comparing public administrations · 2016-10-13 · of government aggregate indicator ‘public...

Comparing PublicAdministrations

An assessment of the quality and efficiency of public administration in Ireland compared with selected European and OECD countries

Richard Boyle

CPMR Research Report 7

First published in 2007by the Institute of Public Administration57-61 Lansdowne RoadDublin 4Ireland

in association withThe Committee for Public Management Research

www.ipa.ie

© 2007 with the Institute of Public Administration

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording or any information storage andretrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-904541-54-7ISSN: 1393-9424

Cover design by Slick Fish Design, DublinTypeset by Computertype Ltd, DublinPrinted in Ireland by Future Print, Dublin

Executive Summary

In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to compare theefficiency and performance of the public sector across countries.International ranking has become a popular activity. This paper

looks at existing data from a number of international sources on thequality of public administration provision. In terms of tentativefindings arising from the analysis, a number of general points emerge:● Ireland tends to come out of the analysis of the quality and efficiency

of public administration relatively well, particularly when using themost recent data available. Ireland is in with a cluster of countries –Austria, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands andSweden in the EU, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway andSwitzerland of other OECD countries – that tend to consistentlyscore well across the range of indicators examined here.

● Ireland ranks particularly well against the indicators examiningregulatory quality and efficiency.

● Denmark and Finland tend to consistently be ranked particularlyhighly across the range of indicators examined. Of the newer EUmember states, Estonia consistently scores well.However, significant limitations with regard to data reliability and

validity hamper the drawing of meaningful conclusions from theanalysis. The ‘state of the art’ of measuring public administrationperformance is not at a stage where clear judgements can be made.

With these limitations in mind, the paper outlines some steps thatcan be taken to improve the international comparative database.

BackgroundIn recent years there have been a number of effortsto compare public sector efficiency and perform-ance internationally. As noted in Boyle (2006), theEuropean Central Bank (ECB) has conducted aninternational comparison of public sector efficiency(Afonso, Schuknecht and Tanzi, 2003), the Socialand Cultural Planning Office in the Netherlands hasreviewed public sector performance (Social andCultural Planning Office, 2004) and the World Bankhas developed a bi-annual survey of governanceindicators (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi, 2005).Ireland has tended to come well out of theseinternational comparisons.

The focus of these studies has been on publicsector performance overall. The quality of publicadministration has been only one element, withother factors such as economic performance andoutcomes in education and health being moreinfluential in the overall scoring. The Social andCultural Planning Office (SCP) study did explicitlyinclude a separate section on the quality of publicadministration. On this criterion, Ireland rankedseventh out of the EU15 countries based on 2003data.

The intention of this paper is threefold. First, toupdate the international comparative informationon Ireland’s administrative performance.1 The focushere is specifically on administrative performancerather than general public sector performance.Second, to look at additional indicators on admin-istrative performance that are available to see if theyenhance our understanding of the comparativeperformance of Ireland’s public administration.And third, to critique the indicator base and makesuggestions as to ways forward for the developmentof comparative indicators of administrativeperformance.

A warning about data limitationsThe SCP, ECB and World Bank studies all cautionabout the need to interpret their findings with greatcare. This study is no different. First, there is theissue of whether the indicators used to representpublic administration service provision and qualityreally captures what public administration is about.Indicators, by their nature, only give a partialpicture. Second, much of the data in this papercomes from an executive opinion surveyundertaken by the IMD (Institute for ManagementDevelopment) World Competitiveness Center aspart of its research for the annual IMD World

Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD, 2006). This surveydata comprises small-scale samples of opinion frommanagers and experts in the business community.2

The survey data is thus limited both in terms of itsoverall reliability and the fact that it represents theviews of one section of the community (business)only. Third, the point scores arrived at (on a scalefrom 1-10 for the IMD data and between –2.5 and+2.5 for the World Bank governance indicators)should not be interpreted too strictly, as there aremargins of error associated with these estimates.3

Fourth, changes over time should be viewedcautiously. Many of the indicators assessedrepresent ‘snapshots’ at one particular point intime. Small shifts in annual ranking are notparticularly meaningful.

In all, when interpreting the findings set out inthis paper, these limitations should be borne inmind. In particular, small variations in scores,either between countries or over time, should beinterpreted cautiously. These may be no more thanrandom variations to be expected given the databeing used. What is of interest is to identify broadpatterns emerging from the data. Data limitations ofindividual data sets are discussed further insubsequent sections of the paper.

Updating the SCP subjective qualityof government aggregate indicator‘Public administration includes policy making,legislating policy and management of the publicsector’ (SCP, 2004, p.243). The SCP (2004, p.256)notes that the services produced by public admin-istration are social goods, where consumption isnon-rival and no one can be excluded fromconsumption. In such circumstances, the SCPargues, the functioning of public administration canonly be measured by subjective indicators. Inattempting to measure the quality of publicadministration, the SCP uses survey data from theIMD executive opinion survey. Four indicators ofgovernment quality were selected, based on theprinciples of well functioning administrativesystems:

● Level of bureaucracy: the extent to whichbureaucracy hinders business activity.

● Level of transparency: the extent to which trans-parency of government policy is satisfactory.

● Level of effectiveness: the extent to whichgovernment decisions are effectively imple-mented.

1COMPARING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS

● Level of corruption: the extent to which bribingand corruption exist in the economy.4

The SCP combined these four indicators to producewhat they called a subjective quality of governmentaggregate index (SCP, 2004, p.267). As mentionedabove, on the basis of this aggregate indicator,Ireland ranked seventh out of the EU15.5

An updated score for the SCP aggregate quality ofgovernment indicator is given in Figure 1. The dataon which this figure is based are from the IMDWorld Competitiveness Yearbook 2006. The infor-mation is presented for the EU15 countries, as manyof the EU25 countries that have data available, anda selection of other OECD countries. On the basis ofthis updated information, it can be seen that Irelandranks fifth of the EU15 in 2006. Denmark andFinland are clear ‘leaders’. Of the other EU25countries, Estonia ranks above the EU15 meanscore. The other OECD countries included all tendto score well, all being above the EU15 mean score.

Details for the four individual indicators thatmake up the aggregate SCP indicator are given inAppendix 1. From these individual indicators, itcan be seen that Ireland ranks around the EU15average with regard to corruption and implementa-tion effectiveness from a business perspective, and significantly above average with regard tobureaucracy and transparency (that is, thebureaucracy is not seen as hindering business deci-sions and there is good transparency with regard togovernment policy).

Figure 2 illustrates changes in Ireland’s score onthe SCP quality of government aggregate indicatoragainst changes in the EU15 mean score over time.As mentioned in section 2, particular care shouldbe taken in interpreting changes over time. Thefigure shows that Ireland scored below the EU15mean score for 2003 and 2004, but above the meanfor 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2006. However, thedifferences between the Irish score and the EU15mean score in 2003, 2004 and 2005 in particular aresmall, and are likely to be within any margin oferror associated with the sample.

This issue of margins of error is an importantpoint to bear in mind. For example, while Ireland isshown as ranking fifth of the EU15 in 2006, givenpotential margins of error based on the sample sizeand assumptions used, Ireland could easily rankanywhere between third and ninth.

Developing an extended quality ofpublic administration aggregateindicatorThere are a number of other indicators from theIMD executive opinion survey that can be used injudging the quality of public administration.6 Inthis study, in addition to the four indicators used bythe SCP, four other indicators are used to developan extended aggregate indicator of public adminis-tration quality. The additional four indicatorsselected are:

2COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

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Figure 1: SCP quality of government composite indicator

● Level of justice administrative fairness: theextent to which justice is fairly administered.7

● Level of independence: the extent to which thepublic service is independent from politicalinterference.

● Legal and regulatory framework: the extent towhich the legal and regulatory frameworkencourages the competitiveness of enterprises.

● Level of regulation intensity: the extent to whichregulation intensity restrains the ability ofcompanies to compete.The logic for including these additional

indicators is to give a more rounded picture ofpublic administration quality. The administrationof justice and the independence of the publicservice from political interference are basic aspectsof public administration. The other two indicatorsreflect the growing importance in recent years of theregulatory role of public administration. There is anexpectation that as part of a quality service, publicadministrators will help ensure a legal andregulatory framework that encourages competition;and that they will scrutinise regulation intensity toensure it does not become too great a burden onenterprises.

Figure 3 sets out the scores for the selectedcountries for this extended quality of publicadministration aggregate indicator (hereafter justcalled the quality of public administrationaggregate indicator). It can be seen that broadly thescores and rankings are similar to those producedfor the SCP ranking in Figure 1. Ireland swaps with

Sweden, and moves into fourth spot in the EU15.Again, Denmark and Finland score notably aboveall other countries. The data for this aggregateindicator are only available from 2005; so Figure 4shows changes in Ireland’s score against changes inthe EU15 mean score between 2005 and 2006.Ireland ranks comparatively higher in 2006.

Details for the four additional individualindicators that go towards making up the quality ofpublic administration aggregate indicator are givenin Appendix 2. From these individual indicators, itcan be seen that Ireland scores particularly well inthe indicators associated with regulation and abovethe EU15 mean score for all four indicators.

The SCP (2004, p.267) assessed the effectivenessof public administration by relating expenditure tosubjective quality of government for the EU15countries. The intention here was to see if it ispossible to show if there is any correlation betweenadministrative quality and government expenditureon public services. Can it be said that spendingmore, for example, is likely to lead to a betterquality service? This exercise is replicated in Figure5, using the quality of public administrationaggregate indicator and contrasting this withexpenditure per capita on general public services(this was the expenditure indicator used by theSCP). As with the SCP experience, a weakrelationship between expenditure and businessperception of quality of public administration isshown. Ireland comes relatively well out of thispicture, achieving a relatively high score for quality


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Figure 2: SCP quality of government composite indicator – Ireland and EU15 mean scores2001-2006

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of public administration with a relatively low levelof expenditure.

An alternative way of examining the relationshipbetween quality of public administration andexpenditure is to use overall government spendingas the expenditure indicator. Figure 6 contrasts thequality of public administration aggregate indicatorwith general government outlays as a percentage ofGross Domestic Product (GDP). As with Figure 5,overall a weak relationship between spending andbusiness perception of quality of publicadministration is shown. Ireland seems to scoreparticularly well, achieving a high quality score fora very low comparative level of governmentspending. However, this indicator is somewhatmisleading as Irish GDP figures are significantlyaffected by the importance of foreign direct

investment to the Irish economy. While for mostcountries GDP and GNI are almost identical, inIreland Gross National Income (GNI) isapproximately 85 per cent of GDP.8 Generalgovernment outlays are just over 40 per cent of GNIfor Ireland, which brings the Irish score more inline with other countries, though still at the lowerend of expenditure. Ireland still receives asignificantly higher quality score than many otherEU15 countries with higher expenditure levels.

Both Figures 5 and 6 are subject to limitations ofinterpretation as are the other data in this paper.While suggesting that there is no straightforwardcorrelation between government expenditure onpublic services and administrative quality, it is notpossible to delve deeper as to why this is so, andwhat the implications may be.


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Figure 3: Quality of public administration composite indicator 2006

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Figure 4: Quality of public administration composite indicator:Ireland and EU15 mean scores 2005-2006

World Bank governance indicatorsSince 1996, the World Bank has been developinggovernance indicators as part of its work inpromoting good governance. Governance indicatorsare produced for just over 200 countries every twoyears. The indicators are based on several hundredindividual variables measuring perceptions ofgovernance, drawn from 37 separate data sourcesconstructed by 31 different organisations.

Most relevant from the perspective of this studyare the government effectiveness and regulatoryquality indicators. The government effectiveness

indicator aims to measure the competence of thebureaucracy and the quality of public servicedelivery. A broad range of sources is used, includ-ing the Economist Intelligence Unit, WorldEconomic Forum, Bertelsmann Foundation andIMD. The regulatory quality indicator aims tomeasure the incidence of market friendly policyand practice. Again, a broad range of data sources isused.9 Point estimates of the dimensions arepresented as well as margins of error for eachcountry and period.

In interpreting findings from the World Bankgovernance indicators, as well as the cautions noted


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Figure 5: Quality of public administration (2006) and expenditure per capita on general public services (2003)a

a Excluding debt interest payments (classified as property income consolidated) and foreign transfers (classified as other current transfersconsolidated).Source: Eurostat and IMD, 2006

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in section 2, there are two other issues of note. Oneis the combining of judgements on the performanceof politicians and administrators. The wide range ofdata used by the World Bank for its governanceindicators includes a number of items that assessthe performance of politicians and governmentpolicy more than the performance of administrators(for example, government stability in the govern-ment effectiveness indicator, the existence of pricecontrols in the regulatory quality indicator). Thusin judging the quality of public administration it isnot possible to entirely separate out perceptions ongovernment policy and political performance fromadministrative performance.10 A further and evenmore serious concern with regard to the World Bankgovernance indicators is that a recent OECD studyhas questioned their statistical legitimacy for

comparing country scores and highlights their lackof comparability over time (Arndt and Oman, 2006).

Given this note of significant caution with regardto interpretation, Figure 7 sets out results againstthe World Bank government effectiveness indicatorfor 2004, the last year for which data are available.The bar at the top of each column shows the marginof error associated with each point estimate. Irelandranks ninth of the EU15 on this criterion, which isslightly below the EU15 mean score and below allthe other OECD countries included in the survey.This is broadly in line with the SCP quality ofpublic administration aggregate indicator for 2004,as shown in Figure 2, which was below the EU15mean. Figure 8 shows changes in Ireland and theEU15 mean scores for the government effectivenessindicator from 1996 to 2006. Apart from 2000, when


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Figure 8: Government effectiveness indicator: Ireland and EU mean scores 1996-2004


Ireland was above the mean score, the Irish scorehas tended to be around that of the EU15 meanscore.

Figure 9 sets out the results for the World Bankregulatory quality indicator in 2004. Ireland ranksfifth of the EU15 here. The relatively goodperformance of Estonia of the new countries of theEU25 is notable.

World Bank Doing BusinessindicatorsAs mentioned in Boyle (2006), a different approachto assessing the quality and efficiency of public administration provision is to take a bottom-up perspective. In this case, instead of broadsectoral indicators based on perceptual data,aspects of performance are assessed from a service user perspective. The World Bank hasadopted this approach with regard to assessingsome aspects of the effects of regulation, with thedevelopment of their Doing Business database(http://www.doingbusiness.org/). Three indicatorsfrom this Doing Business database are particularlyrelevant to the assessment of public administrationquality and efficiency:

● PPaayyiinngg ttaaxxeess.. This topic addresses the taxes thata medium-sized company must pay or withholdin a given year, and the administrative burdenassociated with paying taxes. From theperspective of this study, the most pertinentmeasure is the time taken to prepare, file and pay(or withhold) the corporate income tax, the value

added tax and social security contributions,measured in hours per year.

● DDeeaalliinngg wwiitthh lliicceennsseess.. This topic records allprocedures required for a business in theconstruction industry to build a standardisedwarehouse. These include obtaining allnecessary licenses and permits, completing allrequired notifications and inspections andsubmitting the relevant documents to theauthorities. Procedures for obtaining utilityconnections are also recorded. A survey dividesthe process of building a warehouse into distinctprocedures and calculates the time and cost ofcompleting each procedure under normalcircumstances. From the perspective of thisstudy, the time, in days, to build a warehouse isthe most appropriate measure.11

● SSttaarrttiinngg aa bbuussiinneessss.. This topic identifies thesteps an entrepreneur must take to incorporateand register a new firm. It examines theprocedures, time and cost involved in launchinga commercial or industrial firm with up to 50employees and start-up capital of 10 times theeconomy’s per capita gross national income.From the perspective of this study, the mostrelevant measure is the time, in days, needed toset up a new firm.

Figure 10 sets out the time taken to pay taxes for2005. Ireland performs well against this indicatorcomparatively, ranking third of the EU15 countriesthat provided data, behind France and Spain, andfifth of all the countries included in the sample


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Figure 9: Regulatory quality 2004

here. Figure 11 shows the number of days to dealwith warehouse licensing for 2005. Here, Irelandscores around the average for the EU15, withDenmark and Finland taking significantly less timethan other EU countries. Figure 12 shows thenumber of days needed to start a business for 2005.Again, Ireland’s score is around the average for theEU15, with Denmark and France taking the leasttime to deal with the necessary procedures.Australia, Canada and the USA all take particularlylittle time to process the setting up of a newbusiness.12

Conclusions and discussionSome tentative findingsIn terms of findings arising from the analysis, anumber of general points emerge.

Ireland tends to come out of the analysis of thequality and efficiency of public administrationrelatively well, particularly when using the mostrecent data available. Ireland is in with a cluster ofcountries – Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands andLuxembourg in the EU, Australia, Canada, NewZealand, Norway and Switzerland of other OECD


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Figure 10: Time taken to pay taxes 2005

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countries – that tend to consistently score wellacross the range of indicators examined here.

Ireland ranks particularly well against theindicators examining regulatory quality andefficiency.

Denmark and Finland tend to consistently beranked particularly highly across the range ofindicators examined. Of the newer EU memberstates, Estonia consistently scores well.

However, the cautions about data reliability andvalidity mentioned above should be borne in mindwhen drawing conclusions. The ‘state of the art’ ofmeasuring public administration performance isnot at a stage where precise judgements can bemade.

How does Ireland’s ranking compare to nationallevel information? Does the suggestion of arelatively good performance by Ireland equate withnational opinions on the quality and efficiency ofpublic administration? Some information isavailable for the civil service, based on surveyscommissioned by the Department of the Taoiseach(Department of the Taoiseach, 2006a, 2006b). Asurvey of business opinion found that 69 per cent ofthose surveyed feel that the civil service is very orfairly efficient. This is the case whether or not theyhad had direct contact with the civil service in theprevious twelve months. However, the proportionof respondents who consider the civil service to bevery inefficient is much higher amongst those whohad no contact (see Figure 13). In 2002, in acomparable survey, 46 per cent of respondents feltthe civil service was very or fairly efficient. So therewas a notable increase from 2002 to 2006.


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Figure 12: Number of days to start business 2005

Figure 13: National opinions on civil serviceefficiency

Civil Service Efficiency: experiences versus impressionsQ: Thinking of the civil service in overall terms, I wouldlike you to give me your impression of how efficient youfeel it is…

((aa)) BBuussiinneessss ssuurrvveeyy

Base: All respondents (300)

Civil Service Efficiency: experiences versus impressionsQ: Thinking of the civil service in overall terms, I wouldlike you to give me your impression of how efficient youfeel it is…

((bb)) CCuussttoommeerr ssaattiissffaaccttiioonn ssuurrvveeyy

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Source: Department of the Taoiseach, 2006a and b, surveywork undertaken by Ipsos MORI

The Department of the Taoiseach (2006b) alsoconducted an opinion survey of the general popula-tion, not just business opinion. It is interesting tocompare the findings, to see if there are differencesbetween the public perception of efficiency andbusiness leaders perceptions. In 2006, 62 per cent ofthe public see the civil service as very or fairlyefficient. This is a slight improvement on 2002, butidentical to figures recorded in a 1997 survey.Whether or not members of the public had contactwith the civil service over the previous twelvemonths makes a big difference in how they seeefficiency (see Figure 13). Of those who hadcontact, 72 percent consider the civil service to bevery or fairly efficient. This contrasts with 54 percent of respondents with no contact with the civilservice.

In all, these broadly positive perceptions of theefficiency of the civil service would support thegood ranking received by Ireland in the perception-based surveys noted above.

Data sources and data limitations: conclusions and emerging lessonsA key lesson emerging from this study is that datalimitations severely restrict the ability to reachmeaningful conclusions about Ireland’s compara-tive administrative performance. In drawingconclusions about the indicators used in this study,a number of points merit highlighting:

● The World Bank governance indicators aresubject to severe methodological limitations. TheOECD (Arndt and Oman, 2006) critique suggeststhat there is little to be gained from analysis ofthe governance indicators in their current form.Further use of the World Bank governanceindicators as a source of information oncomparative administrative performance shouldbe contingent on the identified weaknesses beingaddressed.

● The IMD based indicators of quality of publicadministration are also the subject of methodo-logical concerns. The small sample size andrestriction to the business community aresignificant limitations. Also, the indicators onlypartly capture issues around the quality andefficiency of public administration, and have alimited conceptual foundation in this regard. Thecombining of the information to produce anaggregate indicator of the quality of publicadministration, while attractive as apresentational device, has its own limitations,

suggesting a possibly deceptive degree ofprecision in comparative ranking. Despite suchlimitations, however, the IMD based indicatorsdo provide one source of information onbusiness perceptions on administrativeperformance on a consistent basis over time. Theability to separately examine the individualindicators that contribute to the aggregateindicator enables investigation of particularvariables. The IMD based indicators couldcontinue to be used, provided the limitationsassociated with them are made explicit, and theyare part of a broader assessment framework.

● The World Bank Doing Business indicators havelimitations in terms of their coverage of aspectsof administrative performance, dealing as theydo with specific business related matters. Theyare also a mix of fact and perception based datadeveloped on the basis of realistic buthypothetical situations with regard to servicedelivery. But these indicators are an interestingapproach to developing a more bottom-uppicture of aspects of administrative performancebased on the views of service users. As such theyattempt to address real life issues faced by publicadministration users. The further developmentand expansion of such indicators offers thepotential to contribute to assessing comparativeadministrative performance.

Ways forward: is there a future for theassessment of comparative administrativeperformance?A key question overall is what value the inter-national comparative information gathered herehas? Pollitt (2005) is sceptical of the benefits ofinternational rankings, referring to what he calls ‘ahuge demand for duff data’ and questioning if anydecisions can be informed and improved by thistype of data. Given the data limitations, suchconcerns should be taken seriously. But notwith-standing the point made by Pollitt, it is possible toenvisage some tentative uses for such information:

● The level of public debate about the quality andefficiency of the Irish public administrativesystem tends to be conducted in the absence ofany form of data, limited or not. Opponents ofpublic service provision as it currently operatestend to come out with statements such as ‘Irelandis among the worst in Europe with regard topublic service provision’. Proponents tend toespouse the opposite view. Limited as the data


gathered together here is, it does provide someevidence to inform the debate. Ireland’s publicadministration does not appear to be the bestaround, but it is a long way from being seen asthe worst.

● The Taoiseach, in a speech at the Institute ofPublic Administration’s annual conference(Ahern, 2006) indicated that he sees merit inassessing how the Irish public service as a wholeperforms relative to its international peers. Inparticular he notes ‘…it would be useful toidentify how we compare with those who arerecognised as representing good practice invarious different aspects of public administrationand policy’. There are some suggestions from thisreview of a limited number of countries thatseem to rank consistently well with regard topublic administration quality and efficiency.

● The data can be used to prompt discussion anddebate on the performance and productivity ofpublic services. This issue has come to theforefront in recent years, with organisations suchas the National Competitiveness Council lookingto improve the way public sector productivity isassessed. Limited as it is, the data here can be astarting point for discussions about the need formore robust measurements.

Looking forward, with regard to improving theavailable data, a number of initiatives couldfacilitate the creation of a more rounded and robustset of indicators for use in the comparativeassessment of administrative performance:

● Better survey data on public administrationquality and efficiency, to complement the IMDbased indicators, could be encouraged. A numberof countries periodically survey citizens onadministrative performance, as evidenced by thesurveys sponsored by the Department of theTaoiseach quoted in the section above. Thedevelopment of a common core set of questionsto be asked in such surveys could help producecomparative indicators with good sample sizesand based on both business and publicperceptions. The OECD could be encouraged totake on this role liaising with governments,surveying firms and academic networks tofacilitate a coordinated approach in this area.

● The continuing development of the World Bank

Doing Business indicators should be encouraged.Also, the wider development of bottom-upindicators of administrative performance offers apotentially fruitful approach to the establish-ment of comparative indicators of administrativeperformance. As Boyle (2006) notes in relation to work undertaken by Putnam (1993) in acomparative study of bureaucratic responsive-ness of Italian regional governments, suchindicators help provide a picture of what value isbeing delivered by public services. The NationalEconomic and Social Forum (NESF), (forth-coming) state that: ‘A focus by service providerson how people actually experience services bymapping the customer/user journey will help toimprove service design and foster innovation toservice delivery.’ Again, survey firms andacademic networks could be encouraged to domore work in this area.

● The OECD is engaged in the development of acomparative country data set on management ingovernment with a view to the publication of anannual report entitled Government at a Glance.13

It is important that this data set is facilitated bymember states as it has the potential to be anauthoritative source of indicators on administra-tive performance. It should provide a rich datasource on a number of aspects of the practice ofpublic administration.

● Many of the indicators examined here rely onsurvey data and portray a subjective perceptionof public administration quality. Van de Walle(2006) notes that: ‘A potential danger of thismeasurement by subjective proxy is that theindicators merely return the popular image of theadministration, rather than the actual function-ing’. There is a need to develop ‘hard’ data tocomplement the subjective data – for example,information on costs per employee. There isscope for more micro-level comparisons ofinputs and outputs at organisational or sectorallevels rather than just taking public administra-tion as a whole. The Atkinson review in the UK(Atkinson, 2005) suggests improvements insectoral output and input indicators for nationalaccounts purposes. Also, the OECD Governmentat a Glance initiative should prove helpful withregard to input and output data as it developsover time.


APPENDICES


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Bureaucracy does not hinder business activity (2006)

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Transparency of government policy is satisfactory (2006)

Appendix 1


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Government decisions are effectively implemented (2006)

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Bribing and corruption do not exist in the economy (2006)


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Justice is fairly administered (2006)

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Public service independence from political interference (2006)

Appendix 2


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Legal and regulatory framework encourages the competitiveness of enterprises (2006)

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Regulation intensity does not restrain the ability of companies to compete (2006)

Dealing with Licences in Ireland

The table below summarises the procedures, time and costs to build a warehouse in Ireland

NNaattuurree ooff PPrroocceedduurree ((22000055)) PPrroocceedduurree DDuurraattiioonn SSttaarrtt EEnndd UUSS$$ ((ddaayyss)) ddaayy ddaayy CCoosstt

Obtain planning permission 1 90 1 90 5,266.89

Obtain C2 (taxation registration) certificate 2 50* 41 90 0.00

Receive on-site inspection before planning permission is granted 3 1* 90 90 0.00

Notify the Health and Safety Authority about commencement of construction 4 1 91 91 0.00

AAfftteerr ccoonnssttrruuccttiioonn iiss ccoommpplleetteeddObtain Fire Safety Certificate 5 90 92 181 1,125.40Receive final inspection 6 1* 181 181 0.00

UUttiilliittiieessObtain electrical connection 7 89* 93 181 1,511.42Obtain water connection 8 42* 140 181 0.00Receive visit from waterworks department of Dublin City Council 9 1* 141 141 0.00Obtain phone connection 10 16* 166 181 173.50

TToottaallss:: 1100 118811 $$88,,007777..2211

* This procedure runs simultaneously with previous procedures.



Appendix 3

1. The SCP study relied primarily on 2003 data,the ECB study on 2000 data, and the WorldBank on 2002 data.

2. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook2006 notes that its executive opinion survey issent to executives in top and middlemanagement in all the countries covered by theyearbook. The sample ‘represents a cross-section of the business community in eachcountry or region. The distribution reflects abreakdown of industry by sectors: primary,manufacturing and services, and in order to bestatistically representative, we select a samplesize which is proportional to the GDP of eacheconomy’ (IMD, 2006). In 2006, they received4,055 responses to their executive opinionsurvey from 61 countries, an average of 66returns per country.

3. The World Bank governance indicatorsexplicitly address the issue of error associatedwith the point estimates arrived at. Theypresent statistically derived margins of error foreach country and period, as can be seen in thefigures that appear in the text of this paper.

4. The IMD executive opinion survey asksrespondents to rate, on a scale from 1 to 10,their response to statements. Usually 1 repre-sents a ‘low’ or ‘poor’ score (for example,bureaucracy hinders business activity) and 10represents good performance (bureaucracy doesnot hinder business activity). For the corruptionindicator, the SCP used the TransparencyInternational index rather than the IMD surveydata. The Transparency International index (TI)is made up of an aggregation of different indicesincluding the IMD indicator, World EconomicForum indicator, World Bank indicator andGallup International indicator. The SCP foundthat the IMD and TI indicators are highlycorrelated, and this was confirmed in thecontext of this study. For ease of measurementand computation, the IMD index of corruptionis used in this study.

5. If the IMD indicator of corruption is substitutedfor the Transparency International indicator,Ireland drops to ninth of the EU15.

6. Some of these indicators have been amended oradded to the list of indicators by the IMD sincethe SCP study was undertaken.

7. This indicator was used as one of the indicatorsof administrative performance in the ECB study(Afonso, Schuknecht and Tanzi, 2003).

8. According to the Central Statistics Office(2006), in 2005 GNI was 85.5 per cent of GDP.The only other country of the EU15 where thedifference between GDP and GNI is more than10 per cent is Luxembourg. Spain has the nextlargest variation, at less than 2 per cent.

9. Details on the governance indicators used canbe accessed from the World Bank Institutegovernance and anti-corruption web site:www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance (lastaccessed 4th September 2006).

10. This issue is pertinent also for the IMD data thatforms the basis of the analysis in sections 3 and4, but less so in this case. The majority of theIMD data used refer to administrative perform-ance rather than political performance.

11. As an example of the approach taken,Appendix 3 outlines the results for Ireland ofthe procedures, time and costs to build awarehouse. In this case, it can be seen that theprocedures involve both central and localgovernment, and so examine a ‘whole ofgovernment’ aspect of public administrationquality and efficiency.

12. Data on paying taxes and dealing with licensesfirst appeared in World Bank and the Intern-ational Finance Corporation (2006). It is not,therefore, possible to produce trends over time.

13. The intention of the OECD Government at aGlance project is to work towards thepublication, in 2009, of a document entitledGovernment at a Glance that will be producedon an annual basis and show comparative cross-national data (OECD, 2005).


Notes

Afonso, A., L. Schuknecht and V. Tanzi (2003),Public Sector Efficiency: An InternationalComparison, Working Paper No. 242, EuropeanCentral Bank Working Paper Series, Frankfurt:European Central Bank

Ahern, B. (2006), Speech by the Taoiseach, Mr.Bertie Ahern TD, at the IPA national conferenceon Moving Towards the Public Sector of theFuture in the Grand Hotel, Malahide, 8th June

Arndt, C. and C. Oman (2006), Uses and Abuses ofGovernance Indicators, Paris: OECD

Atkinson (2005), Atkinson Review: Final Report –Measurement of Government Output andProductivity for the National Accounts,Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Boyle, R. (2006), Measuring Public SectorProductivity: Lessons from InternationalExperience, Committee for Public ManagementResearch Discussion Paper No. 35, Dublin:Institute of Public Administration

Central Statistics Office (2006), Measuring Ireland’sProgress: 2005, Dublin: Stationery Office

Department of the Taoiseach (2006a), Irish CivilService Customer Satisfaction Business Survey2006 Report, research study conducted by IpsosMORI, Dublin: Department of the Taoiseach

Department of the Taoiseach (2006b), Irish CivilService Customer Satisfaction Survey 2006Report, research study conducted by Ipsos MORI,Dublin: Department of the Taoiseach

IMD (2006), World Competitiveness Yearbook 2006,Lausanne: Institute for Management Develop-ment

Kaufmann, D., A. Kraay and M. Mastruzzi (2005),Governance Matters IV: Governance Indicatorsfor 1996-2004, World Bank Policy ResearchWorking Paper 3630, Washington, DC: The WorldBank

National Economic and Social Forum (forth-coming), Improving the Delivery of QualityPublic Services, NESF Report 34, Dublin:National Economic and Social Forum.

OECD (2005), Management in Government:Feasibility Report on the Development ofComparative Data, GOV/PGC(2005)10, 31stOctober, Paris: OECD

Pollitt, C. (2005), ‘Response to opening presentationand background paper by Christopher Hood andCraig Beeston’, paper presented at ESRC PublicServices Programme seminar on internationalpublic service rankings, 13th December, London:ESRC

Putnam, R. D. (1993), Making Democracy Work:Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press

Social and Cultural Planning Office (2004), PublicSector Performance: An International Compari-son of Education, Health Care, Law and Orderand Public Administration, The Hague: Socialand Cultural Planning Office

Van de Walle, S. (2006), ‘The state of the World’sbureaucracies’, Journal of Comparative PolicyAnalysis, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 437-448

World Bank and the International FinanceCorporation (2006), Doing Business in 2006,Washington, D.C.: World Bank


References

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