Giving Complex Policy Research Its Own Lane
Part Three of a four-part series: Why Governments Hire Outside Policy Expertise
Government policy teams are busy. Running an active program and conducting rigorous, months-long research at the same time is genuinely difficult to do well. Something has to give.
This is one of the most common and least glamorous reasons governments bring in outside help. Not because the expertise does not exist internally. Because the work needs its own lane.
Here is what that looks like in practice.
Clarifying what ODSP covers, and what it does not
I worked with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services to develop benefit schedules for the Ontario Disability Support Program to provide more clarity to clients, caseworkers, and physicians.
The problem was straightforward to describe and complex to solve. ODSP covers a broad range of benefits for people with disabilities, but the coverage was opaque. Most benefits were lumped under a catch-all category called "Surgical Supplies and Dressing" even when the items had nothing to do with surgery. In 2021, 68% of spending in that category was listed simply as "other." Clients did not know what was covered. Caseworkers were making judgment calls. Clinicians were guessing.
Fixing that required months of sustained comparative research across Canadian provinces, the federal government, WSIB, and the private insurance industry. It required a clinical expert panel to validate whether the schedules were medically sound. It required developing ten new benefit categories with detailed schedules covering eligibility, covered items, exclusions, and exceptions.
This is not work a policy team can do on the side of running an active program. The ministry team were engaged partners throughout. What the project team provided was the bandwidth to go deep.
"We provided the bandwidth to go deep."
We closed the project with an implementation workshop, working through each recommendation with the ministry team to map out what could move quickly, what required Cabinet approval, and what needed other branches or ministries to be on board. Recommendations without a realistic path forward are just paper.
The key takeaway: Some policy work is not complicated because the problem is unclear. It is complicated because it requires careful, detailed, analysis. That is work that needs its own lane, and a team that can give it their full attention.
Moving a priority file forward
Similarly, I supported the Ontario Seniors' Secretariat (now the Ministry of Accessibility and Seniors) to review Ontario's Strategy to Combat Elder Abuse.
The Secretariat was a true partner. They attended most sessions and were genuinely invested in the outcome. But they were a small team with a broad mandate. Population-focused secretariats often operate this way: their role is to coordinate across government on behalf of a particular population, which means lean resources relative to the scope of what they are responsible for.
Driving a project of this scope forward was simply not something they could lead internally while keeping everything else running. We organized and facilitated eight roundtable discussions across the province in both English and French. We conducted bilateral consultations with key informants, completed a jurisdictional scan of elder abuse strategies across Canada and internationally, and synthesized everything into actionable recommendations within a tight timeline. The Secretariat participated fully as a partner without having to carry the operational weight.
We closed that project the same way we closed the ODSP work: with an implementation workshop that translated findings into a clear path forward. What could the Secretariat act on directly? What needed cross-ministry collaboration? What required more time and resources to build the case for?
That final step is where a lot of policy consulting falls short. Delivering a report is not the same as delivering a result.
"Delivering a report is not the same as delivering a result."
The key takeaway: When a team is stretched and a priority file needs to move, an external team can carry the operational load while the internal team stays close to the work. The result is a project that gets done, and recommendations the organization actually owns.
What good looks like
In both of these projects the internal team brought something irreplaceable: knowledge of the file, relationships with stakeholders, and an understanding of the political and organizational context that no outside team can replicate quickly.
What we brought was focused attention, comparative depth, and the ability to synthesize a large body of evidence into something usable within a realistic timeline.
Good policy research is not just about producing findings. It is about producing findings that a team can act on, in a context they understand, with a clear sense of what comes next. That is what the lane is for.
Next in the series: When an outside voice helps.
Susan Underhill is the founder of Connor Claire Group. She has worked in and with government at the municipal, provincial, federal and First Nations level for over two decades. connorclaire.ca
The ODSP benefits schedules project was completed in partnership with Nous Group and LBCG Consulting. The Elder Abuse Strategy review was completed in partnership with LBCG Consulting.