Sludge: Addressing unnecessary complexity in government

As governments around the world face growing economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical crises, trust in public institutions remains a key priority. Like other democracies, Canada must navigate these challenges.

While discourse continues to evolve about how to address these pressing issues in an increasingly complex policy landscape, research from Impact Canada shows that Canadians who are satisfied with their last federal program or service interaction – whether it be applying for EI or engaging with a border services agent – are more than twice as likely to trust the government than those who are dissatisfied. Similar links were found to trust in non-partisan public servants, and to overall confidence in our democracy. While there are many potential reasons for this, it is important to consider that such positive – or negative – experiences could have compounding influence on trust over time, and the importance of service delivery excellence cannot be underestimated.

Excessive or unjustified administrative burdens, often referred to as ‘sludge’ in behavioural science, can impose significant costs (e.g., time, effort) for citizens, and ultimately erode trust in government. Through the application of innovative methods, including sludge audits, Impact Canada is working with partners across the federal public service to identify and remove these barriers – improving program and service delivery for Canadians.

What is ‘sludge’?

Popularised by Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, ‘sludge’ is a term used to describe excessive or unjustified frictions or barriers in a process that make it harder for people to follow through on their intentions. While this may sound reminiscent of dark patterns, sludge in government processes is unintentional, and can include such things as information that is hard to find, forms that are repetitive and hard to complete, excessive wait times without status updates, and complex decision points. You see sludge in applications that require an ink signature and a fax machine, or tax forms that need a paid expert to understand. If you have ever questioned why a process has to be so complicated, you have likely experienced sludge. It is also worth noting that even as governments take the necessary steps to improve their programs, services and processes, the net benefit associated with these investments can be moderated by the accumulation of sludge.

Why is there so much sludge in government?

Several structural and situational factors contribute to the persistence and proliferation of sludge in government:

• Legacy Programs and Systems: Government programs often evolve through incremental changes after their initial implementation. In the context of a fast-paced and ever-changing policy environment, the accumulation of these changes—big or small—over time can ultimately contribute to the build-up of sludge. Without systematic monitoring and ongoing program evaluation, frictions in the process can remain elusive and programs continue to operate based on the assumption that “this is how things have always been done.”
• Data Access and Collection Issues: Many policies and programs involve multiple stakeholders working in different silos. Privacy regulations may require citizens to provide the same information multiple times across different departments or agencies, creating redundancy and undue administrative burden. Technical limitations can also contribute to sludge, as existing software is sometimes unable to support data collection or monitoring. When data can be monitored, sometimes the only team with access to the data has no incentive to analyse it, or the data team is different from the policy or implementation teams. Left unchecked, the variety of stakeholders, teams, and requirements often ends up in government processes being more complicated than necessary.

The result of this complexity is that the public spends considerable time on government processes. At the federal level, this can have a large cumulative impact. In Canada, for example, 28 million people file their taxes each year. Even if each person spends a single hour doing so—whether gathering documents or consulting an accountant—that amounts to a combined total of thousands of years of human life. Restated, Canadians cumulatively spend millennia filing taxes each year. This estimate becomes even more extreme in larger countries with more complex tax systems.

Beyond the cost with respect to citizens’ time, undue administrative burdens carry other drawbacks. Complicated processes often require more support from public servants, meaning more time and tax dollars are spent staffing and supporting teams that could otherwise work on other priority government initiatives.

Finally, sludge disproportionately impacts equity-seeking groups. For example, lower-income populations are more likely to apply for government assistance programs but may lack the time to navigate complex processes or the financial resources required to hire professionals to help them do so. In this way, lower-income groups have both more exposure to sludge and fewer resources to overcome it.

Solving sludge

To address sludge, governments worldwide are performing sludge audits—a behaviourally informed approach to systematically measuring the time, effort, and costs of bureaucratic processes.

These audits begin by breaking down procedural steps (e.g., completing an online application) into their behavioural components (e.g., searching for the form, reading the webpage instructions, gathering necessary documents, and completing each page of the application). A behavioural journey map is then developed to reflect the experience of key actors (e.g., citizens, government actors) involved in the process being evaluated. Each ‘behaviour’ or step is then quantified in terms of time spent, monetary costs (e.g., applicant drop-off, providing program support), in addition to access and equity considerations, which include psychological costs (e.g., anxiety, frustration, etc.). After identifying the sludge, insights from behavioural science can then be applied to help address or mitigate its effects.

Audits from the Government of New South Wales (NSW), one of the global leaders in addressing sludge in government, have led to large reductions in processing time and support enquiries across different processes. In this way, reducing sludge saved time and money for both their citizens and the government. In collaboration with NSW and the OECD, Impact Canada participated in the inaugural International Sludge Academy to test and apply the sludge methodology to improve service delivery outcomes for Canadians. Today, Impact Canada is conducting sludge audits in partnership with various departments to reduce sludge in policy design, program administration, and corporate services delivery, all working to ensure that the resulting audits and interventions will help save at least a few millennia of collective time among Canadians.

If you are interested in learning more about sludge and applying the sludge audits in your area of work, please reach out to Luke Babad.