Third meeting of GfD Working Group 1 on Civil Service and Integrity
Paris, 7 December 2006
Better Measurement of Government:
A common language for reviewing government
activities
Presentation by Jürgen Blum, OECD
1
WHY WORK TOWARDS A COMMON LANGUAGE
FOR MEASURING GOVERNMENT?
...to guide public management reforms
Governance at a glance aims at providing better,
comparative data, that can help:


individual countries to do robust benchmarking
with common units of analysis
OECD-wide lessons-learning concerning:

Sector efficiency and institutional effectiveness

Observed relationships

Absorptive capacity
2
WHAT IS GOVERNMENT AT A GLANCE?
It will:

provide a “suite” of separate datasets across
OECD countries
provide the best information at hand, enabling
governments to compare their systems with
others
It will not:


provide any overall, single score measures

rank or evaluate countries on the basis of overall
government performance
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WHAT DATA ARE COVERED BY GOVERNMENT AT A
GLANCE?

Types of data: Government revenues, inputs,
processes, outputs and outcomes

Wide coverage of public management aspects:





Human resources management
Ethical infrastructure and oversight
Public Sector Procurement
Fiscal and budgeting practices
Governance Structure
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Sweden
EXAMPLE 1: Input:
Proportion of
workers above 50 at
the national/federal
government, in 1995
and 2005
USA
Norway
Finland
France*
UK
Netherlands
Japan
Austria
Australia
Portugal
Korea
Ireland
10%
15%
20%
1995
Source: OECD (2006) Report on ageing in the civil service, Paris
25%
30%
35%
40%
2005
5
EXAMPLE 2: Process: Openness of government
posts (P10.2)
Policies
In principle, all levels of
posts are open for
competition …
… including posts at
senior and middle levels
… except the most toplevel posts which are filled
by appointment of the
government
Posts both at senior and middle levels are partially open
for competition
No posts are open for
competition …
Countries
Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland,
Hungary, New Zealand,
Slovak republic, Switzerl.
Australia, Canada, Italy,
Norway, Sweden
Korea, Luxembourg, UK
… both at senior and
middle levels
Japan, Spain
… with the exception of
some posts at middle level
France, Ireland
Source: OECD (2004), Trends in Human Resources Management Policies in
OECD countries: An analysis of the results of the OECD survey on strategic human resouces
management, Paris
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EXAMPLE 3: New data collection possibilities
Integrity:


new process metrics on management of risk areas
(procurement, lobbying, etc.) and on application of
safeguards
new outcome metrics on confidence in public service
providers
HRM Management:


new outcome measures concerning employee
satisfaction / trust in government as an employer
new process measures on the depth of political
involvement in HRM
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HOW WILL GOVERNMENT AT A GLANCE
COMPLEMENT OTHER GLOBAL DATASETS?
Existing aggregate
datasets
Government at a Glance
utility
communication
policy formulation
purpose
ranking
benchmarking and selfassessment
type of
data
subjective
objective
aggregate
specific
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WHAT COULD BE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF A
„COMMON LANGUAGE“ FOR GFD?
Working towards „a common language“ on government
activities and institutional arrangements within GfD 1
could provide the basis for:

Deepening the regional policy dialogue

lesson-learning and identification of best
practices among Arab and OECD countries
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HOW TO WORK TOWARDS A „COMMON
LANGUAGE“?

Pilot-approach based on a few interested
countries;

Focus on a core set of data;
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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Is there potential value in moving beyond the
existing available broad governance indicators to
specific measures of institutional arrangements?

What could be the priority dimensions for
measurement?

What could be the next practical steps?
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