Governments are increasingly using behavioural insights to design, enhance and reassess their policies and services. Applying these insights means governments adopt a more realistic view of human behaviour than they have done in the past – and may achieve better outcomes as a result.

However, elected and unelected government officials are themselves influenced by the same heuristics and biases that they try to address in others. This report explores how this happens – and how these biases can be addressed or mitigated. To do this, the authors focus on three core activities of policymaking: noticing, deliberating and executing.