We worked with the Scottish Government through CivTech to design and prototype Mull: a new approach to bringing eight separate impact assessment processes into one joined-up system.
Policymakers are often working to two clocks. There’s the immediate pressure of ministerial priorities, legislation and deadlines, and the slower work of understanding what a policy will do, who it will affect and what trade-offs it creates.
Impact assessments are where those two timelines meet. In Scotland, there are eight separate processes, each with its own legal basis, guidance and templates. A single policy can trigger several at once. Policy teams complete around 300 impact assessments a year, each taking roughly ten working days.
Over four months, we worked closely with policy teams, impact assessment leads and the Office of the Chief Social Policy Adviser to understand where the current system was getting in the way, and what a more joined-up approach could look like.
Designing around policy thinking
We started by mapping how impact assessment works in practice, rather than simply how the guidance says it should work.
The same problems came up repeatedly. Assessments can begin after the broad direction of a policy has already been decided. Good evidence can be hard to find. Most policy officers complete assessments only occasionally, so they have to relearn the process each time. Where several assessments overlap, the same information is often entered more than once. Support teams and senior decision makers also have limited visibility of work in progress.
We designed Mull so policy teams can spend less time navigating the process, and more time for the thinking impact assessment is there to support.
One process, without flattening the complexity
Instead of working through hundreds of pages of guidance, Mull starts with a guided conversation about the policy, who and what it could affect, and the questions policy teams need to explore. It can then identify which assessments are required and explain why.
As the policy develops, Mull helps teams find evidence, spot gaps and work through the implications of different choices. By the time someone starts drafting the formal assessment, much of that thinking is already underway. Mull can then help turn that work into a finished assessment, checking drafts against statutory requirements and flagging claims that still need evidence.
Impact assessment leads can also see work in progress, so they can offer support earlier rather than correct problems at the end.
A tested route to a joined-up system
By the end of the accelerator, the Scottish Government had a tested prototype and design for bringing eight impact assessment processes into one, shaped with the people who would need to use and run it, and a costed plan for building it.
At current volumes, Mull could save policy teams around 750-1,500 working days a year. A 35% reduction in the time spent on each assessment would be worth around £290,000 in staff time annually. A simpler process gives policy teams more time for evidence, judgement and understanding impact.
Bringing the work into one system could also make it easier to see where teams are working on related issues, using the same evidence or affecting the same communities and industries. It could give policymakers more space to test assumptions and understand impacts while there is still time to change course.
Mull offers a route to making impact assessment both simpler and more useful, and to supporting better-informed, more joined-up policy as a result.
The same approach could also be used by other public bodies working under the same duties, or adapted for governments facing similar problems.