Management of Government Policies in the 2010s
– Tools for More Effective Strategic Work. Development Project for Monitoring the Government Programme, KOKKA
The project “Development of procedures for the efficient implementation of the Government Programme” (KOKKA project), launched by the Prime Minister’s Office in view of the next Government’s term of office, has prepared recommendations for measures that strengthen strategic vision and agility in the Government’s work and the information base of decision-making.
The formulations of project questions are based on numerous recent studies and development projects that have raised similar development needs: the sensitivity of the economic-social and ecological environments to changes underlines the need to improve the efficiency of the administration’s strategic capacities for anticipation and response and the flexibility of resource use.
In order to make the coordination between content-related and economic steering more efficient, the report pays special attention to contact points between the steering of spending limits in central government finances and the Government’s strategy process. The public sector is justifiably expected to provide input for solving problems and opening new opportunities for development. However, these cannot be funded by increasing government expenditure without endangering the sustainability of public finances. As the potential for raising the overall tax rate is also slight in view of the magnitude of the sustainability gap, new expenditure must be funded by cutting other expenditure. In an external environment susceptible to change and in the current period of instability in European integration, the Government must also be able to reassess its strategy and alter its line of action quickly, whenever necessary.
The KOKKA project has prepared recommendations for procedures that the next Government can adopt during its term of office, if it so wishes. The recommendations apply to the following stages in the preparation of government policy and in decision-making:
• Preparation of the Government Programme, the information base available in the process, the opening of opportunities for resource reallocation, and consolidation of the Programme’s strategic outlines;
• Drawing up the Government’s first decision on spending limits and the Strategy Document, ensuring the allocation of resources to policy priorities;
• Annual monitoring and adjustment of the Government’s strategy: the economic policy frame, reallocations within the spending limits, and strategic projects in legislation, research and impact assessment;
• Implementation of intersectoral policy entities; and
• Improving the information base for decision-making.
