Expand your mind
A curated list of readings that Frank collects to stretch your policy thinking.
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.
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.
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…
Social Investment Unit: Briefing to the Incoming Ministers
This 2017 Briefing to the Incoming Minister sets out why social investment matters, and what a successful social investment approach could look like. The components to enable a social investment…
Place-based public service budgets: Making public money work better for communities
In the context of austerity, public services in England have been focused on short-term crises rather than long-term solutions. This report argues that pooling central government funding in local…
Early investment: A key to reversing intergenerational disadvantage and inequity in Aotearoa New Zealand
New Zealand has a persistent problem with child poverty and its intergenerational consequences. Intergenerational disadvantage plays out in a number of ways, including through physical and mental…
More effective social services
This 2015 report took an extensive look into social service provision in New Zealand, asking why – despite the hard work and commitment of service providers – social services were not always…
