Grant Rule
Why do governments struggle to deliver better outcomes, even when the intentions are good and the policy ideas are sound? It is a question I have spent much of the past five years thinking about, and the answer I believe is a simple truth: good policy creates potential; disciplined implementation creates impact.
Since selling MessageMedia, the technology company I co-founded and helped build over two decades, I have devoted much of my time to the work of McKinnon and its mission of promoting good government. The transition from building a business to immersing myself in government and political leadership has reinforced for me that some of the same principles apply: be clear about the outcome you are trying to achieve and stay relentlessly focused on the people you serve.
One of the most encouraging examples I’ve seen comes from England’s education system. Over the past two decades, England has steadily improved student results in reading and maths and perhaps most striking has been the improvement in outcomes for many disadvantaged schools.
A key enabler of England’s progress has been Multi-Academy Trusts where schools are brought together into groups under a single leadership team. Rather than every school running its own back office, finance, HR and administration, those functions can be shared across the group. That frees up principals and teachers to spend more time improving teaching and learning, while schools still retain their own identity
A 2022 UK Department of Education report concluded that more than seven in ten schools formerly rated inadequate by England’s school inspectorate and subsequently absorbed into multi-academy trusts are now rated good or outstanding. In the best multi-academy trusts, disadvantaged students outperform the national average in reading, writing and mathematics.
This reform began under Tony Blair’s Labour government and was expanded by successive Coalition and Conservative governments. Earlier this year, the UK Labour government announced that all government schools in England would join a Trust.
This is why McKinnon is partnering with the Tasmanian Government to trial multi-school organisations (MSOs), carefully adapting the best elements of England’s approach – and learning from its mistakes – to help improve outcomes for Tasmanian children. The MSO Trial demonstrates how McKinnon works. We do more than fund research or advocate for promising ideas. We bring together government, evidence and implementation expertise, and work alongside our partners through the difficult process of turning an idea into results. Tasmania’s first three-school MSO is set to expand, and a second MSO will launch in 2027, with a third planned for 2028.
It is implementation in practice: a minister with a clear vision to improve outcomes for children, leveraging evidence, piloting to validate, then scaling progressively what is working.
Seeing the Tasmanian pilot in operation has made me wonder what other parts of government could achieve if they were organised around a focus on measurable outcomes.
Many talented people enter politics and the public service believing policy design is where the real intellectual work happens, and that implementation simply follows. The NDIS, Gonski and Snowy 2.0, to name just three, all had their design challenges. But their greatest problems have come in implementation. Across the past two decades, Australia has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on these and other major initiatives. Imagine how much more we could have achieved at far lower cost, if the implementation phase was given the priority and talent that it so clearly needed.
No sector invests less in its own leadership and capability than government and yet no sector matters more. That is why McKinnon exists: to invest in the leadership, capability and delivery skills that good government requires – work that takes patience, courage and sustained commitment. With Mike Baird moving to our board, we are now searching for a new CEO to lead the organisation on its next chapter: a rare opportunity to serve the public by supporting better government for a stronger Australia.
One of my many lessons in business was not to underestimate the challenge of executing a good idea. Having good ideas is easy. Execution is hard. Good intentions don’t count. Delivery does.
Grant Rule and Sophie Oh are the co-founders of McKinnon, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to strengthening government for a stronger Australia. This article is part of a content partnership between the Herald and McKinnon.
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