Policy Making and Planning within Ministries: Ways to simplify and co-ordinate

• Published in: Veftímaritið Stjórnmál og stjórnsýsla
• Main Authors: Héðinn Unnsteinsson, Pétur Berg Matthíasson
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Icelandic
• Published: University of Iceland 2012
• Subjects: Stefna; stefnumótun; áætlanagerð; samhæfing; Ísland 2020; Political institutions and public administration (General); JF20-2112; Political science (General); JA1-92; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.13177/irpa.a.2012.8.1.7; https://doaj.org/article/44e0b6f28771468198dd68d84167c968

The coalition government in Iceland launched the 20/20 Moving Iceland Forward Initiative in 2009. The results of the data collection and the analysis that took place as part of that initiative led to the strategic vision, Iceland 2020. One of the objectives set out in Iceland 2020 is to simplify, reduce and integrate major policies and plans of Ministries and agencies that have been developed in recent years. The basis of this work was the analysis of 11 major policies and plans with the aim of developing concrete recommendations on how policy and planning needs to change within the Icelandic Public Administration. The results of the analysis was that 198 criteria’s were analysed, 18 criteria’s for each of the 11 policies. 108 fulfilled the criteria (55%), 52 partially fulfilled it (26%) and 38 were not present (19%). In general, the strength of the Icelandic administration is mainly in the preparation, analysis, goals and objectives setting during the policy process. The weaknesses lie in the lack of connection with funding, poor implementation and insufficient monitoring and evaluation. This paper sets out proposals for a new vision and methodology on how public policy and planning within the Icelandic Public Administration should be executed. They include adding perspective and practices to the process by reducing policies and plans; linking policies and planning within Ministries to the national budgetary process and guidelines to ensure that performance measurement and monitoring is always available.