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Benchmarking

“Benchmarking in Federal Systems”

benchmarking

Benchmarking exercises have been widely adopted in federal systems. All federations face the issue of balancing the interests of the federal government in key areas of public policy with the desire of constituent units to have autonomy or at least flexibility in terms of how they manage major programs. In many federations, the federal governments using legal instruments or the spending power tied down the constituent units with very detailed restrictions regarding program inputs and management. This was often manifestly inefficient and led to a backlash. Thus, in many federations there has been a trend towards a different kind of relationship between the federal and constituent unit governments in areas of joint interest. Conditions imposed on constituent units are becoming less restrictive. As such controls are loosened many federations are showing a strong interest in benchmarking in order to determine ‘good’ or ‘best practices’. Accordingly, another key objective of benchmarking operations in federal systems is to learn from one another.
The program “Benchmarking in Federal Systems” aims at generating comparative knowledge on the experiences of federal systems in introducing benchmarking methods in policies executed by constituent units as a way to foster learning and to improve performance. The program will have an explicit focus on the implications of using benchmarking as an alternative to controls tied to fiscal transfers but also on the politics of benchmarking – how to put it in place and make it work. Finally, alternatives to benchmarking should be considered.

Alan Fena A first deliverable of the program will be a comparative study, put together by the Forum’s lead-expert on this program, Prof. Alan Fenna, The John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Australia. A lot of research has been conducted on the techniques of benchmarking already. But as of yet, no comparison has been made drawing out lessons learnt with a special focus on federal systems.

The Forum of Federations has already worked on this subject. In cooperation with the German Federal Ministry of Interior, it conducted a one-day workshop on this subject in Berlin in February 2008, drawing on Australian, Canadian, US-American and Swiss experience feeding into the German debate about introducing benchmarks in an effort to increase transparency with respect to the costs and capabilities of the Federal and Länder administrations.

Drawing on the Berlin-workshop, the planned program would go further in studying comparative experiences with benchmarking in other federations and the EU (as a quasi federal entity). It is anticipated that the focus will be on relevant experiences in OECD-type federations (Australia, Canada, Germany, European Union, Switzerland, Spain, United States).
This program is designed for practitioners. It intends to identify “good practices” and lessons-learnt which could inform and stimulate ongoing debates on benchmarking in other federal countries.

For further inquiries please contact Felix Knuepling at knuepling@forumfed.org