Presentation - “Functioning of the Centres of Government in the Western Balkans - Some key lessons learned from the SIGMA comparative analysis”, Peter Vagi, Senior Adviser, OECD, SIGMA - Regional conference on the functioning of centres of government in the Western Balkans, 22-23 June 2017, Danilovgrad, Montenegro.

1. © OECD
AjointinitiativeoftheOECDandtheEuropeanUnion,
principallyfinancedbytheEU
Functioning of the
Centres of Government
in the Western Balkans
Some key lessons learned from the SIGMA
comparative analysis
Peter Vági
Senior Adviser, SIGMA
Danilovgrad, 22 June 2017
Montenegro

2. AjointinitiativeoftheOECDandtheEuropeanUnion,
principallyfinancedbytheEU
Key characteristics of the analysis
• Based on data from the 2015 Baseline
Measurement and additional
information from 2016
• Covers only the Western Balkans (WB)
• Uses typology to identify common
themes, similarities and key challenges
• Uses EU member country examples for
illustration
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Interviews or
focus groups
Analysis of
administrative
data
Survey
methodology
Analysis of
statistical data
• Focuses on the analysis of the setup and performance of
WB Centre of Governments (CoGs) against the SIGMA
Principles related to:
• The critical functions of the CoG
• Medium-term planning
• Monitoring and reporting
• Preparation and quality assurance of government
decisions

3. AjointinitiativeoftheOECDandtheEuropeanUnion,
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Institutionalisation of the critical CoG functions
• The legal framework for establishing the
critical functions is in place and the
routines ensuring the basic functioning of
the system are well established in the
Western Balkans
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• Preparation of government sessions, ensuring legal conformity and
co-ordinating EI are formally established and fully functional in all the
Western Balkan governments
• General shortcomings identified for the co-ordination of policy
content, where it is not fully functional in any of the WB governments
• Planning (and monitoring) is organised in the most varied way in the
WB, including also additional organisational structures, such as
Delivery Units and alike

4. AjointinitiativeoftheOECDandtheEuropeanUnion,
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Institutional set-up
There are two distinct approaches to
institutional set-up:
 Most functions in one (stronger) institution –
Albania, Kosovo*
 More limited mandate of one central
institution – Montenegro, Serbia, the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
+ BiH State-level Secretariat of the CoM has even
more limited functions
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• Both exists also in EU member countries
• Level of centralisation does not determine efficiency
• Key enablers:
• Co-ordination within the key CoG institution (or lack of it)
• Inter-institutional co-ordination (among key CoG players)
• Capacities (staffing, legal and administrative tools to ensure quality)
• This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 and the Advisory
Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

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Quality assurance for government decisions
• Rules of preparation for decision
making
 Opportunity to exchange opinions
 Procedural requirements for review
(deadlines for submission)
 Quality requirements, including
Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA)
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• The main challenge for all the Western Balkan governments is to fully and
consistently implement the set procedures
• Also hindered by varying, but generally large number of items to review
344
160
2384
1100
357
889
114
2516
710
1182
235
602
138
838
719 716
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
ALB BIH XKV MKD MNE SRB
2013 2014 2015
Items submitted to the government (4th quarter)
• Rights of the CoG institutions in
review
 Returning items on procedural basis
 Returning items on content basis
 Providing (non-binding) opinions

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Planning and prioritisation
• Most of the WB governments use several
central planning documents that make
ensuring coherence more challenging
• None of the Western Balkan economies has a
clear typology or hierarchy for their central
planning documents and alignment with EI
plans is creating further difficulties
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• Planning has been an experimental field for several countries
• Prioritisation approach varies (either separate document in one plan or in
none) and often done by others not directly involved in operational
planning
• Strong bottom-up tendencies in planning, with varying extents of practical
co-ordination by the CoG
• Where it exists, alignment between medium-term and annual plans is an
additional issue
• Medium-term budgeting exists, but is rarely used for sectoral policy
objective setting

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Sectoral planning
• Most of the WB governments have a framework for sectoral planning,
but their maturity varies and implementation is still limited in terms of
co-ordination
• Sectoral plans are still mushrooming and plans for their development are
over-ambitious (annually 10-20, sometimes 30 or more strategies
planned)
• The level of maturity of the system for costing the strategies is very low
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Country
Regulation
exists
Hierarchy of
plans
Typology of
plans
Detailed
requirements
Costing
requirements
Monitoring
requirements
ALB yes no partial yes
partial (link to
MTEF)
partial
BIH State yes yes (partial) yes yes
partial (link to
MTEF)
yes
XKV yes no no partial
partial (link to
MTEF)
no
MKD yes yes yes yes
partial (link to
budgeting)
partial
MNE no N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
SRB no N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

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Implementation of government plans
• Implementation expressed by backlogs varies, but generally high (and
substantially higher for laws and strategies than for other, less complex items)
• The overall challenge is over-optimistic planning, which is partly caused by the
weak co-ordination capacity and lack of authority of the CoG body in charge of
planning
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2014 laws 2015 laws No. of items in 2015
ALB Not available 19.0% 551
BIH State 14.0% 34.0% 217
XKV 48.5% 46.0% 679
MKD 16.0% 16.0% 550
MNE 26.0% 19.5% 233
SRB 49.0% 33.9% 853

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Monitoring the work of the government
• Key functions of monitoring and reporting:
regular review of how the government
performs in achieving its objectives (to take
corrective measures when necessary) and
accountability and public scrutiny
• Neither function is fully served by existing
WB monitoring practices
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• Public availability of reports is not the norm and nor is it shared with
parliaments
• Reports generally focus on outputs, but not assessment of progress against
objectives
• Reporting on sector strategies is not fully in place in any of the WB economies
• Feedback from monitoring to planning is not general practice

10. AjointinitiativeoftheOECDandtheEuropeanUnion,
principallyfinancedbytheEU
Go to: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/2bad1e9c-en
Website: www.sigmaweb.org
E-mail: sigmaweb@oecd.org
Thank you!
To find out more about the
study and SIGMA:
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