 5D model provides guidance around critical lines of inquiry, including encouraging analysis of the policy challenge and assumptions about why advice is being sought. It is inquiry orientated and not prescriptive of steps or actions practitioners should take.
Figure 1 presents an illustration of the 5D model. Each decision point is evident, and the elliptic loops aim to capture the continuous interaction of evaluation and engagement.
Figure 1: The 5D Policy Advice Model (Walker and Washington 2025)
Demand
An essential task for developing policy advice is understanding where demand is coming from. Demand for advice may have originated from ministers, feedback from people being affected by a current policy or program, the identification of a strategic organisational or political goal, or the opportunity to do things better.
Advice needs to reflect an understanding and calibration to the relative authority of the demand source and authorising environment. Understanding demand and its origin helps identify the resources, skills and expertise needed to develop advice.
Discover
Quality policy advice must reveal a deep understanding of the presenting policy challenge or opportunity. This includes the act of collecting evidence, including analysis of quantitative data, published research, critiquing what has been tried before, insights from people’s lived experience, their needs and perspectives, and obtaining feedback from frontline public servants.
The key questions to ask when moving to the discovery phase are: what do we know about the problem or opportunity, what do we need to know, and where are the knowledge gaps?
Design
This is the process of developing evidence-informed, quality policy advice to design and test possible solutions to challenges, or to innovate from standard or previous practices. Questions to ask in this phase concern what methods will be used to design and test solutions and who will be involved? Design activity opens the policy advisory process to a broader range of actors, experience and expertise.
Decide
This element recognises the role of policy advice in government decision making. In this context, ‘‘decide’’ is the extent to which the content, and the presentation of advice supports decision making. The focus is whether the policy advice helps decision-makers take good decisions. At its most simplistic level, this asks whether the policy advice is sufficient to facilitate decision-making.
Delivery
The delivery element asks how implementation will achieve the policy intent. Are decisions implementable and can they have the desired impact? Considerations of ‘delivery’ involve a range of operational issues including budgets, capability, reach and engagement.
Engage and evaluate
Engagement and evaluation are presented as continuous and connected activities throughout the development process. Policy is relational. Maintaining engagement with those affected by policy decisions is crucial for policy success. Policy advice will benefit from external input. For some issues this is critical in the discovery phase, in other cases stakeholder engagement provides strategic intelligence on implementation, on how decisions will land or how to mobilise critical support.
Policy advice also draws on critiques of existing arrangements; maintaining an evaluation mindset and monitoring performance ensures new evidence and insights support policy adaptation and future policy advice.
The bottom line
Practitioners agreed there is utility in the 5D model. However, the extent to which the model might drive improved policy quality advice process is more challenging to measure. Indicators of quality include reliability and trustworthiness, thoroughness, inclusion and fairness, and problem-solving capacity. Quality advice achieves executive and ministerial attention and helps deliver good decisions.
Article author Sally Washington has also produced an animation of the 5D model
Want to read more?
- Guiding the provision of quality policy advice: the 5D model – Christopher Walker and Sally Washington, Policy Design and Practice, April 2025
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- Published Date: 21 May 2025