This report examines the pay-setting arrangements for senior civil servants in three settings: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Singapore. It concludes that: a robust analytic approach for pay setting seems to be sufficient to maintain some general sense of legitimacy in the process, but...

The Government of Japan began introducing evaluation techniques in 2001 within the context of a Central Government reform program that involved the establishment of new ministries and the integration and abolition of existing ministries. Japans approach emphasizes assessing policies and...

This brief describes in detail Canada's policy on alternative service delivery and service delivery reviews in the UK, such as the prior options reviews, better quality services and best value reviews, market testing, and fundamental expenditure reviews. Links are provided to relevant documents...

The severity and global nature of the current financial and economic crisis has increased the role expected of fiscal policy in stimulating national and global demand, protecting vulnerable groups, and investing for future growth (International Monetary Fund, or IMF 2009). For those that can...

Countries across all continents face the challenge of managing contingent liabilities arising from multiple sources, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), parastatals, off-budget financing arrangements, civil servant entitlement schemes etc. The current financial crisis has made countries...

Several governments around the world have recently established delivery units at the center of government to drive performance improvements. This development may be in addition to whole-of-government reforms to improve performance, such as citizen charters, service agreements, or performance...

This guide presents a range of non-monetary award programs to recognize performance improvements in government programs, initiatives, and agencies. Nine award programs are drawn from Canada, Ireland, Abu Dhabi, the Philippines, the United States and Jordan. Each of the programs are analyzed...

Nearly every personnel and pay system has some slack in it, either fiscal excess or staff positions (vacant or otherwise) that are not essential. The key is to look for targeted measures that produce savings and reduce the wage bill, without adversely affecting service delivery

This note presents a number of different country experiences with functional reviews and alternative service delivery, and provides a conceptual framework from which to select appropriate cases for further analysis