Public policy and program implementation

Public policy and program implementation

• 1.
  Public Policy andProgram Implementation Introduction to Public Administration
• 2.
  Introduction • The managementof public programs affected by all the : • Expertise • Leadership • Organizational structure • Personnel • Politics • Law (courts) • Budget • Individual programs are what is being used to implement public policy – Organizing framework of purposes and rationales for government programs that deal with specified societal problems (who gets what) • Foreign Policy • Trade Policy • Economic Policy • Health Policy • Civil Rights Policy • Environmental Policy • Defense Policy
• 3.
  Introduction • Obviously publicpolicy is highly shaped by politics and the political process • Policies often not rational • Often not well planned • Intent doesn’t match outcomes • Can originate from many sources • President • Congress • Interest groups • State/local government • Policy best described as incremental • Some policies are nothing more than symbolic actions
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  Typology of Policies •Distributive policies – deliver large scale services or benefits to certain individuals or groups in the population who do not bear the costs. • Examples: • Tax breaks • Subsidy • Loans for college students • Redistributive policies – effort by government to shift the allocation of valued goods from one group to another. • Examples: • Affirmative action • Medicare • Temporary Assistance to Needy Families • Lottery • Regulatory policies – promote restrictions on the freedom to act of those subject to regulation. • Sherman Antitrust Act (policy)  program • Usually targeted at businesses • Self-regulatory policies – policy change sought by those being regulated as a means of protecting or promoting their own economic interests. • Licensing of professions – law, medicine, hair stylists
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  The Policymaking Process •Legislative stage (Congress/President) • Administrative stage • Create rules • Implement • Review stage (courts or Congress) • Policies broken down into programs and projects, these are the focus of management (example: Don’t Mess with Texas) • Thus we must recognize that administrators play a vital role with respect to public policy • Discretion
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  Six Policy ConceptsDiscuss • Planning and analysis • Implementation • Evaluation • Productivity and measurement of results • Rewarding employee participation and quality management • Meeting customer service standards
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  Planning and Analysis •Here we first need to operationalize the goals of our program/project • Examples: • Clean environment with “Don’t Mess with Texas” • Safe highways • If policy is symbolic this can cause problems with developing operational goals – specific and measurable goals for organizational attainment • Develop alternative methods for achieving these policy goals or policy analysis • Develop evidence for and against each option • Costs? • Benefits? • What are the consequences of the method? • Length of time? (sometimes want longer for political reasons) • When considering the effect of a program alternative, must take into account several considerations: • Target group/non-target group • Direct and indirect costs • Short term/long term effects • Environment/stakeholders • Purpose of the analysis is to bring rationality, certainty, and cooperation into the policy process. • Analytical Tools • Systems analysis – how elements of political, social, economic, or administrative systems might affect a project • Cost-benefit analysis • Operations research – how to best utilize resources • Useful with routine problems
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  Program Implementation • Setof activities directed toward putting a program into effect • Three activities: • Organization (previously discussed) • Interpretation – translate program language (discretion) • Application • Political factors surrounding implementation • How to implement the program organizationally • New agency (type of agency) • Existing agency • New agency subunit • Interpreting legislative intent • Changing intent of Congress • Legislation represents a compromise among forces and therefore may affect implementation (interest group involvement) • Balancing programs based on administration agendas • Divided government • Continuity challenge • Resistance to change among administration • May cause a shift in program focus • Effect of a law may not have been known, etc.
• 9.
  Program Evaluation • Systematicevaluation of government policies, projects, or programs to determine their success or failure • Three steps: • Specification • Collect data • Analysis • Purposes • Gain knowledge about program impacts • Establish accountability • Help with determinations of continuation/termination • Help with planning/analysis for future projects • All related to tailoring evaluations: • Formative – improve the program • Summative – summary judgment about the program • Used to report to funders • Does it work? • Knowledge generation • Most scientific • Learn about a specific concept • Food stamps vs. cash vs. debit • General findings • Political • Justify an action that will be taken either way
• 10.
  Program Evaluation: HowGovernment Evaluates • Broad: • Site visit • Hearings • Citizens • More specific • Before versus after studies – evaluation and comparison of results before and after program to determine what results were achieved. • Time-trend projection – focus on more data points • Comparison • Compare with other jurisdictions with and without the program and compare differences • Compare with professional programs • Controlled Experimentation – comparisons of two groups of similar people, one served by the program and the other not served • Not served called the control group • Most expensive and least used • Can be combined with other methods • Methods try to establish causality – or that intervention A causes result B • But in order to demonstrate causality we have to eliminate changes caused by extraneous confounding factors • In order to conduct these evaluations we need data and thus the initial operationalization of goals becomes important
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  We Have Results,Now What? • Make a determination of whether or not the program/policy/project works • Errors: • Type I Error (false positive) – say it works when it does not • Type II Error (false negative) – say it does not work when it does • Problems • Uncertainty about performance indicators • Data can be manipulated to produce different results • Goal differences between the official and that of implementers • Correct time frame in which to evaluate? • Too early • Too late • Justifying a program (internal evaluation, always good, external evaluation, always bad) • Seldom Terminate a Program • Legislator and bureaucrat have a vested interest • Recipients lobby • Part of another program/policy • Success if: • Program goals are well defined • Program goals are plausible • Intended use of info well defined (tailoring)
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  Government Productivity • Withlimited resources/funding/use of tax dollars we want to ensure that we are producing maximum results • Productivity – measurable relationship between the results produced and the resources required for production • Hard to measure in the public sector • Not purely economic results • Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) • Shift from inputs to outputs • Requires managers to find new ways to measure results • Set targets/define goals • Report actual performance • Required for all federal agencies • Focus on productivity grows as resources become more limited, public expects results • Benchmarking – compare your performance to the performance of organizations considered the best at performing the process/program and test it against your own performance
• 13.
  Other Issues • Increasedfocus on business values/customer service focus • Privatization