[1] Using social engineering, as well as techniques in psychology, behavioral economics, and marketing, the purpose of the organisation is to influence public thinking and decision making in order to improve compliance with government policy and thereby decrease social and government costs related to inaction and poor compliance with policy and regulation.
[1] With its headquarters in London and another UK location in Manchester, BIT also has offices in the United States (New York and Washington, DC); Singapore; Australia (Sydney); New Zealand (Wellington); France (Paris); and Canada (Toronto).
"[9] The Financial Times expected it "to be the first of many policy teams to be spun off as part of plans to shrink central government and create a private enterprise culture in Whitehall.
Although specific ideas devised by BIT have been imitated in several other countries (see below), chief executive David Halpern said in a 2018 interview with Apolitical that the unit's underlying methodology has still not been widely understood.
This four-step methodology involves defining the outcome, understanding the context, building the intervention and finishing by testing, learning and adapting.
In testing, BIT heavily uses randomised control trials to increase the evidence base and take an empirical approach to government.
BIT partnered with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to assess the effectiveness of norm-based and public good statements in prompting taxpayers to pay on time.
[12] BIT prompted those owing the UK Courts Service fines with a text message ten days before the bailiffs were to be sent to a person, which doubled payments made without the need for further intervention.
This innovation has reportedly saved the Courts Service £30 million a year by "sending people owing fines personalised text messages to persuade them to pay promptly."
The team discovered that people's lofts were full of junk, and provided low-cost labour to clear them; this caused a fivefold increase in the proportion of installed insulation.
[16][citation needed] Behavioural insights has been used by governments across the world to successfully improve outcomes in numerous policy, program, and service areas, including retirement savings, access to post-secondary education, on-time tax payment, and healthcare.
The BIT Canada office at Toronto, Ontario, opened in October 2019, working with all levels of government (municipal, provincial, and federal), as well as nonprofits and foundations.
[5][23] In 2016, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Privy Council Office's Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU; formerly Innovation Hub) launched the Behavioural Insights Community of Practice (BI CoP), a horizontal network of employees, practitioners, and researchers across the government that allows for sharing information, research methodologies, and experimentation results.
[25] During his terms, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to employ nudge theory to advance American domestic policy goals.
[26] In 2008, the federal government appointed Cass Sunstein, who helped develop the theory, as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
[36] The ASEAN-Australia Strategic Youth Partnership has expressed consideration for establishing a centralised behavioural economics team for the region as a modest investment which can deliver measurable benefits for ASEAN communities.