A public policy evaluation model for a more transparent and effective administration
BOE 21 December 2022
The pandemic has highlighted the key, essential and irreplaceable role of the state in providing an effective public service response in an environment of enormous uncertainty. Recent years have shown that the sole purpose of public administrations is to serve citizens, guarantee their rights and freedoms and offer public services and benefits in line with a cohesive and fair society. This is, in short, the backbone of the model of the autonomous State and of welfare in the country as a whole.
The Law on the Institutionalisation of Public Policy Evaluation
Today, public value is one of the levers of change that must guide the process of transforming the administration. This includes a transversal vision with a focus on the rights and freedoms of citizens, under a global, systemic and holistic view.
It is under this premise that the Law for the Institutionalisation of the Evaluation of Public Policies in the General State Administration (Law 27/2022 of 20 December), a law that seeks to promote the culture of evaluation through a system of analysis of the measures adopted and policies implemented by the executive branch, was created.
The law is structured in thirty-two articles distributed in four titles, including the preliminary title; six additional provisions, one transitional provision and three final provisions.
The public value we are talking about is intrinsically linked to the final objectives pursued by this regulation, which are:
- Optimise the public decision-making process.
- To promote innovation in the performance of the public sector.
- Collaborate to ensure that the state public sector is efficient in the allocation and use of public resources.
- Enable accountability and accountability to society.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has highlighted the importance of institutionalising the evaluation of public policies and the need for a regulatory framework for its practice. In this way, the effective and efficient use of public resources can be improved and the decision-making process can be made more transparent, always with the ultimate goal of deepening democratic principles.
Internationally, there is no single model for institutionalising evaluation. Nor did Spain previously have a common integrating framework that would provide the basic tools and elements to promote a public policy evaluation policy.
What's new in this new law
The Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, of which this new law forms part, recognises the usefulness of spending review processes and undertakes to give them continuity and permanence. To this end, a permanent evaluation division will be created within AIReF (Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility) and other elements will be introduced that contribute to improving the systematisation and planning of spending reviews.
With the approval of the regulation, a legal instrument is provided to decisively tackle (if and only if the necessary financial resources are dedicated to demand compliance with the law, professional resources to promote the tasks entrusted to the National Evaluation Agency and a great deal of political will) the evaluation of public policies, opening up channels for public-private collaboration to concentrate talent in order to analyse and demonstrate the impact of public policies on issues as crucial for citizens and the improvement of the Welfare State as gender equality, the environment and the energy transition.
It is also linked to the extension of social rights; depopulation and the demographic challenge; economic growth; decent, stable and quality employment; intergenerational solidarity; redistribution of wealth; adaptation to European regulations and guidelines; or the appropriate alignment of the different public interventions with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda and the integral system of policy coherence for Sustainable Development and taking into account the provisions of Organic Law 3/2007, of 22 March, for the effective equality of women and men in relation to the mainstreaming of the principle of equality between persons of different sexes.
In short, the Law on the Evaluation of Public Policies forms a robust and coherent system for cultural change that entails the demand for rigour and the improvement of the quality, design, implementation and evaluation of public policies in Spain. This, moreover, is complemented by the actions envisaged in Component 29 relating to the reinforcement of ex-post evaluation through the public spending reviews carried out by the Independent Accountability Authority (AIReF).
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