COORDINATION

Each potential project envisaged by the government is submitted to the Council of Ministers, composed of a secretariat, who scrutinizes each proposal before it is debated and prepares the ministers’ council agenda, and the 14 line ministers plus the prime minister who debate each proposal. Line ministers and the prime minister are thus necessarily informed of each proposal. As is normal in a coalition government, debates ensure that any project approved by the council will eventually be defended collegially by all government members, and the prime minister is the centerpiece of this process. Law projects can also be introduced directly by members of parliament, in which case the Council can be bypassed. But this is much less frequent in practice. All the important bills stem from the government and less than 10% of bills (most of which are not important, at least in budgetary terms) are the result of parliamentary initiatives.

Given that the center of political gravity is the presidency itself, the issue to explore here is the extent to which the White House and the Executive Office of the President involves the line departments and agencies in policy-making. The example of the health reform process demonstrates that this involvement is highly selective. One of the more relevant dimensions in administrative conflict is the cleavage between the career civil service and political appointees within ministries. This conflict has been present ever since the Reagan administration came to power in the early 1980s. The layer of political appointees is generally so thick that civil servants will only thrive on the basis of accommodation.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is always involved at an early stage in assisting with the development and drafting of any significant government policy and the resulting legislation. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the relevant department would have to both agree on a policy before it could be tabled in cabinet or considered by the relevant minister or ministers.

Non-major policy initiatives do not need to be presented to the cabinet if all relevant ministers agree to its implementation.

Line departments and central agencies have interrelated or complementary capacities for the coordination of policy proposals, with ultimate authority lying with central agencies. Thus, line ministries in Canada have a relatively high level of responsibility to involve the government office, the PCO, in the preparation of policy proposals. On the other hand, it is well known that line departments are not always forthcoming with information that may cast their departments in a bad light.

The government office and line ministries have a strong tendency to coordinate activity, and in practice the president or government office and the Ministry of Finance are nearly always involved in the preparation of policy proposals. No serving minister would ignore the president’s opinion in the preparation and elaboration of a policy proposal.

The norms of minister rule and the “resort” principle (where ministers are in charge of certain areas) give the line ministries a fair amount of autonomy. It is also the line ministries that have the most technical expertise. But to achieve coherent government policy, interdepartmental coordination takes place. This is not a hierarchical coordination, but based on negotiations. The prime minister has a special place given his constitutional prerogatives as the person who appoints and dismisses ministers. The cabinet holds weekly meetings. This is a political clearing institution, where a number of political issues are debated under the chairmanship of the prime minister. The last check of proposals comes in these weekly cabinet meetings (regeringsmøder). Major issues and strategic considerations are dealt with in the government coordination committee (regeringens koordineringsudvalg) involving the prime minister and four other key ministers.

The Ministry of Finance also plays an important role whenever financial resources are involved. No minister can go to the finance committee of the People’s Assembly (Folketing) without prior agreement from the Ministry of Finance.

Apart from coordinating the preparation of next year’s finances, the Ministry of Finance is also involved in formulating general economic policy and offering economic and administrative assessments of the consequences of proposed laws.

The guiding rule in Finland is that each ministry is, within its mandate, responsible for the preparation of issues that fall within the scope of government and also for the proper functioning of administration. Given this framework, rather than line ministries involving the government office in policy preparation, the expectation is that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) involves line ministries in its own policy preparation. In practice, of course, the patterns of interaction are transverse. For one thing, policy programs and other inter-sectoral subject matters in the cabinet program are a concern for the PMO as well as the line ministries, and efforts must be coordinated. Also, as decision-making is collective and consensual in nature, attempts from the part of line ministries to place items on the cabinet agenda without involving at least to some extent the PMO in preparations are foredoomed to failure. This is partly for political reasons, as the broad-based coalition governments in Finland amalgamate and encapsulate ideological antagonism and thereby prevent a fragmentation along ministerial and sectoral lines.

Line ministers have to inform the prime minister of all their projects. Not only the reforms are prepared under the control of the Prime Minister’s/President’s Offices but media communication and public opinion has to be strictly coordinated under the supervision of the prime minister’s/president‘s staff. Most important sectoral reforms are actually announced by the prime minister or the president and not by the minister.

The Prime Minister’s Office is strongly involved in preparing the line ministries’ policy proposals. Under the Gyurcsány government, the general lead rested with the PMO and the advisory bodies steered by the PMO. Ministries were bound to serve, not to lead and lost the authority to prioritize policy decisions. Ministers were seen as agents of the cabinet rather than representatives of their ministries. The Bajnai government returned greater autonomy to the ministries.

It follows from the previous two sections (i.e., GO Expertise and GO Gatekeeping) that the PMO has to be involved in legislative and expenditure proposals. The process is a highly interactive one, with much feedback between the line ministries, the PMO, and the Office of the Attorney General. The Department of Finance has considerable input into all proposals with revenue or expenditure implications. Any significant policy items have to be discussed in advance with the Department of the Taoiseach.

If line ministries prepare a policy proposal, they are obliged to consult other ministries affected as well as the coordinating units, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), the Treasury, and the State Services Commission. There are clear guidelines which not only de jure but also de facto govern the coordination of policy formulation in the core executive.

The Korean political system has become more hierarchical in the last two years, and the relative position of the Blue House has been strengthened. Many line ministries have lost influence, been downsized or merged. The large majority of issues are settled between the line ministries and the Blue House before cabinet meetings. Cabinet meetings are limited in their function to an exchange of information, while most strategic decisions are made in the Blue House.

The prime minister’s office (PMO) has a twofold role in the preparation of draft bills. On the one hand, as mentioned above, it has to check the congruity of the laws from a legal point of view. On the other, the PMO collects ministries’ legal and political opinions along with opinions from civil society stakeholders, interest and lobby groups, expert groups and institutions. Thus, the PMO is always directly involved in the preparation of policy proposals at a relatively early stage.

Prime ministers’ conventions for line ministries to clear their plans with the core executive vary with the political strength of the prime minister, and with the existence of powerful rivals within the cabinet. Since the prime minister controls the cabinet’s agenda, important policy initiatives and legislative proposals always require consultation with the core executive before they are developed in any detail. This trend has been further strengthened in recent years through an emphasis on “joined-up” government across Whitehall, which aims to subject individual policy decisions to evaluation in the light of long-term strategy. There is also a long-standing convention of cabinet collective responsibility, which requires that the line minister persuade the rest of the cabinet or the relevant cabinet committee of the desirability of his or her policies. Ministers’ private offices, nearly always staffed by rising stars in the civil service, help to assure coordination.
A special role is played by the Treasury, the most important ministry in overseeing initiatives that involve substantial public expenditure. This became very evident during handling of the recent banking crisis, the handling of which saw Treasury take an absolutely central role. Given its institutional and strategic coherence, as well as the breadth of its oversight (derived in large part from its annual budget negotiations with other ministries), it is a very powerful force within central government. Luckily for Prime Minister Brown, he had no determined adversary at the Treasury’s helm during the crisis – a fact that certainly helped in the handling of the most substantial challenge for central government in several decades.

Due to a long and strong tradition of ministerial power and independence, line ministries do have considerable flexibility in drafting their own policy proposals without consulting the Prime Minister’s Office. If a line minister belongs to the same party as the prime minister, there is usually some PMO involvement, but little or no such involvement takes place if the line minister is a member of a different party. After the publication of the parliament’s Special Investigation Commission (SIC) report, a committee was set up to evaluate and suggest necessary steps to improve the state administration. One of the committee’s critical suggestions was to improve the overall work routines and conditions of the executive branch’s political head. The leading role of the prime minister should be given clearer status in law, even in the constitution, the committee proposed (Skýrsla starfshóps forsætisráðuneytisins, 2010).

During the past decade, line ministries and the central policy-making bodies at cabinet level, particularly the Cabinet Secretariat, have communicated intensively in the preparation of policy proposals. Traditionally, since the early years of the so-called 1955 system – 1955 being the year in which the LDP was founded – the LDP’s own policy-making bodies, which mirror the ministries closely, have also been involved. Contacts between ministries and cabinet-level bodies have been particularly close due to the dense relationships linking senior civil servants. However, such relations have sometimes appeared almost too close, even for recent LDP-led governments. Former Prime Minister Abe, for instance, wanted to increase the number of outsiders in Cabinet Secretariat positions.

Technically speaking, as there are no institutionalized mechanisms of coordination with line ministries, the Office of the Prime Minister has no capacity to become involved in the preparation of bills or proposals by line ministries and is not even legally entitled to do so. Line ministries are pretty much free to pursue policy initiatives provided that they are in accordance with the governmental and coalition programs and that they respect budgetary constraints. There is no unit dealing with policy assessment and evaluation. Informally, no proposal is presented to the Council of Ministers without being approved by the prime minister beforehand. Even though, since 2009, the prime minister no longer holds the very strategic finance portfolio, his central role in governance has not been weakened.

Generally, the initiative by a line ministry to start drafting new legislation or a white paper is rooted in the government policy accord and subsequent cabinet decisions to allocate drafting to one or two line ministries. With complex problems, draft legislation may involve considerable jockeying for position among the various line ministries. Given the tight fiscal situation brought about by the financial and economic crises and the ensuing bailout of Dutch banks, the Balkenende IV cabinet was compelled to repeat policy accord talks. These talks resulted in 20 working groups, comprised of staff members from across all ministries, to develop proposals for several dozen billions of cutbacks. As this example demonstrates, the prime minister is always involved in the kick-off of major new policy initiatives and sometimes in the wording of the assignment itself. After that, however, it may take between six months and an entire cabinet period before the issue reaches decision-making stages in ministerial and cabinet committees, and thereby come under the formal purview of the prime minister again. Meanwhile, the prime minister is obliged to rely on informal coordination with his fellow ministers.

The preparation of policies lies with line ministries. They will as a matter of routine involve the Office of the Prime Minister in the clearing of potentially controversial matters and for coordination with other policies, often in back-and-forth interaction during the process of planning. Initiatives that do not have the support of the Office of the Prime Minister would not get through the cabinet.

The chancellor formally determines the general guidelines of government policies. In addition, he or she has the power to give top priority to particular policy fields and therefore extend his influence in these areas. Nevertheless, according to the Basic Law the line ministries have primary responsibility for their own policy fields. Therefore, the preparation of bills is mainly the business of the line ministries. In the day-to-day policy processes, the chancellery is to some extent kept informed about ministerial initiatives, but is not deeply involved. Most disputes between ministries and the chancellery are discussed and resolved in meetings, often held weekly, between the state secretaries and chancellery staff members. However, in the case of the current government, the FDP ministries have evidenced increasing autonomy from those of the CDU/CSU.

Ministers in Mexico’s presidential system are subject to discipline by the head of government, and have little room to pursue their own independent objectives. They would risk their careers if they did so. The finance ministry and the minister of the interior, the latter of whom serves as one of the most important interfaces between government and congress, play a particularly important coordinating role within the overall government. The ministries involved in the war against drug cartels have had difficulties in coordinating their strategies due to interministerial rivalries and a lack of trust stemming from the corruption of high-level bureaucrats by organized crime.

The formal and actual involvement of the government office in the preparation of policy proposals by the line ministries is limited, especially in those ministries led by the coalition partners.

There have been no major changes in line ministries’ functioning since the last report. A practice of bilateral meetings between the prime minster and other ministers has become relatively institutionalized since the mid-1980s. The extent of these varies according to policy area. While regular briefings by line ministries to the PMO continue, there has been some evident decline in the coordination and communication of policy in 2010. In particular, some dissonance was clear in April 2010 between the minister of finance and the minister of public works, over the potential continuation or suspension of major investments such as the high-speed rail link, the planned new Lisbon airport, and a third bridge over the Tagus river to Lisbon. The final decision on these projects was not clear by the end of the review period, in April 2010. Additionally, the cuts in social benefits contained in the Stability and Growth Program approved in March were also rumored to have generated substantial internal divisions in the government, leading to two extraordinary weekend Council of Ministers meetings in March 2010. While the government subsequently provided a fairly united front, with the minister of the presidency stating that the Stability and Growth Program had the “solidarity” of all government members, such allegations of internal divisions offer a sharp contrast with the previous Sócrates government period.

Although line ministries are formally autonomous from the government office and the Prime Minister’s Private Office (PM’s Private Office), these core executive bodies are regularly briefed by the ministries on new developments affecting the preparation of policy proposals. This consultation does not only focus on formal or technical issues, but on political and strategic considerations as well. This process takes place weekly, since representatives of all ministries gather at the cabinet meeting preparatory committee (Comisión General de Subsecretarios y Secretarios de Estado), which is held every Wednesday, chaired by the government office head and first deputy prime minister. Advisers from the PM’s Private Office also participate in this committee and in other specialized cabinet committees.
However, even if the primary role of the government office and the PM’s Private Office is horizontal coordination, their administrative resources are limited, and the first deputy prime minister and prime minister’s advisers cannot be briefed on the whole range of government activity. Therefore, they normally focus on each ministerial department’s most important sectoral developments, as well as the prime minister’s particular interests. These interests include foreign, EU and defense policy; economic measures associated with the financial crisis; reforms to the regional statutes of autonomy; relations with the unions; and justice and home affairs. Consultation between the PM’s Private Office and the rest of the government could be compromised if line ministers fear that the prime minister and his advisers might as an unwelcome filter of ministry proposals. Equally, line departments may seek to influence the prime minister’s advisers in order to secure backing at a higher level. Nevertheless, all legal proposals are sufficiently vetted by the government office before they are drafted as laws through: (1) the setting of the cabinet meeting agenda and (2) the centralization of all legislative relations with the parliament.

As mentioned earlier, the PMO is not continually involved in policy coordination. Its role is more of ensuring that there is a steady flow of bills into parliament, to offer administrative support to the prime minister and to have a longer strategic view on policy developments. Coordination takes places at the intermediate level of ministries and only if there is disagreement on some specific matter will the senior levels of the ministries become involved. Also, the Ministry of Finance plays a very important coordinating role.
This arrangement – a PMO not continuously involved in policy coordination – may well be part of the coordination problems in the CGO. There are still “gaps” between the line ministries and each ministry maintains its own subculture. Even when ministries are merged it takes a long time before those subcultures disappear. Nevertheless, the informal coordination procedure still ensures that the PMO in line with the Ministry of Finance has an important role in policy developments. Especially in times of coalition cabinets, as in the period under review, the PMO crucially coordinates policies.

The government consists of only seven ministries. These span a large number of competency areas, and are responsible for a large variety of issues. There are no line ministries. But there are federal offices and institutions connected to the various ministries. These work closely with their superior minister, and since the minister has to win a large majority on the Federal Council for his or her proposal, there is strong coordination between offices. Indeed, political coordination among the high ranks of the administration can be rather intense, while the limited capacity and time of the Federal Council members, as well as their diverging interests, serve as practical bottlenecks.

The legislative plan of the government divides tasks among the ministries and other central bodies of the state administration and sets deadlines for the submission of bills to the cabinet. The line ministry has to involve, and take comments from, a range of institutions, including the government office. This consultation process primarily focuses on technical issues. However, the government office has substantial informal power over major issues such as relations with the European Union or the state budget.

The extent to which line ministries have to involve the PMO in the preparation of policy proposals differs by government and by the policy issue at stake, but is generally rather minimal. When a major reform is underway, such as a substantive policy shift in the pension or higher education system, line ministries do coordinate their action with the PMO.
However, it is not uncommon for ministers to prepare proposals for less-crucial policy shifts that are barely scrutinized by the PMO, as long as there is no conflict with government priorities as laid out in the governing party’s program. This results from the administrative weakness of a PMO that often has insufficient resources. It also results from the fact that some ministerial portfolios are held by old, powerful politicians of the governing party who may feel they can keep the PMO at bay in regard to their own policy choices. This traditional Greek centrifugal pattern of relations between ministries and the PMO was reproduced in the Karamanlis government. In the Papandreou government, given Greece’s dire financial situation and the prime minister’s ambition to ensure that policies are more tightly controlled by the core executive, line ministers regularly brief the PMO on their plans and policy proposals. The new government also initiated moves to reform coordination and control across the administration.

The PMO is regularly kept informed of the development of policy proposals coming from line ministries. But with the exception of policy proposals of particular political relevance, this consultation process is rather formalized, with more significant exchanges occurring only when proposals have been fully drafted.

The Government Office is not systematically involved in line ministries’ preparation of policy proposals. Once the government manifesto and the coalition council have defined certain projects, the full responsibility for drafting bills rests with the line ministries. The Government Office is only occasionally briefed about the state of affairs and seldom intervenes. Under the Fico government, this particularly applied to the line ministries led by Smer-SD’s coalition partners.

The autonomy of line ministries is substantial. The chancellor cannot determine the guidelines of government policy and does not have to be involved in the drafting of legislation. In some cases, however, coordination nevertheless occurs.