Week 4 - Policy Implementation and Evaluation

Question 1

What is policy implementation?

Answer 1

The process of transforming the goals associated with a policy into results
- involves the activities such as the application of rules, the interpretation of regulations, the enforcement of laws, and the delivery of services to the public

Question 2

Policy implementation largely occurs through which governmental body?

Answer 2

The bureaucrats, but also increasingly through third party service delivery agents like charities and non-profits who deliver programs and services for governments under a contract

Question 3

What is the politics/administration dichotomy?

Answer 3

Policy decisions should be made by the peoples elected representatives and the role of the bureaucracy is to implement those policies regardless of the party in power

• the administration of government activities falls to the public sector
• public administration professionals are influential in crafting and implementing most of the policies

Question 4

What are efficiency dilemmas?

Answer 4

Public expects policy goals not only to be accomplished but are also expected to be achieved at a reasonable cost and without undue delay
- the tradition of the bureaucracy has been seen by the public as inefficient, wasteful, delays and inflexibility

Question 5

What are problems of policy implementation?

Answer 5

• Goal uncertainty
• Coordination
• Organizational culture
• Non-measurability of outputs
• Bureaupathic behaviour
• Too much/too little authority in the wrong place

Question 6

Who implements policy?

Answer 6

Much implementation falls to the bureaucracy

Question 7

What is the instrument choice?

Answer 7

Political considerations, past experience, bureaucratic preferences, and random factors like the personal value of key decision-makers can all play a role in the selection

Question 8

What are problems of policy implementation?

Answer 8

• attitudes and beliefs of administrators
• turf and autonomy
• interests
• Culture: organizational and political

Question 9

Attitudes and beliefs of administrators as a problem of implementation

Answer 9

The bureaucracy gains strong headed ideas about what they should be doing, how this should be done and what is in the publics interest
- those in charge of implementing policy might be influenced by the bureaucratic personality

Question 10

What is the bureaucratic personality?

Answer 10

term to describe administrators who become cautious and conformist because of the nature of working in a bureaucracy
- value means over ends and considers following rules more important than achieving goals

Question 11

Turf and Autonomy as a problem of implementation

Answer 11

Bureaucrats are reluctant to give up what is theirs

• one of the common assertions about bureaucrats and their agencies is that they are constantly struggling to acquire larger budgets, a bigger staff, and more prestige
• some claim they crave the resources and conditions that enable them to protect their domain and agency’s mission
• creates problems with coordination as this means a loss of autonomy

Question 12

Interests as a problem of implementation

Answer 12

Bureaucratic agencies are given a large margin in discretion in carrying out policy and will be vulnerable to capture interest groups

• likely to be influenced by pressures coming from the key external stakeholders affected by the agency’s action - called co-optation
• the problem of external stakeholders influencing the behaviour of an agency is greatest in the case of client agencies

Question 13

Culture: Organizational and Political as a problem of policy implementation

Answer 13

The norms shared by an agency’s personnel, and often the predispositions of its chief administrators, can have a crucial impact on how policy is implemented
- patterned way of thinking about the central tasks and human relationships within an organization

Question 14

What is policy evaluation?

Answer 14

Intended to evaluate if a policy is working and if so, how well it is working

• the measurement of an agency’s performance
• program evaluation is party of the budgetary process that requires all department and agencies to justify their spending requests to the Treasury Board
• typically involves a systematic approach from within the government department that examines several aspects of policy

Question 15

Who conducts the evaluations of existing programs?

Answer 15

The Royal Commissions

Question 16

What is the primary objective of the Government of Canada’s policy evaluation?

Answer 16

To create comprehensive and reliable base of evaluation evidence that is used to support policy and program improvement, expenditure management, cabinet decision-making and public-reporting

Question 17

What is the value for money evaluation?

Answer 17

Closely related to allocative efficiency, in government value for money audits, ask whether governments use of money was worthwhile

Question 18

Who holds the government accountable for its stewardship of public funds?

Answer 18

the Office of the Auditor General

Question 19

What are the three types of audits that the Auditor General Conducts?

Answer 19

• performance audits
• financial audits
• special examinations of Crown Corporations

Question 20

What are performance audits?

Answer 20

Examines whether the system itself is running efficiently and whether or not changes can be made to save money in the long run Based on the concept of value-for-money audits

• asks two questions
  1) are programs being run with due regard for economy, efficiency and environmental impact?
  2) does the government have the means in place to measure a programs effectiveness?

Question 21

What is a financial audit?

Answer 21

Answers the question
- is the government keeping proper accounts and records and presenting its financial information fairly
ensures that the transactions conform to the laws and regulation and allows the AG to report on matters of which Parliament should be made aware
- they provide the valuable service to parliament of finding the items that fall between the cracks

Question 22

What are special examinations of Crown Corporations?

Answer 22

Get audited once every 10 years

• similar to performance audit
• does not report directly to parliament

Question 23

Which committee was created to review all federal spending?

Answer 23

The Expenditure Review Committee (ERC)

• chaired by the president of the Treasury Board
• mandate is to ensure that government spending remains under control, is accountable, is closely aligned with priorities of Canadians, and that every tax dollar is invested with care to achieve the results for Canadians

Question 24

What are the 7 criteria that the ERC assess?

Answer 24

• public interest
• role of government
• federalism
• partnership
• value-for-money
• efficiency
• affordability

Question 25

What are limitations to evaluation?

Answer 25

Determining all the consequences of policy decision

- predicting how policies will affect the problems they were meant to

Question 26

How do we evaluate?

Answer 26

Must be able to separate them from the effects of other policies on the same problem, of from the effect of simply changed circumstances
- policy outcomes cannot be evaluated in the same manner that the results of scientific experiments are evaluated because causal lines are blurred in the social sciences

Question 27

How are most program evaluations carried out?

Answer 27

By implementers themselves, raising serious questions about the objectivity of such studies

Question 28

What are cost-benefit analysis?

Answer 28

A technique used to identify all the potential costs and benefits of a proposed or actual policy and then derive the net result
Ideally a net benefit will result in policy adoption, and a net negative will result in policy rejection

Question 29

What are impact assessment program evaluations?

Answer 29

An analysis typically done before policy adoption to determine what impacts the proposed policy will have on the environment