4. What are the impacts of these options?

1. What are the possible impacts of a policy option for people, society and the environment?
2. How are the possible impacts of a policy option distributed across various target groups (for example gender, age groups, region, etc.)?
3. What are the possible impacts of a policy option outside the Netherlands (impacts elsewhere)?
4. What are the possible impacts of a policy option for future generations (impacts later)?
5. Which obligatory assessments must I perform in order to identify the possible impacts of a policy option in more detail?
6. Which other resources can I use to identify the possible impacts of a policy option in more detail?

Involve those around you check questions

1. Have you involved the stakeholders in identifying the possible impacts of a policy option?
2. Have you performed the Impact Scan during a multidisciplinary collaboration between experts with knowledge

In order to find out what the possible real impacts of a policy option are, you can use the Impact Scan.

The Impact Scan is made up of a total of approximately 60 questions, subdivided into the three main themes of people, society and the environment.

By answering the Impact Scan questions you can identify the possible impacts of a policy option. The Impact Scan helps you reflect on possible impacts which you had not yet identified. By answering the questions together with people with wide-ranging expertise and experience, you can gain an even better picture of all the possible impacts of the developed policy options. This also enables you to discover opportunities for cross pollination with other areas of policy, or possible trade-offs which have to be addressed.

Main themes and format of the Impact Scan

The Impact Scan helps you establish the relationship between the possible impacts of policy options for well-being and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You look at all the possible impacts, in other words the pursued but also the undesirable impacts. The Impact Scan also enables you to reflect separately on the differences in the distribution of the possible impacts of the policy option for various stakeholders now, elsewhere and later.

• Well-being
  Well-being relates to the quality of life here and now and the extent to which that quality of life is being achieved at the expense or otherwise of the quality of life of later generations and/or people elsewhere in the world. The selection and the format of the themes in the Impact Scan largely align with the 8 themes which the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) use to measure and describe the current state of affairs and the developments in relation to well-being:

  1. Subjective well-being
  2. Health
  3. Consumption and income
  4. Education and training
  5. Spatial cohesion and quality
  6. Economic capital
  7. Natural capital
  8. Social capital

  In addition to these main themes, 'Institutional Capital' is also included is a separate main theme in the Impact Scan which includes, among other things, questions about the complexity of policy and implementation, the functioning of the government and the confidence that people have in public institutions.

• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
  The Impact Scan clarifies which Sustainable Development Goals belong to the themes in the secondary questions. The numbers following the questions refer to the SDGs. The SDGs are intended to increase people's well-being within planetary boundaries. The Netherlands also wants to achieve the goals at national level.
• Distributional effects, impacts elsewhere and impacts later
  Policy options may, intentionally or unintentionally, have differing outcomes for various groups of stakeholders within the Netherlands, but also (for people) elsewhere in the world and for future generations. Distributional effects and impacts for elsewhere in the world and for later generations can occur in conjunction with many of the scenes in the Impact Scan. The Impact Scan does not make a selection in advance of the themes with regard to which this is more or less plausible. Experts must assess, on a case by case basis, what the possible distributional effects and impacts of the policy option may be for elsewhere and later. The Impact Scan fill-in card can help you focus on this issue. 

The Impact Scan serves two purposes. The first purpose of the Impact Scan is to help you gain an insight into all possible real impacts of policy. In doing so the Impact Scan aligns, wherever possible, with the international and national agreements on identifying the possible impacts of policy. This means, for example, the categories of Well-being and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were already discussed in step 2 of the Policy Compass.

The second purpose of the Impact Scan is to guide you to resources to further investigate expected impacts. The Impact Scan guides you to the (obligatory) assessments and resources which you can or must use in order to gain a good insight into the possible impacts of policy.

Impact Scan steps

The specific steps that have to be taken when performing the Impact Scan are the following:

1. After completing steps 1 to 3 of the Policy Compass you share the draft policy proposal, including the policy theory, with a wide-ranging group of experts whose joint knowledge covers the largest possible number of themes in the Impact Scan.
2. The experts provide individual answers to the questions in the Impact Scan and highlight which impacts they expect of the policy options. In doing so:
   they provide a brief clarification of how they believe the impact will develop, while referencing the instruments which must or can be used to paint a more defined picture of the suspected impacts.
3. You then collate the experts' contributions.
4. Uncertainties and contradictions in the experts' estimations must be investigated in more detail. This can be done by arranging (a series of) group meetings. Under resources you will find guidelines for organising a meeting like this.
5. You conduct, possibly with the help of experts, the obligatory assessments which belong to the themes which are expected to have impacts.
6. You identify, possibly with the help of experts, the possible impacts of the policy option in more detail using the additional resources.
7. The outcomes of the assessment with the experts are recorded as input for step 5 in the policy compass submitted to decision-makers.

Resources

The following Impact Scan documents are currently available in digital form for publication on the site.

• Which themes are dealt with in the Impact Scan?
  • What are the possible impacts of a policy option for people?
  • What are the possible impacts of a policy option for society? What are the possible impacts of a policy option for the environment?
  • You can fill in the answers to the questions in the Impact Scan in a format.
  • To explore the possible impacts of policy options in more detail you can organise a brainstorming session with your stakeholders. A set of instructions is available which explains how to organise such a session.
• The obligatory assessments which policymakers must perform.
• The additional resources for the further identification of the possible impacts of the policy option.