Strategy and policy services

Ability. Quality. Delivery. Effective policy making must be a learning process which involves finding out from experience what works and what does not work - and making sure that others can benefit from the lessons learned.

We offer specialised public sector services in Brussels, staffed by multi-lingual professionals from several Member States. Our Policy Services department liaises on a day-to-day basis with the EU institutions and with national and regional governments. The Brussels-based practice has twenty years of experience in carrying out policy studies, impact assessments and evaluations for the European Public Sector.

Deloitte’s creative and experienced team brings deep policy knowledge and professional methodological tools and approaches to assignments, together with extensive experience in programme/project management. 

The Policy Services practice delivers a wide range of services, which can be summarised under the following main headings: analysis/strategic studies, policy design, evaluation and implementation.

What services do we deliver?

The Policy Services practice delivers a wide range of services, which can be summarised under four main headings: analysis/strategic studies, policy design, evaluation and implementation.

Analysis/strategic studies

We provide analysis, strategic insights, and policy solutions to decision makers in government and international institutions. When undertaking a policy study we systematically analyse the nature, causes, and effects of a given problem or situation and propose solutions.

Policy design

Our analysis and generation of new and innovative ideas provides input to the design of new policies. Policy design consists of assisting the European public sector in originating and developing a policy or programme and organisational approaches to implementation. Services are designed to assist the public sector in delivering sustainable governance structures, policies and programmes.

Policy evaluation

Evaluation is a judgment of interventions according to their results, impacts and needs they aim to satisfy. The evaluation may focus on a simple intervention such as a project which produces direct impact in the field or on a more complex intervention such as a programme which produces indirect impacts through downstream interventions.

When carrying out a policy evaluation, we systematically investigate the relevance of actions, effectiveness, and efficiency of the policy intervention, its implementation and processes. Further, we determine its merit, worth, or value in terms of improving the social and economic conditions of the different stakeholders.

Our team carries out a wide range of evaluations: ex ante evaluations and impact assessments, mid-term and ex-post evaluations; and evaluations of organisations and agencies. The range of methods that we apply include quantitative as well as qualitative methods, theory based approaches and research synthesis methods.

Policy implementation

Policy implementation consists of assisting the EU institutions with delivery of a policy. We offer our subject matter knowledge and world class programme management skills delivered by a multilingual and multidisciplinary team. Frequently, we involve colleagues from our global practice to deliver larger projects.

Relevant project examples

The bulk of our services is delivered to the European Commission, but we also serve the European Parliament, EU specialist agencies and national and regional governments.

Administrative Burden Reduction and Regulatory Reform
Deloitte is the leading firm in administrative burden measurement and reduction at the European level.
Over the last few years, we have assisted many EU Member States (including Belgium, Cyprus, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Finland and Spain) with their national administrative burden reduction programmes. Deloitte has also been leading the EU Programme to measure and reduce the administrative burden in the EU on behalf of the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry.
Deloitte has been assisting with the Programme's three objectives:

• to measure the administrative costs that specific legislation will cause for businesses;
• to identify opportunities for reducing the administrative burdens; and
• to prepare the Commission and the Member States for implementation of the reform.

We were subsequently contracted to assist the Commission perform the regulatory "fitness checks" on Water Policy (DG Environment) and Information & Consultation of Workers (DG Employment & Social Affairs).

Taxation & customs policy reforms
Deloitte has vast experience in advising on taxation and customs policy. We support DG TAXUD on corporate and indirect tax policy and research and analysis on customs matters. Our team in Belgium is supported by experts throughout the EU to work on the future Customs and Fiscalis programmes* for the next financial framework (2014-2020) and to help improve effectiveness in EU taxation and customs.

* Customs and Fiscalis programmes are EU Community programmes to support effective functioning of the internal market in the customs field and to improve the operation of taxation systems in the internal market.