INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS OF THE CENTRAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AUTHORITIES (CPAA)

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

1.This document provides the central public administration authorities with guidance on how to prepare their Medium Term Institutional Development Plans (IDPs). It explains the rationale for such plans and how they will create value to the current strategic planning system in the Government. It then outlines the general provisions regarding the IDP, which include requirements for IDPs in terms of contents, planning time frame, and coverage. It follows by outlining the main planning steps and approval mechanisms. It concludes with requirements for organizing the process inside the specialized central bodies of the public administration and how the monitoring of implementation for the IDP should be organized. The guide on the application of the respective Methodology provides a more detailed description of what the chapters of the plan should contain and how they should be prepared. This can be used as a supplementary tool during preparation of the IDPs.CPAA are also encouraged to use other tools for the institutional assessment, such as the Common Assessment Framework or CAF, for example[1].

Strategic planning is used across public administration for the purpose of reuniting in a single management framework such issues like public policy planning, budget planning, priority setting and organizational planning. At the same time, a functional strategic planning process within central public administration ensures an efficient and coherent implementation of the policies set by Government.

Here are the main characteristics of the IDPs: a medium term vision, internal and external environment analysis, as well as the identification of the main factors involved in the process, the analysis of the available resources, the setting of some measurable objectives and their correlation with the budgeting conditions.

Background

2.Moldova is introducing a new national strategic planning document – the National Development Strategy[2] (NDS).It is intended as a framework within which the Government will identify and decide on new priority objectives for the country and programs, reforms and projects needed to achieve the national goals. The NDS will involve 2 parts. First, it will have a strategy part (Strategy Document) that describes the long term development goals for the country, and the general strategy for achieving the goals. This part will be reviewed every four to five years. It will also have an Action Plan, which describes specific initiatives to achieve national priorities. The Action Plan will be created for a period of four years. Every year, the Action Plan will be updated. The NDS will thus become a policy document for the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) both nationally and in each sector. NDS will provide the main policy priorities that will guide the development of MTEF. The later will be the mechanism through which the NDS Action Plan is funded. In future the financial implications of the NDS Action Plan will be fully and explicitly integrated into the MTEF.

3.At the same time there are other national ministry level strategic documents. The Government Activity Program is the central document setting overall directions of activity for all ministries. At the national level there is also the Moldova – EU Action Plan, which sets out the main tasks for the country to complete in order to achieve closer integration with the EU. There is also the Strategy of Central Public Administration Reform and its Action Plan that requires ministries to develop specific organizational restructuring and capacity building measures in order to better achieve government objectives. There are other national level documents besides the mentioned ones. CPAAs develop different sector and cross-sector policy documents – all containing goals and objectives that they must achieve. There are hundreds of policy documents in force.

4.The above described plethora of various plans and reports coupled with a rather weak CPAA capacity stemming from the lack of sufficient number of staff makes it difficult, if not impossible, for ministries in Moldova to plan, prioritize, resource, implement and report strategically. At the level of the whole Government this problem is already being addressed through introduction of the NDS which along with the MTEF are the two key national priority and resource allocation documents.

However, at the level of CPAA there is no tool that would allow them to audit and reconcile various priorities and commitments, as expressed in the Government Program, Moldova-EU Action Plan and numerous other documents, with the NDS and MTEF, and to identify gaps in capacity and structures that are needed to accomplish those reconciled priorities and commitments.

5.The Disposition of the Prime Minister no. 2503-192 of 18 December 2007 requires ministries and other central administrative authorities to prepare Institutional Development Plans for 2009-2011. These plans are intended as a tool for prioritizing the activity of the central administrative authorities, for planning and monitoring, for identifying the needs of institutional capacity development in order to achieve different policy objectives and priorities set in the sector and national policy documents, particularly in NDS. As such, the IDPs will fill the current planning gap at the CPAA level.

6.According to the respective disposition, ministries will have to prepare IDPs by 1 July 2008, while the other central administrative authorities – by 1 November 2008.

Place and Role of the Institutional Development Plans in the Strategic Planning System

7.With the adoption of the NDS, at the level of each ministry it is important to reconcile the main actions and sub-actions in the NDS with the many other commitments made in other government plans, including the Government Program and other approved national strategic documents. IDP is intended as ministry business and organizational development planning tool that will accomplish this task. In order to ensure effective reconciliation and prioritization of various commitments IDPs will be based on MTEF, e.g. sector expenditure strategies. So far such strategies have been developed for education, health, social protection, agriculture, defense and culture sectors; however, it is expected that they will cover all sectors. This relationship between the IDP and the NDS, MTEF and other planning documents is demonstrated in the scheme below.

IDP Objectives

8.The IDP of each authority has to:

  • Clearly define the mission of the public authority and to clearly present its operational responsibilities, its structures and subordinated institutions;
  • Identify, reconcile and prioritize in terms of implementation the broad array of priorities and commitments of the public authority and its subordinated institutions in line with the NDS and MTEF. The commitments in the NDS, particularly its Action Plan, and in the MTEF are the most important priorities. The IDP will reflect the way these tasks and objectives will be implemented. Any prioritization should be undertaken based on the funding provided in the MTEF;
  • Based on reconciled priorities – identify capacity (people, their skills, internal systems) and organizational (structures and responsibilities) gaps and measures to address those gaps.

9.The implementation of the priorities set in the IDP will be based on theministerial annual activity plans. Thus, the annual activity plans of the central administrative authorities will reflect the concrete measures to implement the IDP, being at the same time a tool for monitoring the implementation of the IDP.

Planning Timeframe

10.The cycle for preparing IDPs is integrated with the NDS and MTEF planning cycle. Thus, in the future years, preparation of IDP will follow the approval of the draft NDS Action Plan and the draft MTEF and will be correlated with the elaboration of the country budget. The timeframe of the IDPs corresponds to the timeframe of the MTEF. They are cyclic papers, updated annually, by adding a year to the planning period.

11.The first draft of the IDPs will be prepared for a three year period (2009-2011).

12.All ministries and other central administrative authoritiesare required to develop IDPs, as they are included in the strategic planning system,. Each plan should cover not only central authority level, but also the subordinated institutions. Thus, the IDP will cover all areas led by the central authority.

13.In cases where the mandate of an authority falls closely in the area of activity of some other institution of the Central Public Administration, the authority should consult the related institution during the planning process. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry should closely consult the Agro-Industrial Agency Moldova Vin.

Requirements to the Structure and Contents of the IDP

14.The IDP will be an evolving document. As the capacity of the authorities will increase, its content requirements will gradually evolve from the basic information to more advanced business planning. At the beginning of each new planning cycle, the Policy Coordination Analysis Department (PCAD) of the Government Office will issue specific guidelines on how the planning should be undertaken and what are the changes compared to the previous planning period.

15.In the first planning cycle (2009-2011), the IDPs shall include information regarding the following aspects:

  • Outline of mandate and main directions of activity;
  • Summary of the analysis of internal (capacity assessment) and external environment and their impact on the institution and identification of the specific measures of capacity building;
  • Summary of the analysis of tasks and objectives of the authority as contained in national and sector policy documents;
  • Outline of the key medium term priorities using NDS / MTEF as the main criteria for selection;
  • Annexes outlining the policy priorities and commitments identified and those proposed for abandoning and postponing.

16.Here is the indicative structure of the IDP:

  1. Mandate
  2. Analysis of the internal environment - Summary of the capacity assessment results and main indicators
  3. Management and Human Resources
  4. Decision Making Process and Communication
  5. Budgetary Planning
  6. Analysis of the external environment and its impact
  7. Strategic objectives, medium term priorities and priority measures
  8. Directions of Activity
  9. Overview of the current situation
  10. Overall and Specific Objectives
  11. Planned Activities and Necessary Budgeting
  12. Units/Institutions in Charge of the Implementation
  13. Expected Results and Performance Indicators
  14. Main Public Policy Documents and Relevant Normative Acts
  15. Planned Drafts of Normative Acts or Policy Documents
  16. Monitoring and Evaluation

Annexes:

Annex 1: Organizational Structure

Annex 2: List of Normative Acts and Policy Documents

Annex 3: Overview ofOngoing and Planned Projects of External Assistance (including technical assistance)

17.Here is an outline of each chapter:

  1. Mandate – describes briefly the role of the public authority, as it is stipulated in the normative provisions en force, stating the areas of competence of the authority, which will be taken out from the normative acts en force or from other strategic documents.
  2. Analysis of the internal environment – This part highlights the strengthsandweaknessesof the institution and analyzes the resources and their management (human resources, financial resources), as well as the decision making process and communication; however it does not confine only to these aspects. The eventual overlapping of functions among departments are also highlighted. In this part, the available information and results of the previous functional analyses will be used.The analysis will involve the institutional capacity development taking into account and stressing the current problems i) management and human resources; ii) decision making process and communication; iii) financial planning. The CPAA has to identify the gaps and to suggest measures to develop the institutional capacities.
  3. Analysis of the external environment–This part describesthe opportunities and threats[3]andat the same time analyzes the institutions and parties which can influence the development of the public authority.
  4. Strategic objectives, medium term priorities and priority measures– This chapter sets the main medium term tasks of the public authority.

The strategic objectivesinvolve the fulfillment of the most important medium and long term tasks of the ministry.

The medium term prioritiesare the priority activities, which the ministry wants to implement in a medium term (3years).

The priority measuresare concrete projects and initiatives, which the ministry will implement in order to proceed to the implementation of the medium term priorities.

This part highlights the strategic directions in the Government Activity Program, National Development Strategy and other national strategic documents which fall under the responsibility of the authority. It also defines the strategic objectives which are to be achieved and priority measures to achieve them. The key public policy documents will be analyzed taking into account the results of the internal and external analysis. While setting the strategic objectives and priorities the connection with NDS or other key policy documents will be specified. The identified priorities and strategic objectives must be in line with the mission of the public authority.

All the priorities identified in the NDS are to be taken up in the IDP.

  1. Directions of activity– key public policy directionsof the authority (main fields led by the authority). All these directions of activity make the mission of the public authority.

The following information will be presented for each direction of activity:

5.1Overview of the current situation- presents the achieved results and the main problems which must be addressed in future, the rest of the institutions – partners (if it is the case) in the respective direction of activity. When possible the description of the current situation should include quantified statistical data regarding the situation of the whole public policy field which falls under the responsibility of the respective institution. On one hand this is a summary of the real state of things, showing the figures which will be applied to measuring the recorded progress.

5.2Overall and specific objectives–This part defines theoverall and specific objectives for each area of public policies led by the public authority. The objectives should clearly reflect the main objective of the direction of activity, listing the elements which will be improved. As far as it concerns the specific objectives, they should be formulated according to the SMART method (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely), which would allow further monitoring and assessment.

5.3Planned activities and necessary budgeting –
Thispartpresents the activities planned to be undertaken in order to achieve the objectives of the direction of activity and estimates the financial resources needed to implement the activities, the financial sources and the expected outputs. While estimating the costs, the budget of the authority for the previous year will be analyzed, along with the papers related to MTEF. The activities meant to develop the administrative capacity will be stipulated separately.

5.4Units/institutionsin charge of the implementation –This part identifies all the public institutions subordinated to the public authority (agencies, services, offices, inspectorates, etc.) which are related somehow to a certain direction of activity and describes briefly their role (particularly the expected results) in the achievement of the identified objectives.

5.5Main expected results and performance indicators–This part provides a brief presentation of what in fact is done within the direction of activity. Where possible the budgetary programs according to which the direction of activity is financed will be specified.The main results refer to the goods and services delivered by the authority (outputs), as well asto the results of the public policies implemented or coordinated by the authority (outcome). The performance indicators show how well these results are achieved by the authorities, as well as the tendencies for the planned period.

5.6Main Public Policy Documents and Relevant Normative Acts– This section provides the list of the main normative acts and the list of the main strategic documents related to the respective direction of activity.Only the normative acts or public policy papers relevant and important to the direction of activitywill be mentioned here.All the normative acts and public policy documents regulating the domain of the direction of activity will be included in the Annex 2 and will be divided into up-to-datepapers and documents which will have to be abrogated or amended.

5.7Planned Drafts of Normative Acts or Policy Documents - This section identifies the public policy documents or drafts of normative acts that the authority intends to elaborate in the following year. The papers drafted but not yet adopted by Government will also be included here.