This Wednesday, the Cabinet of Ministers considered the draft Rules of Procedure developed with the assistance of experts from the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO). For the first time, this document provides the basis for a systematic and consistent formation of public policy as a policy chosen by the state to solve certain social problems. At first glance, this document may seem to describe the current mechanism of ministry interaction. In fact, it is based on a new culture of governance, which is still little-known in Ukraine. Its name is a decision-making policy process that has been used by successful Western democracies for decades. I will list the key innovations that the Rules of Procedure 2020 will introduce once it is approved.
Strategic planning
How it was:
The Cabinet of Ministers planned to implement the Program of Activities by approving the annual Action Plan. This plan usually looked like a giant document listing the activities, deadlines and responsible authorities. In spite of the volume, it still lacked an important aspect – the logical connection of the measures with the goals set by the Government, and therefore with the problems that it should solve. At the same time, the way it was decided to carry out these measures instead of some other ones was the great mystery. Moreover, the approval of various plans seems to have been a very popular practice: the effectiveness of the work was measured by the number of activities completed and the tasks “closed” – a kind of governmental event agency. I don’t generalize, there were exceptions, but they still did not become a regular practice.
How it will be:
The new Rules of Procedure oblige the Government to explain the logic of its actions in a clear and structured manner. For this purpose, a special state policy document (a concept) will be developed for each of the priority goals determined in the Program of Activities. It will outline the problem to be addressed, the public group suffering from the problem, the group size, the problem relevance and the reasons for its occurrence, as well as the way, in which the state plans to address it.
The concept development will be preceded by serious analytical work, including studying the issues, comparing alternatives, consulting with stakeholders. Each concept will contain SMART public policy effectiveness indicators that will show the progress towards one goal or another. In parallel with the concept development, a policy implementation plan will be developed, since, obviously, any declaration touches on populism without a well-thought-out and well-grounded implementation plan.
Already, it is possible to learn more about the first ministries’ attempts to develop public policy concepts for the implementation of the Program of Activities. They are all collected at www.program.kmu.gov.ua. In the future, there will also be dashboards showing progress by indicators and an implementation roadmap containing the publicly available information on the acts that the Cabinet of Ministers plans to develop to achieve the goals. Such transparent planning available to the public will allow to monitor the quality of the Government’s work with no hassles, provide greater predictability of activities and contribute to systematic and sustainable public policy.
The real involvement of stakeholders
How it was:
Currently, the process of “public discussion” can be considered discredited. Basically, it all comes down to the promulgation of a draft act being developed on the drafter’s website (ministry or other body) to make it available for some time. The text of the draft act is available for as long as is allowed by law and then, as it should be, it is adopted. Only the drafter knows what the discussion results are, whether they were taken into account and whether the discussion took place at all. Some ministries have gone a bit further and use another form – they discussed certain draft acts during meetings of community councils at such ministries. But, unfortunately, it sometimes serves as a “cover” to avoid conducting public discussions. And very rarely, there are consultations with interested parties who are real representatives of social groups, whose interests are directly influenced by the adoption of the act.
How it will be:
The Rules of Procedure will now require mandatory stakeholder consultations: polls, focus groups, meetings, roundtables. They can choose the format, but it is impossible to avoid interaction. There is another side of the picture: not everyone is allowed to consult with. Obviously, the Government does not deal with holders of private interests, but protects the interests of the public. Therefore, consultations with representatives of interest-based public groups (NGOs, unions, associations) instead of with individuals will be held. This, in turn, will encourage the public to self-organize and unite for the sake of defending their interests in a civilized and effective way.
Forecast of impact of decisions
How it was:
In fact, predicting the impact of the decision being proposed is not a new concept. One way or another, the drafters indicated “it will have an impact on the market environment, regional development, public health” and so on in accompanying documents to the draft acts. More often, there was a short verdict: “it will have no impact”. The result is that a decision in one sector may badly affect another sector, a conflict may arise between different areas of public policy, or vice versa – there will be no synergy that could be strengthened or scaled between decisions.
The situation with the impact on stakeholders’ interests is similar. It would seem to be a simple requirement to describe what public groups will be affected by the adoption of the act: which position will improve and why, and which position will get worse. But there is also a barrier: it is difficult for a civil servant to understand the difference between the results of the act adoption and its consequences. While the first one implies the expected benefits, for which the act is being drafted, the second one is a kind of side-effect, or a “price” to be paid for the result. When a civil servant identifies a result with a consequence, he obviously won’t indicate that his act will have a negative impact. Only later does something else happen often – unexpected and unpredictable reactions that could be prevented but they simply were afraid or didn’t plan to mention them.
How it will be:
The new Rules of Procedure introduce a separate accompanying document to the draft act – a complex and comprehensive impact forecast, requiring serious analytics and work with data, the collection and accumulation of which begins today. Such an analytical document on a specific decision can be prepared by every ministry without exception. This approach will provide a comprehensive analysis and reduce the risk that an act adopted in the area of one ministry will be a surprise to another leading to unforeseen consequences.
Assessment of the public policy effectiveness and its review
How it was:
There was no assessment of the public policy effectiveness as such, because the public policy was an abstract category, which everyone understood in its own way. If there were some effectiveness reports, in most cases, they were based on the results of assessing the implementation of plans and strategies (as mentioned above).
It is also a bad practice that each new Government mainly begins to form the public policy from scratch. The system of the current regulation inventory is not yet fully established. There are now hundreds of valid planning documents of all kinds: government programs, policy concepts, strategies and doctrines. Unfortunately, there are rare cases when all these documents are revised and updated with the changes in the Government. And what’s worse, their number may increase, because more and more documents are added. This will result in chaos and fragmentariness. Sometimes, there are several similar documents at the same time to solve the same problem. It’s lucky if they at least do not contradict each other.
Such a selective and inconsistent approach to public policy assessment leads to the fact that acts are accumulated while being constantly changed. In fact, it is a real art to trace the logic of all changes, not to mention to understand whether all of these Government actions lead to the desired result and the problem solution.
How it will be:
In addition to the introduction of public policy documents that will at least systematize certain acts according to a single purpose and at most will give meaning to all Government actions, it is also planned to require reviewing all applicable program and strategic documents when adopting each new one in a particular area. Now we will putt the puzzle together and can see a complete picture. Moreover, there will be no changes in public policy without the prior assessment. Changes always imply amending the policy line. But we can change something effectively only if we understand the reason of the previous failure.
With the purpose of simplifying and accelerating all processes internally, the new Rules of Procedure are also cross-cutting with electronic systems and services for planning, forecasting, document flow and interaction between authorities.
Finally, it should be noted that the new Rules of Procedure of the Cabinet of Ministers have been “waiting” for political will to adopt it for many years. This document was constantly postponed for a reason. This is not a quick #win or a result that the Ukrainians will benefit from tomorrow and that can be stated loudly. Such conceptual changes require time and a lot of hard work, which is almost unnoticed at first glance, on a daily basis. Almost no one from outside the Government understands why they should pay so much attention to these seemingly internal rules of operation. And the civil service representatives, on the contrary, recognize the complexity and seriousness of new approaches and, obviously, are waiting for changes with fear. But it had to happen sooner or later. The impulsive-intuitive decision making model should be a thing of the past. Every decision should be so researched and discussed with the people who will be affected that, once adopted, it will work without any resistance as an indispensable element of a large and integrated mechanism of government control. This is out long road to rationality.