Expand your mind
A curated list of readings that Frank collects to stretch your policy thinking.
Parliament brief: The legislative process
This summary sets out the key steps in Parliament’s process to pass legislation, with an explanation of each.
Parliament’s financial scrutiny cycle
This one-page resource includes a diagram showing Parliament’s financial scrutiny cycle, which lasts two-and-a-half years. The cycle starts with the Budget Policy Statement, steps through other parts…
Visuals in policy making: ‘See what I’m saying’, from Evidence-based policy making in the social sciences
This single-page resource offers tips for developing a visual metaphor, by choosing the type of metaphor you want to create, identifying key words, and then brainstorming and sketching your idea.
Visual metaphor
This single-page resource offers tips for developing a visual metaphor, by choosing the type of metaphor you want to create, identifying key words, and then brainstorming and sketching your idea.
Off the charts: The best of our data journalism
Part of The Economist’s ‘Graphic detail’ blog, this article offers tips for using colour effectively in graphs.
The most important thing is to write for everyone and to tell the story in a way that your readers understand
Written by a data presentation specialist, this article gives a number of tips for presenting data. These include: keep it simple, use annotations, aim for accessibility to promote inclusivity, and…
Data visualization checklist
This checklist describes what good looks like for the different aspects of a data visualization. Aspects covered are text, lines, arrangement, colour, and overall considerations.
Policy Quality Framework
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet hosts the Policy Project. This Policy Quality Framework sets out the dimensions of quality policy advice and is useful for policy professionals…
Developing papers with the Policy Quality Framework
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet hosts the Policy Project. This checklist for peer reviewers, which helps identify what good looks like for different parts of a paper, is one of the…
More effective social services at a glance
This is a summary diagram the 2015 Productivity Commission report, More effective social services, that looked into social service provision in New Zealand, asking why – despite the hard work and…
