This chapter provides an overview of Estonia’s and Finland’s institutional set-ups corresponding to the Centre of Government and highlights that both countries share similar Centre of Government structures. It emphasises the need for strong co-ordination among Centre of Government institutions to achieve successful whole-of-government strategy steering.

This chapter examines the Centre of Government’s capacity to steer strategy setting and implementation effectively in Estonia and Finland. It provides an overview of the state of strategy setting and implementation in both countries, and highlights similar challenges faced by each country. It notes recent advancements in reforming strategy setting and implementation processes while emphasising the need to better link budgeting with strategy setting, to ensure whole-of-cabinet decision making and to enhance the strategic visioning of the government’s strategy.

This chapter examines the ability of the governments of Estonia and Finland to take effective decisions based on a robust set of evidence. It provides an overview of the state of evidence-based decision making in both countries, and assesses it as a function of their capacity to effectively generate and integrate regulatory impact assessment, performance information, citizen engagement, strategic foresight information and existing knowledge bases into government’s decisions. The chapter notes recent advancements in improving these processes while emphasising the need to formalise institutional arrangements to foster evidence-based decision making in order to ensure major legislative and strategic initiatives have been informed by a robust set of evidence.

This chapter examines the flexibility the governments of Estonia and Finland have in reallocating resources to address shifting strategic priorities. It provides an overview of the current state of structural and resource flexibility in the two countries and highlights recent successes at governance reform to address these challenges. It assesses for each country how joint action by the Centre of Government institutions is being pursued to enable coherence in policy making to meet shifting demands, and how nimbly or flexibly they can move human, financial and institutional resources across the government to respond to emerging strategic priorities. This chapter underscores the need to enhance flexibility in financial-resource allocation through tools such as contingency funds and spending reviews, while also enhancing flexibility in human resource management and in institutions, by breaking down institutional and regulatory barriers.