This chapter demonstrates the relevance of behavioural science to public policy and public administration. Behavioural science has the potential to improve civil servants’ decision‑making, workflow, and capacity to deliver better outcomes. Effective behavioural public administration reshapes civil servant’s decision-making context, rather than relying on awareness or training alone. Therefore, these behavioural practices must be embedded, evidence‑informed, and adapted to institutional context to deliver durable improvements in performance.
Applying Behavioural Science in the Italian Public Administration
A Blueprint for Best Practices
Abstract
Behavioural science equips civil servants with a realistic understanding of human decision-making and provides them with methods to evaluate policy impact. Governments who use behavioural science to make policies more effective are doing Behavioural public policy (BPP). It can apply behaviour change techniques such as nudging, which changes the choice architecture of people’s decisions to encourage behaviours aligned with their long-term interests. It can apply methods such as boosting, which foster people’s competence to make their own choices through feedback, reinforcement and decision-making tools (Hertwig and Grüne-Yanoff, 2017[1]; Herzog and Hertwig, 2025[2]). This approach is diverse and encompasses many techniques that civil servants can apply pragmatically to solve policy problems.
Behavioural public policy is the use of empirical findings from behavioural sciences to make policy more effective. Humans have finite resources to process the flood of information they experience every day, so they use heuristics or rules of thumb to manage this complexity (Blanco, 2022[3]; Simon, 1990[4]). This way of processing information is a rational approach to overcome the natural, human constraints of limited time, information and mental resources (OECD, 2019[5]).
Heuristics and rules of thumb work well in many contexts, but they can lead to decisions that are unaligned with our long-term interests (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973[6]; Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier, 2011[7]). BPP draws on economics, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to harness these insights, enabling better policy outcomes. However, it is not a silver bullet. BPP strengthens traditional policy levers, such as rulemaking, taxation and fiscal spending, but it cannot replace them (Lichand, Serdeira and Rizardi, 2023[8]; Ewert, 2020[9]; OECD, 2019[5]).
Source: (OECD, 2024[10]).
Behavioural science has been used to improve policy outcomes for over a decade. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tracks over 600 teams in the OECD Behavioural Insights Knowledge Hub, an open database mapping behavioural science teams around the world. In 2010, the United Kingdom (UK) government established the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), the first government team dedicated to BPP. It was soon followed by new units, including: the Behavioural Science Team in the Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (France), the Behavioural Insights Unit in the Office of Federal Chancellor (Germany), the Behavioural Insights Network (the Netherlands), the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government in the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet (Australia), and Impact Canada in the Privy Council Office (Canada). These units presaged the foundation of new teams across the world, including: the Behavioural Insights Unit of India, the Behavioural Insights Unit within the Ministry of Home Affairs (Singapore), and the Behavioural Science Group (United Arab Emirates), as well as teams and projects in city, local and regional governments.
International bodies also apply behavioural and experimental approaches to policy, including the European Commission (EC)’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) Competence Centre on Behavioural Insights, the World Bank’s Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit (eMBeD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. The evolution and use of BPP within the European Union (EU) has matched global trends. In 2014 the European Commission’s JRC founded the Foresight and Behavioural Insights Unit, which has since evolved into the EU Policy Lab working on Behavioural Insights, Foresight, and Design for Policy Unit. Since 2014, many EU Member States have created dedicated teams who apply behavioural science from within government.
Source: (OECD, 2024[10])
As governments have applied BPP they have reached a natural conclusion that the same heuristics and mental shortcuts that affect citizens also shape civil servants’ decision making. This insight gave rise to behavioural public administration (BPA), the application of behavioural science to the internal processes, routines, and rules within government (Bhanot and Linos, 2019[11]; Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2016[12]; Drummond, Shephard and Trnka, 2021[13]; Drummond and Radaelli, 2024[14]).
Behavioural public administration (BPA) uses behavioural science to improve how public sector organisations make decisions, manage people, and deliver services. It analyses civil servants’ attitudes, behaviours and choices, as individuals or as teams, to develop effective processes that improve public sector outcomes. It recognises that in addition to the natural information overload that all humans face, civil servants also address complex problems, co-ordinate multiple stakeholders, and respond to shifts in government priorities.
Therefore, BPA applies interventions that support better decision making, reduce bias and noise, and improve organisational outcomes. It covers practical tools such as checklists, decision aids, workflow design and that can be adapted to different administrative contexts.
The broader sense of changing the behaviour of civil servants and political authorities is behavioural government, not behavioural public administration. Behavioural government is a worthy topic of research but is outside the scope of this report. However, BPA recognises that public administrations operate in close partnership with political authorities. The boundary between that two can be blurred as civil servants support, inform, and implement political decisions, and administrative processes are shaped by political priorities. BPA is alert to the complexity of this interface.
The shift from BPP to BPA recognises that the routines and rules of government itself are amenable to a behavioural insights approach. For example, civil servants, like all people, operate under bounded rationality by making decisions within limited time, information, and resources (Simon, 1990[4]; Tversky and Kahneman, 1974[18]). The same heuristics that affect citizens also shape the choices of civil servants, from project planning and risk assessment to recruitment and compliance. BPA changes the context in which decisions are made, through structured processes, guidelines, and tools, so that better decision making is easier and more reliable. The field is not monolithic, however, there are ongoing debates about its scope, methods, and integration into administration processes (OECD, 2020[19]).
Behavioural public administration has developed rapidly in recent years as governments have begun applying behavioural insights to their own internal processes. The OECD policy paper Applying behavioural insights to organisations highlighted case studies that used behavioural science to improve processes in organisations, including public administrations (OECD, 2018[20]). The OECD report Behavioural insight and regulatory governance explored techniques for behaviourally-informed regulatory policy making (Drummond, Shephard and Trnka, 2021[13]).
Early findings suggest that governments might improve decision making by applying behaviourally informed practices. For example, reference class forecasting could help combat over-optimism by basing public sector planning on a realistic understanding of the challenges, delivery and outcomes of similar past projects. This report highlights promising practices that may be adopted, adapted and evaluated across different governmental settings.
Just as important is evidence of what does not work. For example, merely raising awareness of biases rarely leads to better decision-making. Research at an Italian local health authority found that simply telling administrators about anchoring and the halo effect did not remove these biases from performance evaluations (Cantarelli, Belle and Belardinelli, 2020[21]). A review of diversity and unconscious bias training found it typically had no long-term effect on workplace behaviour (BIT, 2020[22]). Training like this can worsen outcomes if participation is mandatory, depicts bias as immutable, or relies on buzzwords instead of evidence (Commission, Equality and Human Rights, 2018[23]). Therefore, this report also outlines some practices which warrant caution before being considered for adoption.
The most effective BPA practices tend to change the environment in which decisions are made. However, context is paramount. Practices that work in one public administration may need adaptation elsewhere. There is no “one size fits all” approach. This report is a blueprint of practices and the principles underlying them, but they cannot be truly effective without tailoring them to each public administration’s context.
Adapt practices to local context
This report is broad in its scope. It covers many and varied practices across public administrations’ responsibilities and processes. This diversity means that different public administrations may relate to some practices differently, for example:
Some practices may be feasible to implement at one administration, achievable with some effort at another, and achievable only with great exertion at a third administration.
Some practices may already be standard operating procedure in one administration, applied partially at another, and completely new to a third administration.
Some practices may be implemented with minimal adaptation in one administration, possible to implement in sprit but not to the letter at another, and completely infeasible to implement at a third administration.
This report shares practices that have been or could be applied across public administrations. However, what this means for a given public administration will depend on its institutional context. Readers are encouraged to adopt, adapt and evaluate these practices pragmatically.
Establish the preconditions for success
The OECD has gathered effective management and governance practices on how public sector organisations generate and use behavioural science in policymaking. It has distilled these into a framework to support the consistent application of high‑quality behavioural evidence across governments. The principles in this framework are organised as LOGIC: Good Practice Principles for Mainstreaming Behavioural Public Policy (OECD, 2024[10]). In the context of BPA, this means harnessing:
Leadership. Leaders can encourage the use of BPA practices in policymaking, require that new practices be evaluated rigorously and their results shared to support best-practice.
Objectives: Public administrations can include BPA practices in their strategic plans, focusing on internal processes and mechanisms of public administration itself, alongside standard BPP.
Governance: Public administrations can mandate behavioural insights units to incorporate BPA practices in their own work and the work of other teams, branches and functions with clear accountabilities and funding.
Integration: Public administrations can embed BPA practices in guidelines and standard processes that persist beyond the life of a project, as well as in-house behavioural experts to co-design BPA practices for their context.
Capability: Public administrations can ensure that BPA practices are accompanied by a training plan to up-skill civil servants in these processes, tools or ways of working, as well as to share knowledge and practices among practitioners.
Source: (OECD, 2024[10]).
This report is the culmination of the technical support instrument “Next Generation Behavioural Public Administration in Italy” (TSI 23IT21). The work was carried out with the support of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support (SG REFORM) and in close collaboration with the Italian Dipartimento della Funzione Pubblica (Department for Public Administration, DFP). The goal of this report is to inspire other EU Member States, and public administrations around the world, on good practices for strengthening BPA in their differing institutional contexts.
Framework
The practices in this report are organised according to a framework that covers practices across all stages of the policy cycle and cross-cutting applications in public administration. It is based on the desk research, stakeholder interviews, international peer input and the results of two pilots conducted as part of this project. This framework emerged organically from this evidence review and consultations.
Source: Authors’ elaboration of (Jann and Wegrich, 2007[24]) as cited in (OECD, 2024[10]).
Within this framework, some practices address different stages of the policy cycle:
Analysis and design describes how civil servants transform the priorities of the government into policy options and set objectives for their implementation. The final policy decision is the responsibility of the relevant political authority; however, this decision is supported by civil servants’ analysis and design, informed by public administrations and stakeholders. Behavioural practices can help civil servants better use evidence effectively in policy design, present and frame policy options, and support political authorities' decision making.
Implementation describes how civil servants implement the policies of the government. Implementation connects political authorities’ intent with the eventual policy impact. Behavioural practices can help civil servants better anticipate the challenges in order to implement policy, better manage their projects, and be more willing to discontinue ineffective projects.
Monitoring and evaluation describes how civil servants assess a policy’s outcomes, whether to continue it, and how it might be implemented more effectively in future. Findings from monitoring and evaluation inform future policy analysis and design, closing the policy loop. Behavioural practices can help civil servants apply empirical methods to evaluate policy impact and institutionalise evidence-informed policy across the cycle.
Other practices apply to cross-cutting applications that enable civil servants to do their job well:
People describes how public administrations recruit, performance manage and train civil servants. People are public administrations’ most valuable asset. Behavioural practices can help public administrations recruit the best person for the job, motivate high-performance among staff as well as prioritise effective learning and development.
Integrity describes how public administrations ensure civil servants uphold high ethical conduct in their work, comply with integrity procedures, and fight public sector corruption. Behavioural practices can help public administrations design better anti-corruption procedures.
Process explores how civil servants comply with internal regulations and guidelines. Many processes internal to government experience “sludge” – unjustified frictions that make it harder for civil servants to comply. Behavioural practices can help public administrations measure and remove sludge, simplify internal processes and increase compliance.
This framework simplifies activities that are in practice overlapping. For example, civil servants may monitor and evaluate policies towards the end of the lifecycle, but effective evaluation is woven into all stages of policy, not just the end. This simplification of civil servants’ complex and interdependent behaviours makes the problem tractable. The framework guides readers to the processes where, and the stakeholders with whom they can apply BPA. These processes and stakeholders are described in each chapter.
This report describes two behavioural pilots that addressed different points in this framework: one to increase the share of Italian public administrations who published their planning documents on time – touching on how public administrations comply with internal processes; and another to set high quality objectives in their administrative plans – touching on how administration analyse and design their activities.
Evidence base
Behavioural public administration is a young field. There are few high-quality studies and literature reviews such as Behavioural Government (Hallsworth et al., 2018[16]) Biased Policy Professionals (Banuri, Dercon and Gauri, 2017[25]) and Behavioural Insight and Regulatory Governance (Drummond, Shephard and Trnka, 2021[13]). Many behavioural practices are applied but not evaluated. Of those that are evaluated, many aren’t shared beyond the administration that conducts the study, depriving the global community of valuable insights. Practitioners are urged to conduct and share more research to address these gaps.
This report draws on the best available evidence. This evidence spans published research, case studies and practitioners’ experience. This report indicates the strength of evidence in each chapter using the GRADE framework. Some practices are based on high-quality evidence, others on low-quality but promising evidence. Other practices are based on first principles or subject matter expertise that don’t fit the GRADE framework. All practices are worthy of exploration and warrant further research.
Contributing to this evidence base, the OECD conducted two behavioural pilots with Italy’s Dipartimento della Funzione Pubblica and the European Commission SG REFORM. These pilots served as practical tests of how BPA can address real administrative challenges: first by improving compliance with the new PIAO planning requirements, and second by strengthening the quality of objectives set within those plans. Together, they demonstrate how behavioural approaches can be applied at scale within a national administration, yielding insights that inform both the framework and the practices throughout this report. These two pilots are described in the following two chapters.
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