IPMN Newsletter 1999
Number 1

The International Public Management Network has been growing slowly but surely. Our listserver is not all too busy, but we try to keep our members informed about relevant developments in the area of public management.

Some of your members met at the First Global Forum on Reinventing Government which took place in Washington D.C. in January this year. The two days at the State Department were chaired by US Vice-President Al Gore and concentrated - in contrast to our IPMN Conferences - less on scientific than on practical and political aspects of the reinventing movement around the world. It did therefore not come as a surprise that the majority of participants were practitioners and/or politicians.

As a foreigner, I was greatly impressed by the competence both of Vice-President Gore and President Clinton, who spoke on the second day. One can only wish to have executive politicians like that supporting the reinventing process in one's own country!

For this newsletter, we decided to inform our members about the latest developments in selected European countries. With the help of IPMN colleagues in the respective countries, we put up a summary of these events. Here they are:

Germany:

The new German social-democrat government has changed (at least) the label of its reform project at the national level. While the Kohl government used to talk about the "lean state", the Schroeder government uses the term "activating state" - which has to be explored further in-depth, it seems. From the outside observer's view, it is a move from a simplistic cost-cutting strategy towards one that emphasises the core competencies as well as the core duties of the state. It is, however, not clear yet what exactly the new government means when using the term "activating state". Some IPMN member experts in the Berlin area suggest that it is a combination of an enabling and an empowering concept. We will certainly hear more about that later on.

United Kindom:

1. In the UK, the new Centre for Management and Policy Studies, announced by the Prime Minister in July 1998, is being formed as part of the Cabinet Office. It aims to contribute new thinking on policy issues, especially where these run across departmental boundaries, and new approaches to public management. The Director is not yet appointed. The Centre will absorb the existing Civil Service College and top level training for civil servants, it will commission research and undertake overseas consultancy

2. The Public Management and Policy Association, formed in 1997 from the former Public Finance Foundation (and with a wider membership and terms of reference), is developing a programme of events and studies on public management in the UK. Membership is open to public sector bodies, many of which have agreed to support the PMPA with corporate subscriptions, and to individuals all over the world.

3. The Association recently published a report on the use of information in government. Main findings are that information systems in central government are generally poorly integrated with strategic management and broad policy making; British central government has a vast amount of facts and figures but little technical ability to interpret the information and monitor progress of its policies; much information is collected 'because it always has been'; information trasfer within government is expensive and bureaucratic.

4. Local authorities in the UK have recently set up the Improvement and Development Agency, a non-profit company with the following aims: to help local government to promote innovation and modernisation; to develop arrangements for peer review of performance, self-regulation and continuous professional development; to exchange good practice and ideas for the more effective running of local services; to stimulate learning and development opportunities for the workforce in local government.

5. Four of the principal agencies concerned with audit in the public services have agreed to join forces in setting up the PUblic Audit Forum. The Forum consists of the National Audit Office, the Audit Commission (concerned with local government audit), the Northern Ireland Audit Office and the Accounts Commission for Scotland. The aim is to share thinking and good practice between audit bodies in different parts of the UK.

6. Following the White Paper on 'Public Services for the Future: Modernisation, Reform and Accountability', the Chief Secretary to the UK Treasury has announced the introduction of PUblic Service Agreements. These are strategic statements of the aims and objectives of each government department, the resources available to them, key performance targets for the delivery of services (often with a list of policy initiatives) and statements about how productivity will be increased. [Francis R. Terry, UK]

Italy:

The process of modernization of Italian PA is still in progress. To introduce the dramatic change that a NPM policy should request, is not simple at all. This for two main reasons: a) we cannot have a stable national government and this, in turn, prevent from a continuous but consistent innovation; b) there is a large cultural vacuum (who should be the new public managers? who should train them? what should be the "destination" of the old bureaucrats (you cannot fire them)? should they only change their "label"?). However, something new happened in terms of new laws. Please note that a new law often means a new "good intention". The implementation of the law in Italy is something absolutely difficult to do. We need years to have a new law (in Italy there is the perfect bicameralism) and when the implementation phase starts effectively, someone else wants to change again (look at my second example). It is useless and boring to list the incredible number of laws (national and regional) that, to some extent, could be linked to NPM. It seems to me that two are enough. Please note that they are very different since the first is a legislative decree (the Parliament gave the government, by means of a law, a delegation to produce a law on certain matters and within predefined boundaries); the second is a exactly the contrary: the Parliament delegated the Government but this has not still produced the legislative decree. A) Legislative Decree 31 March 1998, n. 112. This is a very important law from a NPM perspective since, after a very long discussion and without changing the Constitution, a significant attempt of administrative federalism was introduced. Many functions (but the list could be longer) were transferred from the Central Government to the regional and local governments. It is not clear whether the political will is to have a federalism based on the Regions or on the municipalities. The solution, as usual, is a compromise. What seems important to me is that the Government attempted to give an answer to great social pressure which is present in certain parts of the country, especially in the richest regions. What you should have in mind is that this choice was made not following an "economic calculation". None believes in Italy that Regions are more efficient or effective than the State. Probably this could be true for some municipalities, but not certainly for the majority of them. So, Regions and municipalities now had to demonstrate by producing "results" that they deserved devolution. However the "spirit" of the reform was to put public service producers closer to the citizen/taxpayer/user. B) Law 30 November 1998 n. 419. The parliament delegated the Government to "rationalize" the National Health System. We are waiting for the final output of the legislative process; but many commentators stressed that there is a clear risk of an increase of political presence in the administration of health services. Probably new political actors will be introduced. Many people asked: why should we soundly change a system already reformed only 6 years ago? It is my question too !!! [Riccardo Mussari, I]

Denmark:

Four major issues are dominating the debate on the modernization of the public sector in Denmark presently. The first one is about the benefits and shortcommings of a possible reform in local government. At issue is wether or not small local authorities should be merged. Those in favor argue for efficiency both in the handling of service-delivery and in political matters those against question these viewpoints and are concerned about democratic deficits. The second great issue is to which extent and in which areas privatization and tendering should be recommended. The third issue is a reform which has been initiated by the ministry of finance arguing for the making of detailed and output oriented contracts whenever possible. And finally a new reform has been launched in order to change the pay/salary-system for public employees allowing for decentralized negotiations and differentiated outcomes depending on functional aspects or work, formal qualifications of each employee and performance-pay. [Kurt Klaudi Klausen, DK]

Switzerland:

Reform goes on, still much faster on the cantonal (state) level than on the local and national level. 24 out of 26 Swiss cantons are running projects of reinvention. The latest debate, which still goes on heavily, is about reinventing the work and instruments of our parliaments. The canton of Solothurn, for example, has passed a legal act that introduces new parliamentary intervention instruments such as an 'order' (Auftrag) with which parliament can enforce the government to achieve certain outcome goals within a certain time limit. To increase politically relevant information, parliament will be able to demand a limited amount of 'political indicators' (these are indicators that do not necessarily correspond with the ones that are created by the administration, but are important for politicians). The background for this is the finding that the new public management is mainly administration driven, and so are the information contents. In a democratic environment, however, politics must have their place and political decisions need politically important information. On the national level, more than eight different reform projects are being startet this year. Unfortunately, there is hardly any information about practical implementation and its impacts yet. In April 1999, Swiss people will have a vote on our new constitution.

[Kuno Schedler, with the great help of the authors mentioned]