Benchmarking in Federal Systems: Australian and International - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Benchmarking in Federal Systems: Australian and International Experiences Joint Roundtable of the Forum of Federations and the Productivity Commission Melbourne, 19-21 October 2010

Benchmarking Social Protection and Social Inclusion Policies through the European OMC: Panacea, Failure, or ‘Good Enough’ governance?

Presentation by Bart Vanhercke, European Social Observatory (OSE) and K.U.Leuven (CESO)

Outline of the talk

1. Introduction: scope & limitations 2. The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) : what is that (defining the elephant)? 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how does it work? 4. Is OMC benchmarking delivering the goods (failure, panacea, ‘good enough’)? 5. [From Lisbon to ‘Europe 2020’: what is to be done (forward looking)]

Introduction: scope and limitations

• ‘Politics of benchmarking’

– rather than technical aspects: see Marlier et al. (2007); Room (2005); Atkinson et al. (2002)

• EU-level

(general), with some examples from a small federal state, Belgium:

– illustrate how OMC benchmarking ‘(mis)fits’ with federal architecture

• Social Protection and Social Inclusion

(« Social ») OMC

– 3 strands: ‘Social Inclusion’, ‘Pensions’ and ‘Health Care & Long-term Care’

Important: « The » OMC does not exist

MS let “1000 flowers bloom” (+)

Inflation

• f OMC’s since

Lisbon European Council 2000 – BEPG, EES, education (established) – Organ transplantation, influenza, immigration, smoking, EU development policy, family policy, disability policy, Latin America (recently proposed, more or less seriously) – VERY different benchmarking “tools” in the OMC toolboxes

• Different ‘effects’/’usage’

as a consequence

• 2. The Open Method of

Coordination: what is that?

No ‘formal’ definition (!)

Technically speaking OMC is… A cyclical process where mutually agreed Objectives (political priorities) are defined, after which peer review (discussion among equals) takes place on the basis of National Action Plans (reports). Soft ‘Recommendations’ (Commission/Council) and comparable and commonly agreed indicators (and targets) enable to assess progress towards the Objectives

From a certain distance … the elephant looks like this

Social OMC: process cycle (3y)

Launching (2000) Common Objectives Joint Report NSR Peer Reviews Indicators Targets

Supported by PROGRESS (learning) Member States EU (EC, Council) Social Partners & Civil Society

In essence:

Cyclical process of reporting and evaluation of policies, which should should facilitate “policy learning” between the (27) Member States, and thereby improve policies

Mostly for ‘sensitive’ issues for which EU has no legislative competencies (‘subsidiarity’)

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC:

how does it work?

• Member

States and the EU (Commission, Council) engage in « bottom-up collegial benchmarking », through:

– Common Objectives – Indicators – Targets – Peer Reviews – Joint Reports (‘Country Fiches’)

• EC: facilitator; MS ‘call the tune’;

stakeholders ‘sneak in’; EP is mute

• 3. Benchmarking within the Social OMC:

how does it work (Common Objectives)

• Example (SI):

– “MS’ policies should have a decisive impact

• n the

eradication of poverty and social exclusion by ensuring that social inclusion policies are well-coordinated and involve all levels of government and relevant actors, including people experiencing poverty, that they are efficient and effective and mainstreamed into all relevant public policies[…] In other words: focus on outcomes (eradication of poverty) and on process (coordination, involving a variety of actors, mainstreaming) Objectives often quite general and ambiguous (struggle about ideas and views on ‘social Europe’)

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Indicators)

• Member States agree

(unanimously!)

• n

« harmonised » indicators (commonly defined)

• ‘Portfolio’
• f (primary and secondary)

indicators for SI, PEN and HC policies

+ ‘overarching’ + ‘context’ indicators

• Eg. ‘Laeken’

indicators

• n poverty

and social exclusion

• “Key model of Social Indicators”

(2004 Discussion Paper Dpt

• f the Premier and Cabinet)
• Cover several aspects of social exclusion, e.g.

financial poverty, employment, health and education (multidimensional)

• Outcome indicators (indiv

& households)

• Eg. “Early school-leavers”

% of the total population aged 18-24 who have at most lower secondary education and not in further education

• r training

Other indicators Social OMC

–At-risk-of-poverty-rate (60%)! –Healthy life expectancy –Aggregate replacement ratio (pensions) –In-work poverty risk –Regional disparities (empl.) –Others are being developed

How are the indicators used?

• The key

is: prudence (subsidiarity, once again)

• 2001: first and last attempt

by EC to propose a genuine ‘ranking’

• f Member

States (SI)

– nearly killed the OMC before it started – ‘top down’

• r ‘independent’

monitoring does not work in EU context, at least not publicly (see also Kok Report in 2005)!

• Still, league

tables are published: shows MS performance on indicators

– eg At-risk-of poverty rate in the EU (%), children and total population

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Targets)

• Increasing (and successful) pressure from

European Council and Commission on MS to set national national targets in their national reports (‘benchmarking benchmarking’)

–

• Eg. ‘Naming’

in Joint Report - GER-GR-ESP- LIT: “SI strategy lacks clear quantified targets”

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Targets)

• Some EU

EU targets – Barcelona European Council (2002) childcare childcare target:

• provide childcare by 2010 to at least 90% of children

between 3 years old and the mandatory school age, and at least 33% of children under 3 years of age

– Europe 2020 (June 2010) ‘headline targets’

• poverty

poverty : lift at least 20 million people out of the risk

• f poverty and exclusion
• education

education: reduce school drop-out rates to less than 10% […]

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Peer Reviews)

• Two

ways

• f organising

the « laboratory federalism » – « Formal Peer Review », based

• n

National reports (NAP/NSR…):

• Issues vast, time short, content ‘agreed

upon between MS’

• Value added? Pressure?

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Peer Reviews)

– Progress Peer Reviews » (some 6O so far): smaller groups of MS + ‘independent’ experts and ‘civil society’ discuss ‘good practices’ in

– Social Inclusion: e.g.. rough sleepers, England 2004 – Pensions: e.g. public information on pension systems, Poland 2008 – HC and Care (after hesitation!): e.g. quality long- term care in residential facilities, Germany 2010

– Contextualized benchmarking – (some) genuine pressure (among peers, not public!)

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC: how

does it work (Joint Reports)

• EC refrains from ‘tough’

comments on individual MS’

• performance. And yet they

bite (irritate/embarrass)

• Some examples:

– “Member States confuse monitoring monitoring

• f the

implementation of actions with the evaluation evaluation of their impact and effectiveness” (‘benchmarking benchmarking’) – “MS Stop using indicators when outlining new commitments” (B, GER, FR, IT, LUX)

• 3. Benchmarking within the OMC:

how does it work (Joint Reports)

• IT: “Coordination between national and sub-

national interventions should be strengthened… establishing the levels of assistance that are deemed essential nation- wide” (swallow)

• NL: “The gender dimension of poverty and

social exclusion is lacking” (swallow twice)

Evaluation by Commission

not as “soft” as some had hoped

• Social Protection Committee:

Commission was labeled an “agent on the run” (POL, UK)

• 4. Is OMC

benchmarking delivering the goods (does any of this matter)?

• It does matter, at least in terms agenda-

setting and improving governance

• But

in terms of outcomes (reducing child poverty, waiting times in hospitals or early retirement): we basically don’t know!

Then what do we know?

• Common Objectives created push for the

Institutionalisation of NGO involvement NGO involvement in Social Inclusion policies

– Belgium from ‘teacher’ to ‘pupil’: participation model (‘people experiencing poverty’) looked especially well on paper, less so in practice

• From “window dressing”

to adaptational pressure (irrispective

• f ‘fit’)

Boomerang effect

• Example where “uploading”
• f national

priorities (to EU) bounces back to domestic policy setting – OMC works like a “pendulum” (EU-MS) – Reciprocal influence, not one-way impact!

• 4. Is OMC

benchmarking delivering the goods (does any of this matter)?

• Strengthening and even boosting statistical

capacity

• Belgium: ‘desert’

for social indicators, contested statistics and even trends

• FR/IT/most

New MS

• No more ‘hiding’

behind incomparable statistics – B early retirment ‘feature’ re-labelled as ‘problem’ (need to justify performance by comparison with

• thers)

• 4. Is OMC

benchmarking delivering the goods (does any of this matter)?

• OMC initiated adoption of ‘targets’

in SI policies

• New feature in several countries
• More than that: NSR inlcude

national targets for regional competencies (education, housing etc.)

Belgian ‘NAP’ Social Inclusion 2006-2008

2003 2003 2004 2004 2008 2008 2010 2010 6.2% 6.3% 7% 8%

Target 1 Target 1 “To increase the proportion of social housing for rent as a percentage of the total number of private households”

Do Peer Reviews matter?

• Some

(but few) examples

• f direct policy

transfer (eg rough sleepers) through such ‘external benchmarking’

– no ‘siren call’

• f best practice
• Participants seem

to be learning a lot

– but do they change their behaviour?

• EC about to launch

assessment

• n this

issue

BUT: national spill-overs

• f peer

reviews

• Exchange of information between regions (across language

borders): discovering each other's policies (‘national OMC’) through a ‘mirror effect’ (internal benchmraking)

• Sub-national OMCs

(Gender Equality: Flanders; Italian regions); Local OMCs (e.g.. city of Leuven) EU cooperation within the context of the OMC brings about procedural changes, including vertical cooperation

• 4. Is OMC

benchmarking delivering the goods (does any of this matter)?

• Benchmarking within context of OMC brings

about substantive policy changes (!)

• “Child poverty”: new concept in Social Inclusion

policies of many Member States: straight from OMC cognitive shift (power of ideas)

• Remarkable: longstanding resistance against this

issue (failed to halt the issue!) – Strong EU pressure (‘hard governance of soft law’, Greer and Vanhercke, 2010)

This ‘child poverty’ This ‘child poverty’ focus did not just focus did not just happen happen: it was : it was engineered by making use of the different benchmarking tools engineered by making use of the different benchmarking tools (2006-2008) (2006-2008)

• National Strategy Reports

2006

– Commission identifies ‘Child poverty’ as important challenge for many EU countries

• March 2006 Council conclusions formulate a new

“Common Objective”

– Member States are asked “to take necessary measures to rapidly and significantly reduce child poverty […]

• 2007 thematic year on child poverty

– SPC Report on Child Poverty and Well-Being (adopted in 2008) – Specific reporting by MS on strategies to fight child poverty – Peer Review

• f the Social Protection Committee
• Result: 2008 National Strategy Reports, child poverty is a

key priority in 24 Countries; many have set quantified targets in relation to child poverty (not the case before)

• 2009: new data of EU-SILC module on material

deprivation includes 20 child specific items

Reporting and data collection on child poverty is thereby institutionalised (and what gets measured gets done…)

• B: discovered

it had a problem (new dimensions)

• Belgian

Presidency

• f the EU (June-Dec

2010): top priority

• Before

it had never been on the agenda – same is true for enlargement and neighborhood countries

• Emerging

issue: early childhood development (ECD) and the ‘Roma issue’ (!)

Wrapping up: messy business

• OMC bottom-up

collegial benchmarking has not been a panacea (some thought it would be a ‘revolution’ in policymaking)

– flaws of peer reviews, ‘soft’ country specific recommendations, the wrong people do the learning, lack of data effect on outcomes?

• But in some respects it ‘delivered’: substantive as

well as procedural changes, allowing for better policymaking

• It is a ‘good enough’

policy instrument, esp. in view

• f the fact that –

for the foreseeable future there is no alternative:

– benchmarking is there to stay (not a transitional instrument)

• 4. What

is there to do?

Debate about the place of the OMC in « Europe 2020 » (4 points)

4.1 Secure what has been achieved

• far from sure whether some of the basic

benchmarking tools of the OMC (National Strategic Reports, Joint Reports etc.) will be part of future architecture

• who will be monitoring the headline target?

(EMCO/ECOFIN/EP) Institutional competition legitimacy/ownership (eg Education targets)

• who will coordinate national reporting?

(finance/prime minister)

• temporal cycle is uncertain

4.2 The ‘building blocks’

• f a strengthened

Social OMC should be spelled out (I)

• A lo of uncertainty during the past few weeks

whether the ‘Social OMC’ would continue to exist as a separate process at all (replaced by a new “Platform on Poverty”)

• Need for a ‘broad’

Social OMC

– not exclusively geared at poverty and social exclusion

• SPC and Social Affairs ministers should be ‘in

charge’

– safeguard a political space in which they can have their say on any European initiative/development with potential social consequences

4.2 The ‘building blocks’

• f a strengthened

Social OMC should be spelled out (II)

• This includes a variety of topics

– pensions (ECOFIN-IMF) – healthcare and long-term care (IM) – services on general interest – education – climate change – and sometimes even agriculture

• On these issues, the SPC should be able to develop

“Social Impact Assessment (Lisbon Treaty!)

4.3 We should strengthen OMC benchmarking

• By increasing its openness and

participation

• Still too much a ‘closed shop’
• Participatory governance indicators (including

at the regional and local level) would greatly improve the monitoring and assessment of national practices (e.g. involvement of civil society) in this regard.

4.3 We should strengthen OMC benchmarking

• By making

learning more ‘thematic’

• Demand

driven (ahead

• f refarm)
• Learn

from ‘champions’ and ‘losers’ (difficult!)

4.3 We should strengthen OMC benchmarking

• By reinforcing the set of indicators (and making

them more transparent)

• Underpinning the common objectives with

indicators that measure the social adequacy of a variety of benefits

• pensions, unemployment, invalidity etc.

4.3 We should strengthen OMC benchmarking

• By linking it to other EU policy

instruments (funding, legislation)

• Making EU Structural Funding (esp. ESF)

conditional to achieving the objectives of the Social OMC

• “Put your money where your mouth is”

“shadow of hierarchy”, “give OMC teeth”

• Financial Perspectives 2013-2010

“Instrument hybridity”

4.4 Towards ‘Hard soft law’?

• Member States may –

contradictory as it may seem - have to give up some of their national prerogatives if they want their social systems to be able to deal with the challenges ahead.

• introducing stronger country-specific

Recommendations (but BEPG and EES suffer from similar problems)

• binding regulatory standards (minimum income)
• Pathway to that will be long and uncertain.

Through these four avenues, OMC benchmarking could contribute to

– a more ‘productive’ approach to some of the difficult issues MS and the EU are tackling

• a powerful commitment to good governance

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