# How Does Bad Policy Get Made?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/50-shades-of-planning-1168819/how-does-bad-policy-get-made
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/50-shades-of-planning-1168819/how-does-bad-policy-get-made.md
Podcast: [50 Shades of Planning](https://stenobird.com/podcast/50-shades-of-planning-1168819)
Published: 2026-01-24T10:00:21+00:00
Episode link: https://pod.co/50-shades-of-planning/how-does-bad-policy-get-made
Audio file: https://downloads.pod.co/b6f9f0f9-d7fe-4a5a-836c-563849ec1a3e/201fcbe2-fe8e-432e-8317-5e0a4edf8aa8.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/50-shades-of-planning-1168819/episodes/how-does-bad-policy-get-made
Duration seconds: 4054

## Resource

In October 2025 Sam Stafford came across a blog by Jack Airey , who is now a Director at Public First but was the Head of Planning at Policy Exchange and subsequently spent a few years inside Number 10 as a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. The opening line of Jack’s blog was ‘How does bad policy get made?’ and he writes about “the war of attrition that is Whitehall policymaking”; "backbench pressure"; and the “lack of institutional understanding” within government about the practical impact of policy proposals. There is a link to Jack’s blog below. Sam asked Jack if he would be interested in talking about these themes on the podcast and, pleasingly, he was, so Sam thought next about who else it would be interesting to hear from about life inside the Westminster policy-making bubble. How about a civil servant’s perspective? Sam asked Simon Gallagher , formerly Director of Planning in the Department for Communities and Local Government (as was) and he was keen. How about a political perspective? Sam asked Rachel Maclean , former Minister of State for Housing & Planning and now Baroness Maclean of Redditch, and she was keen. And how about a planner’s perspective? Sam asked friend of the podcast Steve Quartermain , former Chief Planner, and he was keen, and so Sam arranged for the four of them to meet at Soho Radio Studios in January 2026 to record the conversation that forms this episode. The four of them talk about how policy is made and Simon shares his three stages of policy formulation. They talk about how things get to Ministers, how Ministers make decisions and who is involved at what stage. And they talk about whether planning is any different to other areas of public policy. Correction. Sam says in the introduction to the episode that Jack was the Head o…

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## Transcript

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