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CDERP Position Paper | October 2026
Governing the Moving Maze
Bounded Chaos, Dynamic Equilibrium and the Limits of System Redesign
Dr Peter Smith
Employment, workforce and human-service systems are continually redesigned through new programs, contracts, incentives and performance measures. Yet the systems receiving these reforms are already changing, and the interventions themselves alter the conditions they are intended to govern.
This paper explores why effective reform requires more than an initial blueprint. It considers how governance can preserve purpose, rights and accountability while remaining capable of recognising and responding to consequential change.
The system moves while we redesign it
System architecture is necessary for public accountability. Programs, contracts and performance measures establish responsibilities and expectations, but they cannot fully determine how people and organisations will respond.
Reform takes place within systems that continue to change. Organisations adapt, relationships develop, incentives influence behaviour and consequences extend beyond institutional boundaries.
The challenge is therefore not simply to design a better system, but to establish governance capable of observing what happens, recognising what matters and responding appropriately.
“The task is not to stop the maze moving. It is to govern it while it moves.”
Ideas explored in the paper
Dynamic equilibrium
Observable conditions can remain relatively stable even while the relationships and activities producing them continually change. Stability does not necessarily indicate success, and persistent underperformance may itself represent an equilibrium.
Bounded chaos
Complex institutional systems operate through actors whose authority, resources and responsibilities are bounded. These boundaries provide necessary structure but cannot fully determine how the system behaves or changes.
The Fishbowl Effect
Programs and organisations may perform well within their administrative boundaries while the longer trajectories they seek to influence extend beyond them. Knowledge, relationships and continuity can be lost when responsibility moves between institutions.
Feedback and adaptive governance
Information collection is not necessarily learning. Effective feedback requires consequential information to reach people or institutions capable of interpreting it and responding to the conditions that produced it.
Beyond program performance
The paper considers the implications of these ideas for public commissioning, employment and workforce services, education-to-employment transitions and other human-service systems.
It asks what happens when necessary functions are displaced by administrative reform, when successful program events fail to translate into durable outcomes, and when the people observing systemic problems lack the authority to correct them.
These questions are relevant wherever outcomes develop across institutional boundaries and over longer periods than individual programs are designed to observe.
CDERP Position Paper | October 2026
Governing the Moving Maze
Dr Peter Smith
Suggested citation
Smith, P. (2026). Governing the moving maze: Bounded chaos, dynamic equilibrium and the limits of system redesign. Centre for Disability Employment Research and Practice (CDERP).