1. PERF project EGPA introduction to the working groups
Dr. Wouter Van Dooren
Assistant professor
Research Group Public Administration & Management
University of Antwerp, Belgium
EUPAN-HRWG1-IPSG , Bruges

2. Contents Where we came from, and where we stand
Reflections on the general remarks
Purposes of the working groups
How we selected indicators

3. Where we came from, and where we stand
PERF = performance of governance
Public governance is mainly about public administration, but with an increasing awareness for the role of non-state actors
Public governance is mainly about the machinery of government, an intermediary producer for other sectors that are final producers (see figure on next slide)
Performance indicators should give an indication of the extent to which PA ‘works’
Performance indicators should trigger dialogue for improvement and will seldom provide a conclusive answer

4. Where we came from, and where we stand

5. Where we came from, and where we stand
Why this focus on governance/public administration, and not on policy sectors?
Core business of EUPAN
Added value of indicators in this field
Significant use of public resources
Remedy the weak evidence base for PA policies
Why this focus on indicators and not data?
Building a shared understanding; which not implies total agreement
Discussions about indicators are discussions about concrete practices
Learning in order to potentially improve national data collection efforts
Compatibility with OECD’s
(or at least agreeing on what to disagree)

6. Where we came from, and where we stand
Draft analytical table by EGPA/ Belgian Presidency
Discussed in Leuven
Feedback
Sent out to EGPA network for academic input (13/15 responses)
Sent out to EUPAN correspondents for input
Responses from 8 partners:
Austria Hungary
Luxembourg Netherlands
Slovakia Spain
Sweden EFQM
Extended table (base + EUPAN + EGPA + OECD
Selection of indicators for discussion in the WG’s (see below)
(or at least agreeing on what to disagree)

7. Where we came from, and where we stand
(or at least agreeing on what to disagree)

8. Where we came from, and where we stand
(or at least agreeing on what to disagree) 8

9. Where we came from, and where we stand
(or at least agreeing on what to disagree) 9

10. 2. Reflections on the general remarks
Supportive comments
Notification of national initiatives
Close cooperation with OECD – initiatives
Macro and/or micro perspective?
Macro through aggregation of micro data (e.g. trust, budget deficit)
Micro as exemplary for a broad set of processes
e.g. Time to fill out taxes as an important micro process that represents a macro issue of administrative burdens
-Composites
How to deal with political choices and local preferences?
Common challenges – sustainability
National initiatives in Sweden; benchmark with DK, FI, No, UK perceptions / quaity
Social Cultural Planning Office in NL, new study, but sectoral

11. 2. Reflections on the general remarks
Building block 1: whole of government
Subjective/objective
Are these indicators actionable?
Can we rely on existing measurement efforts (WB, IMD, ...)?
Building block 2: policy capacity
Is it possible? Is it comparable?
What is capacity? Having, doing, and impact?
Subjective In the case of the subjective ones, there are no official surveys on the subject so they are not very reliable. (ES)  internal use (initiatives in some countries) // comparative?
-> potentially by looking at increment, change?
Actionable – what to do? What is the norm? E.G. trust data

12. 2. Reflections on the general remarks
Building block 3: transparency and integrity
National initiatives are under consideration
Interpretation of volume indicators is difficult
Building block 4: staffing
fewer comments, best covered field (see also OECD/EUPAN HR Learning team)
Sweden – model to follow up PM
volume indicators – number of breaches, “Indicators such as “the number of breaches”, “the number of appeals” etc. pose the important question of whether the occurrence of such events should be interpreted as a sign of a large extent of integrity or of a low extent of integrity. For example, if there are many breach/corruption etc. cases – I emphasize: by “cases” one always means “known cases” – this can be interpreted either as (i) corruption is widespread or (ii) anti-corruption measures are effective so that real cases are revealed”

13. 2. Reflections on the general remarks
Building block 5: Budgeting
Right label? Should be whole financial cycle
Relevance of the indicators?
Building block 6: service delivery
service/organisational level versus central level  aggregation?
How to measure quality besides quantity of services?
Subjective In the case of the subjective ones, there are no official surveys on the subject so they are not very reliable. (ES)  internal use (initiatives in some countries) // comparative?
-> potentially by looking at increment, change?
Actionable – what to do? What is the norm? E.G. trust data
ICT, administrative burdens, process management
Building block 7: organisation - modernisation
what should be the main issues here?

14. 3. Purpose of the working groups
How we propose to organising the work?
each WG discusses indicators in different building blocks:
WG1: Whole of government block (1) and modernising block (7)
WG2: Policy capacity block (2) and integrity block (3)
WG3: Staffing (4), budgeting (5) and service delivery (6) blocks
each participant is asked to provide a scoring on a 5 point scale for feasibility and utility of the indicators in your national context
this scoring is anonymous – we are interested in professional judgement
National initiatives in Sweden; benchmark with DK, FI, No, UK perceptions / quaity
Social Cultural Planning Office in NL, new study, but sectoral

15. 3. Purpose of the working groups
Methodology
Scoring of the selected indicators
Discussion on the indicators
Possibility to revise the initial scoring and to add indicators
 Scoring and discussions are analysed for reporting in Genval
National initiatives in Sweden; benchmark with DK, FI, No, UK perceptions / quaity
Social Cultural Planning Office in NL, new study, but sectoral

16. 4. How we selected the indicators
We preferred ...
-More precise indicators over general indicators
More novel indicators over established indicators
Indicators that are not tied to a specific policy sector
Indicators that in a more evident way may tell us what works
Indicators that are on PA, rather than politics
Indicators for a broad range of facets (not all)
And, undoubtedly, a certain amount of randomness and prejudice.
 participants can propose to discuss indicators that have been left out
National initiatives in Sweden; benchmark with DK, FI, No, UK perceptions / quaity
Social Cultural Planning Office in NL, new study, but sectoral