The Reform Checklist
Policies are being adopted at an unprecedented rate, but only 14 percent of Danes believe that Danish society will be better off in ten years. Furthermore, a majority believes that the new government will succeed in solving only one out of 12 major societal challenges. This illustrates a paradox: The government can implement reforms quickly and politically effectively, but the administrative system often lacks the capacity to translate these ambitions into results.
To help address this paradox, INVI has analyzed 22 large-scale reforms from the past 25 years and, based on that analysis, has developed a reform checklist that the incoming government can use as early as the design phase of reforms to minimize the risk that the intended effects will not materialize.
The analysis identifies eight recurring patterns underlying failed reforms, categorized into four factors: problem and purpose, impact chain, implementation, and follow-up and learning. The eight patterns are:
Vague problem definitions, in which reforms attempt to solve many problems at once without defining which ones are the highest priority.
Too many goals, where an accumulation of objectives makes it unclear what actually needs to be delivered.
Weak chains of impact, in which the link between policy decisions and actual outcomes has not been sufficiently thought through.
Governance conflicts in which new governance measures are added to existing ones without replacing them.
Limited management capacity, where responsibilities and authority are not clearly assigned from the ministry to the front lines.
Insufficient resources and expertise, with implementation capacity being underestimated.
Lack of alignment, where midterm evaluation is not an integral part of the management process.
Limited systemic learning, in which lessons learned from implementation are not retained or applied to future practice.
To address these patterns, INVI offers a reform checklist with eight critical questions, which are answered using a risk assessment: green for low risk, yellow for moderate, and red for critical. INVI recommends that the new government adopt this tool as a standard instrument when drafting new reforms.