5. What is the preferred option?

1. Describe your preferred option
2. How do you assess the chosen option in terms of:
   1. Effectiveness and efficiency
   2. Feasibility for all relevant parties (including capacity to act, regulatory burden and enforcement) 
   3. Broad social impact
3. What are the risks and uncertainties in this proposal?
4. What does the intended monitoring and evaluation look like?

Using the analysis method(s) selected at question 4 and your situation, you assess the various policy options in terms of these selected effects, lawfulness, effectiveness, efficiency and feasibility. Once the effects of the most probable instruments have been identified, a decision can be taken regarding which option is best, together with your stakeholders. Often the best solution is a combination of instruments. 

When substantiating your policy you should also focus on the risks and uncertainties which may influence its outcomes. When doing so you should also look at the external factors which you identified in question 3 when drawing up your policy theory. After that you should explain how you take account of the risks and uncertainties in your policy. You can do this, for example, by first carrying out pilots, or working in phases so that adjustment is possible.

After developing the preferred option, the formal implementation test(s) should also be started during this phase, on the basis of which you can partly assess how the instrument can best be implemented in practice.

During this phase you should also reflect on the monitoring and evaluation, including the implementation assessment. Monitoring and evaluation provide an insight into the impacts of a proposal in practice. You can use an evaluation to try and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of policy or legislation. You can evaluate a proposal at different times and in different ways and, by doing so, pursue different objectives. Monitoring is a form of evaluation whereby, after introducing policy or legislation, you try to gain an insight into progress in terms of implementation and goal realisation, so that you can make adjustments as necessary. An ex post evaluation involves assessing a proposal's effectiveness and efficiency after a certain period of time. In addition to providing accountability information to the House of Representatives, an ex post evaluation can also provide input for an ex ante evaluation of a new proposal. Whether regulations have to be evaluated is, in many cases, determined by law. 

During this phase you assess, once again together with the relevant partners, how the most effective instrument can be implemented in practice (an implementation plan) and you will draw up a schedule and give a presentation. If legislation and regulations are necessary in order to implement your choice of instrument, a legislation process will be started that has its own dynamism and will include, among other things, (Internet) consultation and advice provided by the Advisory Division of the Council of State. 

If you send the proposal to the House of Representatives, you must include a clarification, in accordance with CW 3.1, by using the Policy choices explained framework.

Once a policy proposal is ready, you must inform the ministers, the House of Representatives and society as a whole about the considerations made. By answering this question you provide a rationale for the policy proposal in a structured way while fulfilling the required formats.

Reflections on civil service professionalism 

The Guide to civil service professionalism is a resource that can also help you during this phase when weighing up your policy choices. What would be the effect of your preferred option on the daily practice of your fellow civil servants and the dilemmas they will come up against? Have you, for example, sufficiently involved the people who are going to work on the chosen solution, so that they not only understand what the idea is, but also fully embrace it? If this is the case, they will be able to make progress in a positive, enjoyable way, just as you intended. Use the guide to reflect on this and other questions and assess your colleagues' response.