Steering from the Centre of Government in Times of Complexity
Compendium of Practices
From steering decision-making in times of complexity to stewarding cross-cutting policies and guiding good practices across the public administration, centres of government (CoGs) play an important role in achieving government ambitions. CoGs have recently found themselves under pressure to help navigate increasingly complex policy challenges in an environment characterised by multiple crises, polarisation and declining trust in public institutions. This compendium gathers and shares practices and experiences of CoGs in undertaking their various roles and functions. It describes the mechanisms CoGs use in roles such as bridging the political-administrative interface, stewarding cross-cutting policies, guiding public administration reform, and engaging with citizens and other stakeholders. Finally, it discusses the lessons learnt and key enablers that emerge from the experiences. This compendium serves CoG leaders and government officials who seek to better understand the role of the centre in contributing to better outcomes for citizens and society.
Guiding high-performing public administrations from the centre
As stewards of the public administration, centres of government (CoGs) are often responsible for setting the tone and culture in the public sector, including through steering public administration reform (PAR) efforts. This is becoming increasingly important as governments worldwide seek to modernise their methods to better reflect the changing environment and citizens’ needs. PARs are long-term and challenging and, as such, require good co-ordination and top-level buy-in. This chapter discusses the role that the CoG must play in PARs, including effective mechanisms, such as resource allocation, political prioritisation, monitoring, stakeholder consultation and communication, for doing so. PARs are context-specific and effective ones must be fit for purpose. Given this, this chapter provides specific practical examples of co-ordination efforts from the CoG in driving PARs, focusing on new or binding mechanisms, central management and steering, initiation and oversight, utilising existing guiding and co-ordination mechanisms and a focus on monitoring or management tools.
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