Participatory policymaking is a way of creating policy together with the people who are affected by it. In this research, participatory policymaking aims to include citizens who are affected by a specific policy, in the process of policymaking. Especially after the so called ‘Childcare Allowance Affair’, participatory policymaking within the Central Government has gained momentum due to its potential to create more fair and improved policy as well as improved trust in the government. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (the MSAE) acknowledges its value and importance; efforts to integrate participatory policymaking into the policy processes have increased over the past two years. The Ministry has set the following ambitious goal for its employees (the SAE’ers) which started in 2022: “Within three years (2025), every SAE’er places the end-user at the center of every stage of the policy-making process”.

Expressions of dissatisfaction with participatory practices (not specific to the Ministry but all participatory policy-making processes) in the media has inspired this research project; participants do not feel heard or taken seriously as they rarely see their input reflected in policy outcomes.

Through design sprints, resulting in multiple small design interventions, I explored the system of the MSAE. The Ministry is seen as a complex social system, where different stakeholders and actors have a considerable influence on the creation and adjustments of policies. The likelihood of finding a single problem with a single solution is therefore small. Therefore, a Co-Evolutionary Approach (Van der Bijl-Brouwer et al., 2021) has been adopted to steer the system towards the desired situation over time using safe-to-fail design experiments.

Four ‘obstruction areas’ have been defined based on discovered challenges and corresponding design interventions have been created. These are combined in one portfolio. These obstruction areas might discourage policymakers from engaging in impactful participatory work. The obstruction areas are defined as follows:

1. Unevaluated Assumptions: The assumptions policymakers may have about the people affected by the policy withhold policymakers from starting the conversation or being open enough during the conversation.
2. Faulty Frameworks: The frameworks have not always changed according to the changing way of working that is required for participatory policymaking.
3. Task Overload: Too many tasks and contradicting expectations may discourage policymakers from creating flexibility to engage in participatory policymaking.
4. Lack of a Relationship: A relationship with the people affected by policy is not always there, which leads to participants not feeling taken seriously.

Based on the areas of obstruction, four interventions are designed. One of them is created and evaluated in collaboration with policymakers. For the “Unevaluated Assumptions” obstruction area, an intervention called ‘Het Veronderstel Spel’ is developed. ‘Het Veronderstel Spel’ initiates awareness about the assumptions policymakers might have on the collaboration with people affected by the policy and how they influence the trajectory of policy development, if unaccounted for.

Finally, it is proposed that uncovering and dealing with obstruction areas through safe-to-fail design interventions is a useful method to deal with the variety of participatory policy-making challenges the MSAE is facing.