This presentation by Peter Van Den Berg, Netherlands, was made at the 35th Meeting of Senior Budget Officials held in Berlin on 12-13 June 2014. Find more information at http://www.oecd.org/gov/budgeting/35thannualmeetingofoecdseniorbudgetofficialssboberlingermany12-13june2014.htm

1. The Evolving Role of
Performance and
Results
Peter van den Berg
dep. Director General Budget,
Netherlands Ministery of Finance
12 June 2014

2. • SBO meeting on Performance and Results, Berlin, Nov
2013
• Observations:
Too high expectations in the past
No alternative for political decision making on
allocation
We all like performance, we all like budgeting,
but the marriage……..
2 Evaluering Role Of Performance and Results
11 June 2014

3. Performance information: what has it been good for?
• More transparancy about policy goals
• More result orientation within government (agencies)
• Basic info, helping evaluations and reviews to inform
resource allocation
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4. Concerns:
• Not giving up line item controls
• Performance information overload
Controversies:
• Are Parliaments really interested?
• Indicator setting by agencies
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5. The way forward
Within a broader perspective:
• Budgeting as a results of political priorization
• In times of austerity
• Within fiscal rules, MTEF, top down budgeting
• In context of evaluations and spending reviews
More performance informed and evidence based
policy making
Ex ante, to address big challenges in fiscal policy
and in society more general
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6. How to improve quality of evaluations?
MoF:
• Providing guidelines, overseeing programming of
policy reviews by spending ministeries
• Programming strategic spending reviews under
supervision MoF
• Involvement independent experts in all types of
evaluations
• Fostering result orientation in formulating policy
proposals ex ante
• Selection of appropriate staff
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