Abstract
This chapter presents the OECD Government at a Glance (G@G) project and its approach to measuring the performance of public administrations across OECD member countries. It argues that the lack of consensus about and the complexity of conceptualising what represents “good governance” require a dashboard approach to indicator development rather than large aggregated measures. Using a set of key criteria, it assesses the relevance (understood here as the extent to which indicators are action worthy, actionable, and behavioural) and robustness (in terms of validity and reliability) of the indicators presented every 2 years in the G@G publication. Although this assessment reveals that not all the indicators meet the highest standards of relevance and robustness, the work carried out by the OECD Secretariat in collaboration with working parties and expert groups aims to improve the quality of all the measures presented in G@G over the years, in particular by increasingly using OECD instruments (principles, recommendations, charters) as a solid theoretical basis for indicator development to inform public sector reforms in member countries.
This chapter is based on the OECD report “OECD (2015), Government at Glance 2015, OECD Publishing, Paris 10.1787/gov_glance-2015-en” and “OECD (2015), OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2015, OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264238770-en”. Any additional opinions expressed or arguments employed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official view of the OECD or its member countries.
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- 1.
Administrative data are data collected from the records of administrative units (e.g. hospital records, school records, court records, etc.). Administrative data are often considered to be of higher quality because they are based on tangible records rather than on perceptions or expert opinions. As such, they represent objective “facts” rather than subjective “interpretations of the facts”.
- 2.
Individual (or single) indicators measure precise confined concepts which generally correspond to clearly defined accounting methodologies (such as the System of National Accounts for public finance data) and contain the responses to specific questions (qualitative or quantitative) in the household and expert surveys.
- 3.
This was not an OECD recommendation, but the OECD Public Governance Directorate contributed to its drafting. The Charter was used in the work on indicators carried out by the OECD digital government unit in collaboration with country delegates, http://www.oecd.org/gov/digital-government/.
- 4.
“Methodology” examines the existence of guidance documents, methods, and tools used for stakeholder engagement, including minimum periods for consultation and the use of interactive websites and social media tools. “Systematic adoption” investigates whether there are formal requirements for stakeholder engagement and the extent to which stakeholders are engaged in practice both in the early and in the later stages of the regulation-making process. “Transparency” looks at the extent to which the processes of stakeholder engagement are open to the widest spectrum of stakeholders and whether and how stakeholders’ views and comments are taken into account. “Oversight and quality control” measures whether there are mechanisms in place to externally control the quality of stakeholder engagement practices (mostly public consultations) and monitor stakeholder engagement and whether evaluations are made available publicly.
- 5.
In the core government results chapter, the indicators come from: the Gallup World Poll for the data on satisfaction and confidence in public services and institutions, the World Justice Project for the data on the rule of law, and from the OECD Health Directorate and Education Directorate for the efficiency and cost-effectiveness indicators focusing on these two sectors. Regarding sectoral outputs and outcomes, the data mainly come from the OECD Health Directorate, the OECD Education Directorate, and the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ).
- 6.
For example, the household survey asks respondents to answer the following question: “Please assume that the government decides to build a major public works project in your neighbourhood (such as a railway station or a highway). How likely are people in your neighbourhood/members of your community to be given the opportunity to express their opinions on the project?” The scale is from 1 (very likely) to 4 (very unlikely).
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Lafortune, G., Gonzalez, S., Lonti, Z. (2018). Government at a Glance: A Dashboard Approach to Indicators. In: Malito, D., Umbach, G., Bhuta, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Indicators in Global Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62707-6_9
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