The word that has the same meaning as “fostering” in...

Performance and accountability: Making government work

Governments have always been keen to achieve

results, but calls to improve public sector performance

in OECD countries have become particularly loud and

insistent over the last couple of decades.

5 Reasons include increasing claims on public

expenditure, particularly pensions, healthcare and

education, expectations of higher quality public

services in line with rising living standards and, in many

cases, reluctance on the part of citizens to pay ever

10 higher taxes. Government also has to be more

competitive in the face of other potential suppliers in

areas like transport, communications and energy. It

must show it can do the job it sets out to do.

That is why governments across the OECD have

15 responded by setting goals and shifting the emphasis of

government management and budgeting away from how

much money to spend towards what is actually being

achieved. New Zealand was among the first to adopt this

results-oriented budgeting and management approach in

20 the late 1980s, and was followed in the 1990s by Canada,

Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and

the US. Later, Austria, Germany and Switzerland launched

similar moves, and Turkey has recently begun a pilot

phase of this process.

25 At the same time, these developments have

pushed governments to modernise their accountability

and control procedures. In particular, over the last 15

years or so, OECD governments have been engaged in

reviewing and reforming the ways in which they keep

30 control over large and complex operations in public

services and how those responsible are held to

account. Technological innovation and changes in the

size and structure of government, in part reflecting

privatisation and decentralisation, are also playing an

35 important role in fostering these developments.

But these initiatives have by no means run their

course, and their widespread implementation gives rise

to some fundamental questions. What is meant by

performance in the public service context, and how can

40 it best be measured? Should a service be judged by,

say, its accessibility or its financial cost, and who should

do the judging? How can moves to increase the

managerial responsibilities and decision-making

powers of public servants be reconciled with

45 democratic control and effective auditing procedures?

It is clearly not enough to argue that a reform

works because it is based on sound research, or on an

accepted procedure, or indeed that the government

spent billions on its implementation. The main

50 challenge is how to make reforms achieve their goal.

This is the basic idea underlying performance-oriented

budgeting and management: to shift the emphasis

away from controlling inputs and towards achieving

results. However, OECD countries are at different

55 stages in this process and approaches to

implementation vary.

Note: The Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD) is celebrating its

50th anniversary, but its roots go back to the rubble of

60 Europe after World War II. Determined to avoid the

mistakes of their predecessors in the wake of World

War I, European leaders realised that the best way to

ensure lasting peace was to encourage co-operation

and reconstruction, rather than punish the defeated.

(adapted from http://www.oecd.org)