Public Accountability: Performance Measurement, The Extended State, And The Search For Trust

In an Academy partnership with the Kettering Foundation, National Academy of Pubic Administration Fellows Melvin J. Dubnick and H. George Frederickson have completed a study of accountability. The study, Public Accountability: Performance Measurement, The Extended State, and the Search for Trust, is a treatment of the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary applications of accountability to public affairs. The working title of the study was Public Accountability: From Ambulance Chasing to Accident Prevention, but that title was thought to lack the dignity such an important subject deserves. Dubnick and Frederickson challenge the often assumed relationship between performance measurement and accountability. They give special attention to accountability challenges associated with the outsourcing of government work, what they call the Extended State. And, they provide examples of effective public accountability in the context of high trust public-private partnerships

Keeping America's Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Summarizes Health and Human Services' food safety programs, highlights concerns about current laws and policies, and outlines reform proposals. Suggests creating a Food Safety Administration to coordinate policy, inspection, and enforcement activities

The transformation of community hospitals through the transition to value-based care: Lessons from Massachusetts

Enabling community hospitals to provide efficient and effective care and maintain competition on par with their academic medical center (AMC) counterparts remain challenges for most states. Advancing accountable care readiness adds to the complexity of these challenges. Community hospitals experience narrower operating margins and more limited access to large populations than their AMC counterparts, making the shift to value-based care difficult. Massachusetts has taken legislative action to ensure a statewide focus on reducing healthcare costs, which includes a nearly $120-million grant program supporting community hospital and system transformation toward a value-based environment. The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission’s Community Hospital Acceleration, Revitalization and Transformation (CHART) investment program is the state’s largest effort to date aimed at readying community hospitals for value-based care. In doing so, Massachusetts has created the largest state-driven, all-payer (payer-blind) readmission reduction initiative in the country. n this paper, we examine the design and evolution of CHART Phases 1 and 2 and offer insights for other states contemplating innovative approaches to bolstering community hospital participation in value-based care models

Harmonisation, decentralisation and local governance: Enhancing aid effectiveness

During the last decades, international development assistance was often marked by overlaps, duplication of efforts and rivalry between multitudes of donor organisations. In order to translate the principles of the Paris Declaration into practice in the field of Local Governance and Decentralisation (LGD), different donor organisations have joined forces on headquarter level and formed a working group, the Development Partners Working Group for Local Governance and Decentralisation (DPWG-LGD), which is operating since 2006. InWEnt is hosting the secretariat of the group since 2008 and assigned Wageningen International to organise two lead donor workshops. The workshop drew a cross section of delegates who comprised development partners, consultants, academicians, members of parliament and local governance practitioners. The partner countries included Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda whose experiences were mutually re-enforcing and beneficial

United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Kenya

The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (2014-2018) for Kenya is an expression of the UN's commitment to support the Kenyan people in their self-articulated development aspirations. This UNDAF has been developed according to the principles of UN Delivering as One (DaO), aimed at ensuring Government ownership, demonstrated through UNDAF's full alignment to Government priorities and planning cycles, as well as internal coherence among UN agencies and programmes operating in Kenya. The UNDAF narrative includes five recommended sections: Introduction and Country Context, UNDAF Results, Resource Estimates, Implementation Arrangements, and Monitoring and Evaluation as well as a Results and Resources Annex. Developed under the leadership of the Government, the UNDAF reflects the efforts of all UN agencies working in Kenya and is shaped by the five UNDG programming principles: Human Rights-based approach, gender equality, environmental sustainability, capacity development, and results based management. The UNDAF working groups have developed a truly broad-based Results Framework, in collaboration with Civil Society, donors and other partners. The UNDAF has four Strategic Results Areas: 1) Transformational Governance encompassing Policy and Institutional Frameworks; Democratic Participation and Human Rights; Devolution and Accountability; and Evidence-based Decision-making, 2) Human Capital Development comprised of Education and Learning; Health, including Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Environmental Preservation, Food Availability and Nutrition; Multi-sectoral HIV and AIDS Response; and Social Protection, 3) Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth, with Improving the Business Environment; Strengthening Productive Sectors and Trade; and Promoting Job Creation, Skills Development and Improved Working Conditions, and 4) Environmental Sustainability, Land Management and Human Security including Policy and Legal Framework Development; and Peace, Community Security and Resilience. The UNDAF Results Areas are aligned with the three Pillars (Political, Social and Economic) of the Government's Vision 2030 transformational agenda

Outcomes-based Funding and Responsibility Center Management: Combining the Best of State and Institutional Budget Models to Achieve Shared Goals

State governments serve as a key funding source for public higher education. An alternative to historically based state subsidies or enrollment-based formulas, outcomes-based funding allows states to convey goals for higher education by allocating state tax dollars based on measures of outcomes. Within higher education institutions, the Responsibility Center Management model engages deans and other mid-level managers in the responsibility and accountability for revenue generation as well as expense management. Policymakers will benefit from understanding this approach and how it could be used in concert with outcomes-based funding to support the development and delivery of new academic paradigms, expand access to underrepresented students, and, ultimately, increase educational attainment for a greater number of people. This article describes the potential alignment between incentives created by the Responsibility Center Management model and goals of outcomesbased funding. With an integration of the two models, there is a greater assurance of achieving the goals of both—fiscal sustainability and student success. By using Responsibility Center Management, college and university administrators are better able to marshal resources to help students complete their degrees and other credentials while also reaping the benefits of an outcomes-based funding system that directs public funding toward institutions that are doing just that

Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System Performance Report, FY2011

Agency Performance Repor

Sarbanes-Oxley and the Search for Accountable Corporate Governance

Full Tex

ROLE OF REGIONAL HEAD OF STATE’S ATTITUDES IN IMPLEMENTATION OF FINANCE POLICY ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING STANDARDS IN INDONESIA

ndonesian state financial policies have undergone major changes since the release the Law on State Finance package in 2003 and 2004 as well as the Law on Local Government Package of 2004. The legislation has been set up clearly financial management with a transparent and accountable as well as the financial management in the region from President to the Regional Head. This implies a stronger role of the Regional Head in implementing the financial policy in the local government. The financial policy communication to local governments are often disruption whereby the policy is not communicated clearly and consistently. This study is a single case study for examining the phenomenon in which the object of research is the Semarang City Government as the only one that has been implemented government accounting standards accrual-based policy. In adequately of the financial policy’s communication about implementation of government accounting standards accrual-based policy from the central government to the local government can be overcome by the attitude of the Regional Head avoiding uncertainty (uncertainty avoidance) and has a vision for the future (confucian dynamism) so to encourage the attitude of the staff at the local government and also encourage the emergence of support from external parties to support the implementation of the financial policy of the country