Long-term Insights Briefings: a futures perspective

Abstract

The Public Service Act 2020 requires departmental chief executives to give a long-term insights briefing (LTIB) to the appropriate minister at least once every three years. In an increasingly uncertain world, there are several ways to explore the future that will unfold over the next decades. At this stage of their development, questions can be asked as to how well the current suite of 19 LTIBs are likely to perform as instruments to help identify implications of probable, possible and preferred futures so that policy responses can be made more anticipatory, adaptable and robust. This article provides a futures-thinking context for considering LTIBs and posits a framework for evaluating (and potentially improving) the full set of LTIB documents once they are all published.