When times are tight, you need to adapt your approach to influencing the policy agenda, especially if one of your objectives is to try to increase the amount of funding that the government makes available for a particular issue or service.
In my career to date, I’ve worked through at least two major economic recessions, and have developed some insights in to how anyone involved in influencing government policy needs to tweak and adapt their approach.
With the news this week from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the UK is now at the beginning to what is likely to be a prolonged recession, it’s timely to take a look at how this impacts on the style and tone of policy influencing work. In this post, I’ll take a look at some of the ways that tough economic times will impact on your policy influencing work.
Tip #1: Ignore the context at your peril!
Carrying on with business as usual during an economic crisis really isn’t an option. Your normal policy influencing tactics and channels will need to be tweaked and adapted, and your messages aligned with the wider context.
Tip #2: Be careful with the numbers
With the economy under real and sustained pressure, simply continuing to ask for large sums of government funding is unlikely to be well received. Lots of organisations try to make best campaigning use of the biggest numbers that they can muster (as I discussed in a previous post), but when almost every government department is having to find ‘efficiency savings’ (or, to the lay-person, cuts), continuing to push for big investment simply isn’t going to work in the same way. That doesn’t mean that you can’t seek funding or investment (if that is part of your policy objectives), but you need to be smarter about how you do that.
Tip #3: Think about how your asks can help
In normal times, it’s important to frame your asks in as positive a way as possible, demonstrating how the change that you want to see would actually help the government to deliver on its priorities. This is even more critical during a recession. Everything that the government is likely to think or do will be seen through the lens of the state of the economy. Whether that’s thinking about how to reduce expenditure, or how to stimulate growth. When you’re trying to influence policy during a recession, it’s really important that you think carefully about how your asks can actually support economic recovery. It might take a bit of tangential thinking, but it will definitely pay dividends.
Tip #4: Getting (and keeping) attention is much harder
With an economic squeeze hitting government, businesses and households, it’s not surprising that this is the most pressing issue facing the country. A consequence of this is that it is much harder to get political or media attention for other issues, and much harder to keep that attention if you are fortunate enough to get it. When you are looking for your political or media ‘hook’ for your issue, it’s worth thinking about how you can link it to the impact of the recession. The media, in particular, will always be on the look out for new angles to covering the recession.
Tip #5: Don’t forget how powerful people’s stories can be
MPs and other politicians listen carefully to their constituents and to the wider public mood. Presenting people’s stories about the way in which the recession might be exacerbating existing challenges, or creating wholly new ones, can be a really powerful tool to try and shape the policy agenda during a recession.
What other ways do you think a recession might impact policy influencing work? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
If you or your organisation are looking to do more policy influencing work, and would like some help or advice, I’d be happy to have a chat. Just drop me a line via the ‘Contact’ link above, or email me at hello@thepolicycoach.co.uk
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