policy
 

Policy

A programme of actions, selected from amongst alternatives and taking account of conditions intended to guide or influence present and future decisions, for implementation by a person, group, body, or government, often to address a problem, deficiency, or competing interests or goals seeming to require some sort of resolution (or to avoid or preclude a future or looming problem) – especially actions which are prudent or advantageous;

also, a set of principles upon which such a course of action is based.

 

A policy may be thought of as a plan which obliges us to perform some specific action (or actions) under certain conditions – though a policy applies to a whole class of behaviour, it is not a plan which involves a single, isolated decision such as “let’s go to the ‘pictures’ to-morrow”.

 

An example of a personal policy would be not to pick up hitchhikers. A case of group policy might be a committee established to hold ballroom dances which votes to start their dances in the early evening because most of those who attend are elderly or a tennis club which bans the use of particular kinds of footwear in an effort to prevent damage or premature wear to its court surfaces. An organization might publish a policy stating that it will always provide a written acknowledgement of receipt of any customer complaint within, say, seven business days. Illustrations of public policy would be legislation requiring doctors and other medical professionals to notify Health Department in the event a suspected case of a particular disease is encountered or lawmakers passing a statute allowing abortions in certain circumstances which is subsequently validated by the courts after a challenge by opponents of legalized abortion.

 

Such decisions are usually rendered with a clear intention to be consistent with – and not to conflict with – the entity’s other, related decisions: to contribute to the formation of a coherent policy framework.

 

The setting of a policy creates a new goal (or goals) or revises an old one, for example, if one determines to learn the violin one consequently has goals such as:

 

1.

finding a violin teacher (one would hope, a good teacher);

2.

setting aside time to practice;

3.

securing a satisfactory instrument, and so forth.

 

The problem of Global warming poses a public policy challenge:

 

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ascertaining that the effect stated is ‘real’ and holds a substantial risk of adverse consequences (decision point already passed);

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sifting through and/or searching for the various strategies which it is predicted will mitigate the worst effects in time, selecting and instituting a relevant and (probably-)successful approach, constantly reviewing and updating strategies, while understanding what the likely results would be in the event that nothing consequential were done or an ineffective strategy were put into effect;

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devising a formulation which, in large measure, does not bring about undesirable dislocation and misery to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society;

and

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having an awareness that the worst outcome would be to make strenuous efforts to lessen or alleviate the problem only to find that because those efforts were begun too late or ineffectual ‘lines-of-attack’ were pursued significant and deleterious warming takes place anyway, beyond what might have resulted if one or more of the available alternatives had been enacted.

 

 

Plan

Essentially this is a decision to do something at a future time and involves a structure which can be applied in a step-by-step manner to assist the planner to reach a desired objective(s).

 

(see also: belief, theory, hypothesis, claim, doctrine, rational, ethics)

 

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Labels: policy, plan, public policy
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