REFORM CAPACITY

As part of a continuous modernization policy that goes back to the governments under Prime Minister Poul Schlüter in the 1980s, the current government in the period under review has consistently monitored institutional arrangements and many reform programs have been produced. The current public management and governance strategy includes contacts, result-oriented salaries, measurements, evaluations and efficiency reports.

The government has decided to retain the system of program management that was introduced during the previous cabinet’s term of office. This system encompasses three inter-sectoral policy programs, namely the Policy Program for Employment, Entrepreneurship and Work Life, the Policy Program for Health Promotion, and the Policy Program for the Well-being of Children, Youth and Families. The system also includes the government’s strategy document procedure, applied to the promotion and monitoring of the government program. The policy programs and the strategy document provide information on issues under intensive monitoring, a draft for legislative projects, a list of statements to be submitted to parliament, a plan for government resolutions and the main themes and priorities for sector research. In addition to the policy programs, the government pays particular attention to selected policy themes. The Prime Minister’s Office produces, in collaboration with other ministries, an impact assessment and a follow-up report on the aforementioned issues and policy programs for the use of a mid- and end-of-term government policy-review session. An initiative for better regulation aims at more efficient, transparent and accountable procedures in the legislation and implementation process.

Self-monitoring is both informal and formal. On a formal level, there is a parliamentary committee devoted to monitoring whether government and parliamentary activity adheres to the constitutional framework and the Office of the Auditor General, which reports to parliament and which has gradually made itself more assertive and taken on a broader remit of policy audit. The previous the Ministry of Government Administration is now the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform (in Norwegian: renewal).
Informally, there is substantial monitoring of the way institutional arrangements affect government functions, for example around reshuffling of ministerial portfolios, notably each time there is a change of government.

Government structures are constantly changing in Canada, for better and for worse. It is not a static system. In certain cases, there may actually be too much organizational change, as such change can be very disruptive and costly. For example, in 2004, Human Resources Development Canada was split into two departments: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Social Development Canada (SDC). In 2008, the two departments were merged, with SDC losing its separate identify. It is unclear what benefits, if any, arose from this departmental shuffling.

Following from the change to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation system in the 1990s, institutional arrangements in the core executive as well as executive-legislative relations and democratic decision-making have been regularly and effectively monitored. One area of particular interest is the performance of the reformed electoral system. The government plans to hold a referendum on whether to keep the MMP electoral system currently in place. In case voters opt for a change, there will be a second referendum parallel to the general election in 2014.

The past several decades have seen almost continuous reform in the Swedish state. A key element of the reform process has been the monitoring and evaluation of existing institutional models both horizontally (the relationship between the Central Government Office and the agencies) and vertically (the relationship between the CGO and regions or local authorities). As a result, the past couple of years have been devoted to a reassessment of the agency system both in terms of steering and structure. There has been a strong effort to reduce the number of agencies by 10 percent. Central government has also taken a higher profile in the steering of primary and secondary educational systems, which were transferred from the state to local authorities during the 1990s.

Monitoring takes place as a part of the political process, which includes a large number of private and public actors. It is not institutionalized, with the exception of the evaluation of policies (by implication, policy evaluation leads indirectly to the monitoring of the institutional framework of these policies).
While the constitutional and basic structures (federalism, direct democracy) are very robust, and while power-sharing structures and cooperation among political parties are “enforced” by direct democracy, the “lower” structures of government are subject to constant change. Recent examples of this include parliamentary reforms, the reform of fiscal federalism and judicial organization, reforms of the electoral systems in the cantons and the communes, the merging of and organizational reforms of communes, as well as changes in public management. Nevertheless, one of the most important reforms, the reorganization of the Federal Council and its collegiate system, has failed despite several attempts.

There is no formal system of self-monitoring in the area of organizational reform. Monitoring of institutional arrangements does not occur on a regular basis. Institutional arrangements are reconsidered from time to time, and the 2007 – 2009 coalition government did in fact do some reshuffling by moving the responsibility for municipal affairs from the Ministry of Social Affairs to the Ministry of Communications, the responsibility for tourism from the Ministry of Communications to the Ministry of Industry, and the responsibility for social security transfers from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Social Affairs. The government in office since 2009 has announced a further revision of the ministry structure by merging the ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Industry into a single ministry, and by merging the Ministry of Communications and Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights into a single Ministry of the Interior. These changes are intended to strengthen policy coordination and administrative capacity, which some of the small ministries currently lack.

Self-reflection is a highly developed trait among professional and academic government-watchers. The Dutch have a forty-year history of reports and recommendations for adapting and reforming central government structures and procedures and reforming the electoral system (Citizen Forum on Electoral Reform). Other examples include reports on rebuilding “Thorbecke’s house” of three levels of government and decentralizing some water board functions, recommendations for local government reforms, and, quite recently (February 2010), an Advisory Council of Public Administration report on (the lack of) trust in democracy and other topics of a purely political nature. In addition, academic authors, mainly from political science, sociology, history and public administration, have extensively reflected on the pros and especially cons of the Dutch political and administrative system.

The Council of Ministers’ rules of procedure were revised in December 2008 (see RIA Application). These changes maintained previous monitoring mechanisms and introduced additional ones that reinforce ex ante and ex post monitoring, improve cross-sector oversight, and seek to modernize administrative functions. Indeed, the latest rules of procedure identify a series of domains in which new ministerial measures require input from the minister in charge of administrative modernization. However, the reservations expressed above with respect to regulatory impact assessment are also largely applicable to the government’s self-monitoring, with little evidence showing how this is being done or how effective it actually is.

The Lee Myung-bak administration came to office with a clear goal of streamlining the Korean government and bureaucracy. Old institutions, procedures and attitudes were evaluated, and there was harsh criticism of real or perceived inefficiencies within the bureaucratic system. Due to tight oversight by the Office of the President, it is likely that reevaluations of existing institutional arrangements will continue to take place whenever they are perceived to be an obstacle to the president’s goals.

Because incoming administrations have to invent themselves when taking office in the United States, institutional arrangements in the U.S. system are regularly probed and revised. This is particularly true for the administrative bodies at the executive level, where institutional arrangements including those with a statutory basis undergo extensive change with each new president’s administration. These institutions also undergo formal as well as informal changes during the course of an administration. The key mechanisms of self-monitoring involve the president’s discretionary powers in choosing personnel and defining the structures of authority and access to the president and his closest associates (who act as final arbiters). Administrative and organizational changes under the Obama administration have thus far been minor (e.g., the independent re-establishment of the National Economic Council under Larry Summers). Some more pronounced changes targeting increased oversight in the financial sector were expected as part of the federal government’s financial regulatory reform introduced in the fall of 2009.Expected changes included the introduction of an independent consumer protection office to protect borrowers from lending abuses. Contrary to some expectations, however, financial reform did not substantially consolidate existing regulatory responsibilities in the financial services industries or make fundamental changes to the structure of the regulatory agencies.

There are few formal mechanisms for regular ongoing monitoring of institutional arrangements of governing, but the Commonwealth has had periodic investigations into the appropriateness of various institutional arrangements. These have involved the operation of the public service, as well as reviews of the legal arrangements governing statutory authorities (the Uhrig Review, see Monitoring Agencies), reviews of defense procurement and capability, and more specialized reviews of particular aspects of departments or events. A major review of the taxation system began in March 2008 and will report in May 2010 (the Henry Review, see Budgetary Policy). On climate change, a major review was set up in 2008, and reported in 2009.

Ministries have to establish sectoral goals, which are then evaluated annually. Reports are presented quarterly but do not focus directly on the adequacy of institutional arrangements. For example, the accomplishment of ministerial goals is evaluated, but not the adequacy of the ministry in general. The Ministry of Finance assesses the adequacy of institutional arrangements in the case of new law proposals, but there is no specific institution assigned to monitor already existing institutional arrangements.

Considering and debating government institutional reform has been a major theme in Japanese politics for more than a decade. His credible attempt at institutional reform was the key reason why former Prime Minister Koizumi realized such a decisive election victory in the lower house elections of 2005. Later governments have not been afforded the time to develop strong reform initiatives, but each of the succeeding LDP governments ranked restoring trust through institutional reform as an important task. The new DPJ-led government too included a wide-ranging consideration of institutional alternatives as a major chapter in its election manifesto, and performing this task has occupied a considerable amount of the new government’s first months in office.

In addition to formal and regular inspection of ministerial activities, the Office of the President of the Republic has a State Supervisory Council to monitor the practice of state institutions. The prime minister’s office has also a High Supervisory Council of State and inspectors to fulfill such duties. Interministerial committees also may assess institutional arrangements. In preparing development plans or strategic plans, sectoral subcommittees prepare reports on the effectiveness and efficiency of governing. The Directorate General of Legislation Development and Publication and the Directorate General of Laws and Resolutions regularly deal with the harmonization and simplification of Turkish legislation.
In the period under review here, possibly for the first time, the monitoring activities of the State Supervisory Council were not triggered primarily by suspicions of irregularities, but were rather focused on the suitability and efficiency of the monitored institutions. The PMO’s High Supervisory Council still acted generally upon suspicions or claims of irregularity.

The British government’s high degree of decision-making flexibility and centralization, both with respect to policy and institutional organization, does carry with it the disadvantage of relatively little procedural structure. This has been criticized by observers as “sofa government” – certainly under the Blair government – and some who take a position of “British government in crisis” have advocated the implementation of stricter rules of procedure for decision-making in the core executive. However, binding the hands of the core executive would run counter to the very flexibility that is so characteristic of prime ministerial government in the United Kingdom.
Reorganizations take place from time to time (as described above), and monitoring exercises are routinely conducted, but whether any government in the future will want to bind its own hands despite the absence of discernible positive political effect must remain doubtful.

There are nevertheless diverse checks and balances and processes of monitoring, including published public service agreements between the Treasury and line ministries, the scrutiny of programs by the Cabinet Office, and the need for the government to anticipate intense and effective media scrutiny. Collectively, these prompt the government to try to anticipate potential problems. Periodic reconfigurations of ministerial responsibilities do occur, but they tend to be more because the prime minister (especially a new one) decides that change is warranted, possibly for political reasons, than due to any systematic self-monitoring.

There is no systematic review of structures except from time to time, reports are issued from the Council of State or from the Court of Accounts. Ad hoc reports on specific authorities or agencies are also produced by internal controlling structures (corps de contrôle) or external committees at the request of the government. The most ambitious recent attempt has been the general assessment of public policies launched in 2007 which foresees an assessment of all policies and institutions to rationalize their makeup and to find savings. The results of such a grand project cannot be judged as the implementation of the measures will continue until 2012. In the meantime, however, ministerial portfolios and their respective administrations are still organized on a purely political basis without managerial consideration (e.g., the creation of a ministry for sustainable development in 2007). Divisions and mergers of tasks and services are still fixed by short-term and opportunistic considerations.

There is neither a particular institution nor commission that independently and impartially serves an oversight role with respect to the government’s activities. Nor is there a governmental institution for self-monitoring. As mentioned above, the government’s organization is mainly based on structures that date from the end of the 19th century and the aftermath of World War II. This tradition has created silo ministries, an inward-looking administration and a weak center.
Faced with significant complaints from business associated with red tape, the federal government launched a major program aimed at reducing administrative burdens. The creation of a “better regulation” unit in the federal chancellery and the establishment of the National Regulatory Control Council (NRCC), an independent advisory body, have pushed forward the cause of regulatory streamlining. The council is tasked with the application, monitoring and further development of a standardized measurement of the costs of legislatively created bureaucracy, on the basis of the Standard Cost Model. These developments are important in terms of counteracting the centrifugal tendencies at work. However, the NRCC is only allowed to evaluate drafts of laws and their estimated bureaucratic cost, and never the efficiency of the final law. Additionally, the strategic relationship of the better regulation program to high-level public policy goals, especially economic goals, is not yet evident. The program is not clearly linked to broader economic policies, and there is as yet no comprehensive framework designed to avoid fragmentation created by the operation of different programs on different levels. In addition, ex post evaluation of the successes and failures of the better regulation program tends to be ad hoc. As a first step, the mandate of the NRCC needs to be strengthened, making it a central coordination unit for better regulation policies and reform efforts across the federal government.

There is no regular monitoring of the institutional arrangements of government. During the period under review, the predominance of crisis management meant that relatively little attention was paid to the performance and reform of institutional arrangements.

There is no regular, systematic monitoring of the institutional arrangements of government. There were no relevant exercises during the period under review.
However, since the onset of the current crisis, the belief that government structures and the functioning of the parliament do not provide effective government has gained ground. There have been calls for a radical rethinking of some provisions in the constitution. Examples include a proposal to abolish the Seanad or upper house, to adopt some form of a list system in place of the present single transferable vote system (though this change is not likely to be implemented, not least since it would require a referendum to change the constitution), a reduction in the size of the national parliament, and greater scope to draft outside experts into the cabinet.
The portfolios of ministries are redesigned quite often, most recently in March 2010, but there seems to be little management logic to the changes that are made. Instead, they are designed primarily to deal with political exigencies, such as the need to placate coalition partners, to maintain a geographical spread of important posts and so on.

In the absence of systematic monitoring of institutional arrangements, the government mainly relies on international expertise. This includes, for instance, the 2007 OECD Country Report on Research and Innovation that led to the creation of a higher research and innovation committee and the more recent 2009 ERAWATCH assessment of research systems and policies.
An example for best practice is the 2006 Council of Europe Report entitled “Profile of the Luxembourgish educational linguistic policy,” which was conducted through a two-year long discussion process involving national stakeholders and had a real influence on policy-making, as it led to a reform of language teaching in 2009.
The audit performed by the OECD on the labor market administration (Administration de l’emploi, ADEM), has meanwhile resulted in a draft bill that is scheduled for June 2010. Critical voices say that these reports, regardless of their actual quality, cannot replace local expertise.

The quality of self-monitoring depend strongly on the personality of the president. Calderón is a professional politician and administrative reformer who takes substantial interest in the structure of his own government. He reorganized the structure of his cabinet and abolished several ministries in 2009. Over a longer period of time, Mexican policymakers have tended to engage quite frequently in administrative reorganization, possibly to excess.

The Tusk government has adopted and advocated a number of institutional reforms. However, these reforms have not been based on a comprehensive and regular monitoring of institutional arrangements.

The capacity to formulate institutional governing arrangements in Spain are both constitutionally and de facto concentrated in the powerful prime minister. Without any legal constraint, he personally decides on the organization of the core executive and the portfolios of ministries. This means that an overloaded prime minister cannot devote much attention to the most effective way to manage those arrangements, and can monitor only sporadically to ensure the current ones are working. Though Prime Minister Zapatero has introduced alterations in ministries’ portfolios, names and jurisdictions, often without a previous impact assessment, the internal structure of the administration has remained almost unchanged, as have the institutional procedures of governing.
The three deputy prime ministers (respectively dealing with political, economic and territorial affairs) may also contribute to self-monitoring, but they do not genuinely focus on ensuring the appropriateness of governing mechanisms. They are embedded in a highly legalistic framework, which is very difficult to transform lacking strong political will. In fact, a very important reform initiative (the “Joan Prats report,” after the name of the expert who chaired a government working group on this issue) was not even considered for discussion once submitted to the government in 2008.

There is no systematic monitoring of the institutional arrangements of governing. Governments must issue annual reports and a final report at the end of their term in office. However, these reports tend to focus on policies rather than institutions and are normally self-congratulatory. In addition, there are sporadic audits within particular ministries.

Monitoring institutional governing arrangements has never been a strong point of Greek governments. In the Karamanlis government, the task of setting rules of procedure and work formats was left to an ad hoc body consisting of a few cabinet ministers and advisers to the prime minister, presided over by a minister without portfolio. This body met informally on a daily basis at the prime minister’s headquarters and monitored the day-to-day functioning of the government, including the cabinet, the PMO and ministers’ portfolios. This body was not really expected to monitor institutional arrangements in any systematic way, but rather to discuss government priorities in the short run, resolve issues of public communication in order to boost the government’s approval rates, and manage relations with the parliament, the governing party and the ministerial administration.
In the Papandreou government, the role of monitoring institutional arrangements is assigned to the vice president of the government (a post that did not exist under Karamanlis) and to the minister without portfolio. They have their own staff of experts and political advisers, and attempt to monitor arrangements in a more systematic fashion than was the case with the previous government.
The Papandreou government also initiated a review of its organization and procedures. This involved an international advisory committee. At the end of the current review period, this had not yet led to a final report.

The attention paid to the internal organization of the government machine has been only selective and sporadic. No systematic monitoring has been accomplished. The minister for public administration has initiated a program aimed at monitoring the effectiveness of the state administration.

There is no regular self-monitoring of institutional arrangements. Compared to the Dzurinda government, the number of audits by private sector organizations declined, and the analysis provided in the annual reports of state organizations became increasingly formal and self-congratulatory.

There is no central monitoring within the government. Of course, the Constitutional Court controls the constitutionality of government activities, and the General Accounting Office (Rechnungshof), an instrument of parliamentary control, monitors financial diligence in all government activities. But as these institutions are not part of the executive branch, they don’t constitute internal government monitoring. The fragmented structure of the Austrian government and the lack of power held by the head of government (chancellor) over the ministers make central monitoring from within the government de facto impossible.

The Belgian federal structure prevents the formal monitoring of institutional arrangements, and in particular prevents the head of government from imposing reforms to meet Belgium’s international commitments. The prime minister has no authority over federate entities (called regions and communities).
The actual implementation of new arrangements comes from highly complex and broad-reaching institutional (or constitutional) reforms that involve multiple political issues. Package deals are key (such as quid pro quo arrangements), and the domino effect means that people are rarely willing to engage in one specific reform toward a more efficient system in fear of opening the reform floodgates on other issues.
However, a domino effect is less problematic when only one entity is involved in a particular reform effort, and monitoring across regions does exist. The good practices of a region (or of other countries) can thus inspire others (the efficiency of institutional arrangement between regional governments is easily comparable). Thus there is, in terms of monitoring the quality of institutional arrangements, a limited level of “organizational learning” across regions and communities, but it is never made routine through rules or procedures, and never steered by the federal level.