Review 3 final 2 - TAU - National Treasury

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TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | A Government with a Strategic Centre Minister of Finance, Trevor A Manuel in his budget speech. Dr. Kelly’s inputs were seen as an opportunity to prompt broader discussion between key stakeholders in government, provide feedback on some of the key issues involved and to share knowledge of the international experience. Dr. Kelly advised government that strategic government requires a strategic centre. However, often when governments try to be strategic they revert to control and command and/ or they over-burden the system with excessive reporting requirements. According to Dr. Kelly, a strategic centre must organise itself to operate in three strategic domains namely: the political, the policy and the operational domains. The role of the centre is less about analysis and control, but more about facilitation, co-ordination and synthesis. Relationship and network management skills are increasingly important in such a configuration. According to Dr. Kelly, expenditure reviews of government programmes are one of the tools to achieve a more strategic centre as they can be used to re-define policy: working away from chasing new policy development and rather including responses to questions of policy implementation, evaluation and adaptation. These reviews can also be used as a coordinating mechanism that enables the centre to operate strategically rather than incrementally as well as facilitate the definition of issues and priorities in the political domain. Furthermore the reviews provide an opportunity to ask questions such as: • Is the current policy-setting right • Are policies achieving the desired ends • Who should be responsible for policy setting and policy implementation • Are delivery agents sufficiently resourced to perform these mandates In the face of the compelling temptation to solve delivery problems by developing new policy, the real answer, according to Dr Kelly, may be to put a moratorium on all “new policy” for a five- year period so as to allow learning, consolidation of capacity and optimisation of implementation of current policy. When planning an expenditure review programme, a number of key questions and tensions are evident in the design. These were summarised by Dr. Kelly as follows: • What’s the purpose Review and cut budgets versus redesigning the ‘way we do what we do’ for more efficient and effective delivery • What should be reviewed and how • Who is responsible for overseeing the process and for conducting the reviews • What is the role of government departments and entities as well as the National Treasury • Is there the political will for the reviews and to make the difficult changes These thought-provoking issues were debated in different forums including two separate seminars hosted respectively by the National Treasury and the Presidency. The final outcomes of these considerations are yet to be determined. However, the discussions and their richness, facilitated by the TAU, on these issues are sure to inform the decisions and final design of an expenditure review programme in government. Robert Clifton Senior Technical Advisor 16 page Enabling change for development
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | A Government with a Strategic Centre THE MEASUREMENT DILEMMA The imperative to track and assess projects through monitoring, reporting and evaluation is an integral part of good governance. Public sector projects are implemented through public funds and official development co-operation funds. The latter are also public funds, albeit from the coffers of a Development Partner. Essentially, projects and programmes are implemented to achieve key outcomes, to innovate or to change a situation that is undesired or less than optimal, and there is increasing pressure on projects and programmes to prove that the intended outcomes were achieved. We have all heard the mantra: “if it is not measured, it does not get done”. There is certainly truth in this statement. If we only focus on measurement and “what must be done”, however, we often do not get to the point where we measure outcomes – and that is a dilemma that we often face in the TAU as well. Certainly, we have lived experience that highlights the learning that “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”(Serrat, 2009: 1) While indicator monitoring and reporting against project framework documents (such as the log frame or work break down structure and the like) are generally accepted practice, we find that this does not always provide all the answers, and particularly not in projects and programmes where we deal with complex change. “ If it is not measured, it does not get done. Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. ” page 17 Enabling change for development
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Review 3 final 2 - TAU - National Treasury

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