It appears that the government campaign to spread the use positive incentives to change behaviour for the better – to nudge – may be running into the sand.
First the Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin told the House of Lords Science and Technology Sub-Committee that the £500,000 civil service team established to promote the use of behavioural economics tools might not justify the investment. He admitted that "It is of course open to question whether any of this will have any effect whatsoever”.
Now the committee has reported and concluded that nudging is not enough. It argues that the use of positive incentives to change behaviour – such as putting healthy foods prominently in the shop window or rewarding students who attend all their lessons will not achieve everything its advocates claim for the approach. In the words of committee Chairman Baroness Neuberger: “The government can't rely on ‘nudging’ to do all the work, particularly with a complicated and deep-rooted problem like obesity.”
This is of course true, positive reward for positive behaviour will only get you so far. But the debate should make councils and other local public services reflect on the whole range of tools, old and new, that can be used to influence and change behaviour and consider whether they are using the right ones across all fields of policy and service delivery.
Most people in focus groups, when asked how they imagine a typical local government officer to behave, will say that they are like old style bank managers. They are stickler for the rules, slow to respond and wary of new technology. People assume that like the bank manager we only know how to influence through a heavy handed application of the rules.
Of course, as upholders of the rule of law, this ability to ‘shove’ people to behave in the right way, for example through licensing laws, is critical. But the ability to ‘nudge’ should also be used alongside the ability to ‘hug’ – to reward citizens for doing the right things – council tax discount for community work and where necessary to ‘smack’ – the bailiffs will arrive if you don’t pay your council tax.
But the strategic message of the ‘nudge’ debate remains valid – we should set public policy in a way that goes with the grain of human behaviour, accepts that people are not entirely rational and motivated by love, fear, prejudice and custom. We should then design policies that work with, not against human nature, which in turn will generate better results.
This week the CLG have been lauding the success of three of the Big Society ‘Vanguard authorities’. They say that Eden Valley, Windsor and Maidenhead and the London Borough of Sutton, have seen community initiatives come to fruition citing a Citizen’s University, Care Bank Scheme and Community Housing Development as proof of the concept.
This is ‘nudging’ on a grand scale with government seeking to show the benefits of the Big Society to incentivise other authorities to get on board. But central government needs to be clear that a key part of behavioural economics is the ability to introduce the concept of reward, and councils and people need to be clear about the rewards they will get from participating in any scheme.
Professor Geoff French, a leading expert in social marketing has highlighted the things that make ‘nudges’ appealing – that they are low cost, relatively easy choices for people, but also limited in their effectiveness. We need to use the whole range of behavioural tools to change behaviour for the public good, and Baroness Neuberger’s report should be a start of a more informed debate in this area.
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