Applying Behavioural Science in the Italian Public Administration

9. BPA for administrative processes

Abstract

This chapter describes how behavioural science can reduce unnecessary frictions – so-called “sludge” – that make it harder for civil servants to operate effectively. Digitalisation alone rarely eliminates frictions and can at times entrench them if designed poorly. A better approach is to conduct sludge audits to identify, quantify and remove unnecessary frictions. This shift from rule‑centric to user‑centred internal processes can support smoother everyday operation of public administration, leading to better and more responsive governance.

Key messages

• Sludge audits are a valuable tool to identify internal frictions. By conducting audits internally and taking different parts of the government as service providers to each other, governments can identify where there are unjustified frictions that cause inefficiencies.

• Simplify and streamline internal processes. While countries have digitalised many internal processes, digitalisation alone does not guarantee efficiency – poorly designed digital processes can entrench or worsen sludge. It is important to use opportunities for change to rethink and redesign processes from the ground up and continuously testing with users and iterating based on feedback.

• Balance necessary oversight with efficiency. Not all friction is bad – some is essential for accountability and transparency. The goal is to eliminate unnecessary friction while maintaining necessary controls. Striking this balance can be done through engaging staff in co-design of processes and bringing stakeholders together to ensure that redesigned service reflect the needs of the various parts of government. This can also help address risk aversion to change, as some staff may see exiting processes as necessary or immutable.

Why it matters

Public administrations follow processes that ensure accountability, consistency and transparency. However, these processes can also entail administrative burden, red tape, and friction (Carrigan, Pandey and Van Ryzin, 2020[1]; Sunstein, 2021[2]). An OECD report found that half of employees in Centres of Government felt that the rules and procedures within their administration make it difficult and complicated to work effectively and efficiently (OECD, 2025[3]). One study of a UK health authority found that to follow procurement guidelines staff had to navigate incompatible inventory systems, unclear approval procedures and user-unfriendly technology platforms. To escape these burdens, staff began to order cheaper items which had higher long-term costs, approach charities to order items on their behalf, and source quotes through unregistered product representatives (Boulding and Hinrichs-Krapels, 2021[4]).

The excessive or unjustified frictions that make it more difficult for individuals to do what they would like to do is defined as sludge (Sunstein, 2021[2]). Sludge reflects the increased time and resources to comply, as well as cognitive and psychological costs associated with understanding and executing rules (Herd and Moynihan, 2022[5]). Sludge accumulates as processes are created. Without efforts to simplify these processes, the cumulative effect imposes substantial barriers on how civil servants operate.

Behavioural science can reduce sludge. Removing sludge improves service delivery and makes public administrations more efficient and responsive. This approach aligns with the OECD framework on behavioural insights and regulatory governance (Drummond, Shephard and Trnka, 2021[6]). Governments, as institutions, are composed of human beings who are themselves subject to the same biases that affect individuals’ decision-making. For this reason, the symmetrical application of behavioural science (i.e., to both external entities and within government), would help public administrations address the behavioural barriers that characterise their internal processes.

Whom it involves

• Efficiency and continuous improvement teams who review and streamline internal processes. These teams are often part of central ministries and agencies who set the standards and oversee whole-of-government processes.

• Technology and digital teams who oversee the digital forms, portals, and tools civil servants use. This includes productivity and communication software, digital briefing workflows, file storage, digital security, room and desk booking portals, and organisational intranets. Sludge can exist in these digital processes and removing it requires a digital solution. In other settings, offline processes can be made easier and more user-friendly as part of a digital migration.

• Human resources teams who are responsible for recruitment, onboarding/offboarding, performance management, and internal mobility. These teams manage processes often affected by sludge, such as approval to hire new staff, processing their application, as well as on- and off-boarding staff. These teams can identify and address frictions in these processes.

How to remove sludge

Sludge Audits and behavioural process redesigns in public administration are based on moderate quality evidence. There is high-quality evidence that removing sludge and frictions, in general, has a large and positive effect (BIT, 2024[7]). This sludge reduction has traditionally concerned citizen behaviour, e.g. accessing social benefits in France, accessing environmental programs in the Netherlands, and accessing government information in Finland (OECD, 2024[8]). However, there is reason to expect civil servants are no less effected by sludge than citizens. Early use of Sludge Audits in public administration suggest that civil servants benefit from its empirical approach and process improvements. More research is warranted to build on these early findings and develop the method further.

Conduct sludge audits

Examples of traditional tools to reduce administrative burden include regulatory impact assessments, procedural checks and digital service delivery models (Herd and Moynihan, 2018[9]), in addition to standard cost models, codification and consolidation, among others (OECD, 2003[10]; OECD, 2010[11]). Further, there is increasing attention on the application of simplification strategies ex ante, rather than post hoc, to make sure that unnecessary burdens are not implemented in the first place.

More recently, governments have applied behavioural science to eliminate sludge, thus making public services more reliable and responsive, leading to increased trust (OECD, 2024[8]; NSW Behavioural Insights Unit, 2024[12]). An example of a behavioural science tool to reduce administrative burden, or sludge, is a sludge audit, described by the OECD as “a structured behavioural assessment of a service or process, aiming to identify, prevent and reduce unnecessary frictions and psychological costs which affect effectiveness and accessibility of the service” (OECD, 2024[8]).

Sludge audits broaden the scope of traditional administrative burden tools by focusing not only on time and monetary costs but also on the psychological experience of navigating government processes. Unlike classic approaches, sludge audits examine hidden, micro-level behaviours and capture the qualitative burdens experienced by individuals.

The New South Wales Government’s Behavioural Insights Unit has published a structured, behaviourally informed approach, with practical supports and guides, to identify and reduce unnecessary frictions in public services and internal government processes, known as the NSW Government Sludge Audit Method (NSW Behavioural Insights Unit, 2024[12]). The NSW Sludge Audit Method enhances traditional burden measurement approaches by broadening the range of metrics used, to focus on the human impact of sludge and produce practical insights that lead to better services or processes for end users. Instead of focusing solely on the time required to access a service or complete a process, it also considers factors such as the effort involved and the degree of inclusion, thus focusing also on the psychological costs for the individual. The key features of the NSW Sludge Audit Method are summarised below:

• Behavioural Journey Map: Creating detailed maps of the steps users take to complete a service, identifying potential friction points.

• Collect Input: Gathering quantitative and qualitative data to understand where and why users encounter difficulties.

• Time and Cost Estimation: Assessing the time and financial costs imposed on users by the process.

• Ease and Experience Score: Assessing and scoring effort using behaviourally informed scales.

• Access and Equity Checks: Ensuring that processes are equitable and accessible to all users, flag points that hinder inclusivity.

• Analyse Results: Synthesising findings and identifying areas for improvement opportunities.

• Design Solutions: Designing solutions to remove sludge and improve the user experience.

The method has been applied both within NSW and internationally. During the International Sludge Academy (Varazzani et al., 2023[13]), a partnership between the OECD and the NSW Government launched in 2023, 16 teams from 14 countries piloted the NSW Sludge Audit Method to enhance service delivery and internal operations by identifying the main sources of administrative friction and proposing targeted strategies to reduce them. The variety of government processes and public services analysed demonstrates the adaptability and effectiveness of the NSW Sludge Audit Method across diverse contexts. While many of these teams focused on services for external users (e.g., citizens), others focused on sludge in the internal operations of their government.

Sludge audits differentiate between necessary and unnecessary friction. While the goal is to eliminate unnecessary friction (sludge), some friction is essential. Many government processes can be streamlined but not removed because they serve vital interests. In these cases, reducing sludge often means applying behavioral science principles to improve compliance with the necessary, essential processes.

Remove sludge from internal processes

Ushering in a new era of efficiency, sludge audits are an important and evolving tool in behavioural science. Rather than focusing solely on systems, they leverage behavioural science to measure and reduce the cognitive and administrative workload on officials. The result is a more efficient and responsive government that serves its citizens better. For example, knowledge sharing is essential during on-boarding to help new staff become more productive quickly. However, staff face behavioural challenges during on- and off-boarding. Existing staff may struggle to know what lessons to share because of the curse of knowledge – i.e., incorrectly assuming that the person we are interacting with has the same level of knowledge as we do on a given topics like to not know it. New staff can experience cognitive overload processing so much new information.

On and off-boarding also involves sludge. Administrations have used Sludge Audits to remove sludge from these processes. For example:

• In Australia, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) needed to streamline its staff onboarding process. DCCEEW conducted a Sludge Audit which found that the onboarding process spanned over 20 steps across pre-onboarding, induction, and post-induction. There were significant wait times, up to 150 hours at early stages. Onboarding information was often decentralised, outdated, and hard to locate. Teams had their own informal onboarding processes, which led to inconsistent onboarding experiences across the Department. DCCEEW addressed these pain points by developing a centralised onboarding toolkit that consolidated essential information. The toolkit streamlined forms, policies, role expectations, and procedural guidance. DCCEEW also recommended creating a buddy system that paired new hires with experienced colleagues, reducing the stress of a new job (OECD, 2024[8]).

• In Canada, the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (OCHRO), within Canada’s Treasury Board Secretariat, collaborated with the Public Service Commission to apply the NSW Sludge Audit Method to the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP). The audit targeted internal government users, specifically hiring managers across federal agencies. The audit revealed that managers had to complete 49 steps, over 100 hours of active work, and wait for 83 days on average. These burdens led many managers to avoid FSWEP altogether, opting for alternative recruitment pathways. Managers lacked guidance on different student hiring programs, faced confusing language around employment equity, and faced misalignment between policy and real-world student eligibility. Tools like the candidate filtering system were unintuitive and simple tasks such as updating a drop-down menu were difficult. The audit led to behaviourally informed recommendations, including: the creation of decision aids to reduce confusion, planning prompts to encourage timely action, clearer language on forms to support equity goals, and redesigned interfaces to better match managers' hiring needs. This case illustrates the value of applying behavioural insights and the sludge audit methodology to internal government processes. By identifying cognitive and procedural barriers experienced by public officials, the initiative not only sought to improve efficiency but also aimed to promote fairness and accessibility in public sector hiring (OECD, 2024[8]).

Box 9.1. Case study: Streamlining internal digital services through Sludge Audits in Finland

The Prime Minister’s Office of Finland applied the NSW Sludge Audit Method to assess Suomi.fi, a national digital service channel, which is used by the City of Turku, the City of Vantaa, and the Finnish National Agency for Education. The service itself is managed by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in collaboration with a third-party solutions provider. In an innovative application of the Audit Method, the team conducted simultaneous assessments across the three organisations involved in the same service process. This approach made it possible to identify overlapping frictions and inefficiencies in internal service use affecting different actors.

The audit revealed that organisations experienced confusion when navigating the Suomi.fi service due to the need to engage with multiple departments across the managing agency. A lack of centralised guidance made onboarding more difficult and resulted in considerable psychological and informational costs. In addition, unclear timelines and insufficient transparency around next steps in the process contributed to uncertainty and inefficiency for the organisations involved.

In response, the Prime Minister’s Office recommended changes. These included establishing a single point of contact to reduce confusion, investing in early onboarding through clearer FAQs and centralised documentation, streamlining manual steps such as emails and forms, and ensuring timely communication of next steps once a phase of the process is completed. This case illustrates how sludge audits can be used not only to identify administrative burdens but also to improve co-ordination and support for public sector organisations involved in complex, multi-actor digital processes.

Source: (OECD, 2024[8]).

Simplify internal processes to change behaviour

Public administrations often grapple with accumulated regulations, procedures, and administrative requirements. These rules are not just sludge, but internal red tape that slow down bureaucratic procedures and civil servants’ decision-making. There are a wealth of approaches to remove red tape experienced by public administration’s stakeholders, including: Overcoming Barriers to Administrative Simplification Strategies: Guidance for Policy Maker (OECD, 2009[14]), Why Is Administrative Simplification So Complicated?: Looking beyond 2010 (OECD, 2010[11]), and Administrative Simplification in Poland: Making Policies Perform (OECD, 2011[15]). However, no study has been published to the OECD’s knowledge that removed purely internal red tape whose burden fell exclusively on civil servants. Therefore, there is an opportunity for administrations to adopt red tape reduction methods for internal rules, to reduce the burden of red tape born by civil servants themselves and publish these findings for the global community to build upon.

Behaviourally informed insights

• Sludge reduction is an ongoing process and cannot rely on digitisation alone. Digitisation can help remove sludge but can also entrench or worsen it if the process is not designed well. Digitising an ineffective service does not, absent any other change, make it more effective. Test digital tools with users, iterate based on their feedback, and use digitisation as an opportunity to rethink the service from the ground up. Embed regular sludge audits and feedback into routine process reviews to prevent sludge from re-accumulating.

• Plan for hesitancy. Staff may see existing processes as necessary or immutable. Overcome this by sharing evidence of the costs of sludge and involving staff in co-design. Engage innovation teams to help develop lateral solutions. For example, regulations might prescribe difficult and verbose text that must be included in a communication, however, the regulation might not prevent that text from being printed in small font.

For further reading on how behavioural science can help removing sludge and simplifying internal processes, see for example: Fixing Frictions: Sludge Audits Around the World (OECD, 2024); Administrative Simplification in Poland: Making Policies Perform, Cutting Red Tape (OECD, 2011); Why Is Administrative Simplification So Complicated? Looking beyond 2010, Cutting Red Tape (OECD, 2010); NSW Sludge Audit Method (NSW Behavioural Insights Unit, 2024); Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means (Herd & Moynihan, 2018); Behavior and Burdens: Introduction to the Symposium on Behavioral Implications of Administrative Burden (Herd & Moynihan, 2022); Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It (Sunstein, 2021).

References

[7] BIT (2024), EAST Framework: four simple ways to apply behavioural insights (revised and updated edition).

[4] Boulding, H. and S. Hinrichs-Krapels (2021), “Factors influencing procurement behaviour and decision-making: an exploratory qualitative study in a UK healthcare provider”, BMC Health Services Research, Vol. 21, pp. 1-11.

[1] Carrigan, C., S. Pandey and G. Van Ryzin (2020), “Pursuing consilience: using behavioral public administration to connect research on bureaucratic red tape, administrative burden, and regulation”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 80/1, pp. 46-52.

[6] Drummond, J., D. Shephard and D. Trnka (2021), “Behavioural insight and regulatory governance: Opportunities and challenges”, OECD Regulatory Policy Working Papers, No. 16, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ee46b4af-en.

[5] Herd, P. and D. Moynihan (2022), “Behavior and burdens: Introduction to the symposium on behavioral implications of administrative burden”, Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Vol. 5/1.

[9] Herd, P. and D. Moynihan (2018), Administrative burden: Policymaking by other means, Russell Sage Foundation.

[12] NSW Behavioural Insights Unit (2024), The NSW Government Sludge Audit Method, https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/behavioural-insights-unit/sludge-toolkit/download-sludge-audit-method-guide.

[3] OECD (2025), Workforce Insights from Central Governments: Findings of the 2024 OECD/EU Survey of Public Servants, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2f9080b1-en.

[8] OECD (2024), Fixing frictions: ’sludge audits’ around the world: How governments are using behavioural science to reduce psychological burdens in public services, OECD Publishing.

[15] OECD (2011), Administrative Simplification in Poland: Making Policies Perform, Cutting Red Tape, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264097261-en.

[11] OECD (2010), Why Is Administrative Simplification So Complicated?: Looking beyond 2010, Cutting Red Tape, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264089754-en.

[14] OECD (2009), Overcoming Barriers to Administrative Simplification Strategies: Guidance for Policy Makers, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264059726-en.

[10] OECD (2003), From Red Tape to Smart Tape: Administrative Simplification in OECD Countries, Cutting Red Tape, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264100688-en.

[2] Sunstein, C. (2021), Sludge: What stops us from getting things done and what to do about it, MIT Press.

[13] Varazzani, C. et al. (2023), Spotting the sludge: Behavioural audits to improve public services across countries.