Government at a Glance 2021

Glossary

 

Agencies	Organisations at the central level of government which, although typically in the organisational hierarchy are located under the authority of line ministries and report to a minister, can also in some cases report directly to the president, prime minister or cabinet.
Allocation	The designation of funds in the budget to a government programme or organisation. Central budget authorities and line ministries may, based on performance information, increase or reduce their allocations.
Budget	A comprehensive statement of government financial plans which include expenditures, revenues, deficit or surplus and debt. The budget is the government’s main economic policy document, demonstrating how the government plans to use public resources to meet policy goals and- to some extent- indicating where its policy priorities lie.
Central Budget Authority	The central budget authority (CBA) is a public entity, or several co-ordinated entities, located at the central/national/federal level of government, which is responsible for budget formulation and oversight. In many countries, the CBA is often within or is synonymous with the ministry of finance/economy.
Centre of Government	The centre of government (CoG) is the institution, or group of institutions, that provides direct support to the chief executive, i.e. president or prime minister, who leads the management of government. Unlike line ministries and other government agencies, the CoG does not deliver services directly to the citizens, and it does not focus on a specific policy area. On the contrary, the CoG performs cross-government functions such as setting overall policy direction and coordinating the activities of different ministries and agencies.
Civil Servant	Civil servants are only those public employees covered under a specific public legal framework or other specific provisions.
Consultation	A more advanced level of participation that entails a two-way relationship in which stakeholders provide feedback to the government and vice-versa. It is based on the prior definition of the issue for which views are being sought and requires the provision of relevant information, in addition to feedback on the outcomes of the process.
Data	A value or set of values representing a specific concept or concepts. Data become “information” when analysed and possibly combined with other data in order to extract meaning, and to provide context.
Digital by default (front-office aspect)	This refers to the decision of making the use of online platforms and channels mandatory or as a clearly preferred means for the interaction of citizens and businesses (e.g. access to public services) with the public sector.
Digital by design (back-office aspect)	The extent to which a government embeds the full potential of digital technologies right from the start when formulating policies and designing services, e.g. digitalising internal processes (“zero paper administration”) with the intent to rethink, reengineer and simplify them and make service delivery efficient, inclusive and sustainable for citizens and businesses regardless of the channel used to interact with the public authorities (OECD Concept Note “Digital Government Framework”).
Digital Government	Digital government refers to the use of digital technologies, as an integrated part of governments’ modernisation strategies, to create public value. It relies on a digital government ecosystem comprised of government actors, non-governmental organisations, businesses, citizens’ associations and individuals which supports the production of and access to data, services and content through interactions with the government (OECD Recommendation on Digital Government Strategies).
Effectiveness	The extent to which a policy, programme and/or organisation’s stated objectives have been met.
Efficiency	Costs per unit of output. Measuring efficiency aims to measure whether policies, programmes, and/or organisations are achieving the maximum output from a given level of resources (inputs).
Employee engagement	Employees’ willingness and ability to invest themselves and their work in the organisation’s goals. Employee engagement describes and measures the link between employees, the work they do and the organisations within which they work. The OECD measures employee engagement by assessing job satisfaction, work engagement, and organisational commitment.
Engagement	When stakeholders are given the opportunity and the necessary resources (e.g.information, data and digital tools) to collaborate during all phases of the policy-cycle and inthe service design and delivery.
Ex-ante green budget tagging	The tagging of budget measures in advance of budget execution (i.e. as part of the budget proposal, draft budgetary plans or also budget law) to inform the budget’s relevance and contribution to environmental and climate objectives.
Ex-post green budget tagging	The tagging of budget measures after final allocation and/or execution of budget measures to inform the budget’s relevance and contribution to environmental and climate objectives.
Full-time equivalent (FTE)	A full time equivalent is a unit to measure employed persons in a way that makes them comparable although they may work a different number of hours per week. The unit is obtained by comparing an employee’s average number of hours worked to the average number of hours of a full-time worker. A full-time worker is therefore counted as one FTE, while a part-time worker gets a score in proportion to the hours he or she works.
General employment framework in the public service	Framework establishing the employment conditions for most central government public employees. Legally, this framework can be embodied in civil service or public service law, labour law, or a combination.
Green budget tagging	The identification and tracking of budget measures in accordance to their environmental and/or climate impact. The scope of tagging can include relevant expenditures and revenues that have direct or indirect effects on the climate and environment.
Green budgeting	Using the tools of budgetary policy-making to help achieve environmental and climate goals. This includes evaluating environmental impacts of budgetary and fiscal policies and assessing their coherence towards the delivery of national and international commitments. Green budgeting can also contribute to informed, evidence-based debate and discussion on sustainable growth.
Headcount	The total number of people employed by an organisation
High level official	A senior public official in the ministry. For example permanent secretary, departmental secretary, state secretary, secretary-general, deputy minister, etc.
ICT (Information Communications Technology)	Refers to information technology equipment (computers and related hardware), communications equipment, and software (financial management information systems).
Informal consultation with selected groups	Ad hoc meetings with selected interested parties, held at the discretion of regulators (OECD Regulatory Indicators Questionnaire 2008).
Inputs	Measures of the units of labour, capital, goods and services (or the costs of such units) utilised by government organisations or government-financed organisations to produce public goods and services.
Line Ministries	Central government organisations responsible for designing and implementing policies in line with wider Government policies, and for the direction of agencies/executive units under their authority. Line ministries may be called departments in some countries, and have responsibility for their own budget portfolios although they must report to central budget authorities and are subject to their review.
Minister	The most senior political role within a portfolio. In Westminster system governments, these are typically styled “ministers”, but the title varies (OECD Best Practice Principles of the Governance of Regulators, 2014).
Ministry	The term ministry is used in the same way as departments and refers to the organisation headed by a minister/secretary of state who is in direct hierarchical relationship with staff below.
National government	The national, central, or federal government that exercises authority over the entire economic territory of a country, as opposed to local and regional governments.
Outcomes	Outcomes refer to what is ultimately achieved by an activity. Outcomes reflect the intended and/or unintended results of government actions (e.g. policies, programmes and other activities). Examples of outcomes include the change in student test scores following an increase in hours taught, the change in the incidence of a disease following an immunisation programme, or the change in income inequality following the introduction of a new welfare payment. Outcomes are a broader performance metric than outputs, and are harder to measure since generally factors outside of the governments’ intervention also play a role in influencing outcomes.
Outputs	Outputs are defined as goods and services produced and/or provided by government (or government financed) organisations. These measures are derived from the direct measurement of output volume. Some examples include: teaching hours delivered, immunisations provided or welfare benefits paid. Outputs tend to be easier to measure than outcomes.
Policy	A government policy is a decision determined by the government to (i) address socio-economic challenges in a country (or in the case of foreign policy, in the country’s relations with other countries) and usually also decisions about (ii) how these challenges will be addressed. Policies are governments’ main tools for guiding action, and are typically expressed in laws/regulations, official policy statements or guidelines, and institutions which then result in programmes and specific initiatives financed and/or conducted by government organizations to address these challenges. In addition to foreign policy (e.g. rules for governing a Government’s relations with other countries), Governments enact fiscal policy (e.g. rules for governing a government’s actions with respect to aggregate levels of revenue and spending), monetary policy (e.g. rules for governing a government’s influence over money market and credit conditions), as well as environmental policy and social policy (among others).
Regulators	Administrators in government departments and other agencies responsible for making and enforcing regulation (OECD Regulatory Indicators Questionnaire 2008).
Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA)	Systematic process of identification and quantification of benefits and costs likely to flow from regulatory or non-regulatory options for a policy under consideration. May be based on benefit/cost analysis, cost effectiveness analysis, business impact analysis etc. (adapted from OECD Regulatory Indicators Questionnaire 2008).
Regulatory policy	The set of rules, procedures and institutions introduced by government for the express purpose of developing, administering and reviewing regulation.
Regulatory reform	Changes that improve regulatory quality, that is, enhance the performance, cost-effectiveness, or legal quality of regulation and formalities. “Deregulation” is a subset of regulatory reform (OECD Regulatory Indicators Questionnaire 2008).
Resilience	“The capacity of systems to absorb a disturbance, recover from disruptions and adapt to changing conditions while retaining essentially the same function as prior to the disruptive shock” (OECD, 2019).
Risk	Risk should be understood as the combination of the likelihood of an adverse event (hazard, harm) occurring, and of the potential magnitude of the damage caused (itself combining the number of people affected, and severity of the damage for each) (OECD, Best Practice Principles of Regulatory Enforcement and Inspections, 2014).
Risk Management	Risk management is the application of policies and strategies to preventnew risk, reduce existing risk and manage residual risk, contributing to the strengthening ofresilience and reduction of damages and losses
Spending Reviews	A spending review is the process of identifying scope to make savings, either to reduce overall government expenditure or to identify fiscal space, enabling resources to be reallocated in line with with the government’s policy priorities. Spending reviews differ from other types of evaluation by looking not only at programme effectiveness and efficiency under current funding levels, but also examining the consequences for outputs and outcomes of alternative funding levels. Spending reviews will typically review baseline expenditures and may also include specific targets for spending reductions. Spending reviews may be broad based, covering all government expenditures, or limited to certain ministries or programmes.
Strategy	Refers to a document (e.g. policy document, white paper) that defines the vision, objectives, goals, main actors, main actions and system of monitoring (indicators).
Subordinate regulation	Regulations that can be approved by the head of government, by an individual minister or by the cabinet - that is, by an authority other than the parliament/congress. Please note that many subordinate regulations are subject to disallowance by the parliament/congress. Subordinate regulations are also referred to as “secondary legislation” or “subordinate legislation” or “delegated legislation” (Adapted from OECD Regulatory Indicators Questionnaire 2008).
User	A user is understood as citizens, legal entities such as businesses or non-governmental organisations, or civil servants within the public sector itself. The user is most commonly understood as citizens and businesses.