This document discusses strategies for effectively executing public policy through strategic management and benchmarking. It defines key concepts in public policy including agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Strategic management in the public sector faces challenges in maintaining long-term consistency and accountability. Benchmarking systematically compares processes to best practices. The National Economic and Development Authority plays a role in Philippine development planning, coordination, and project evaluation to strategically achieve national goals.

1. EXECUTING PUBLIC POLICY WITH
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND
BENCHMARKING
Prepared by: Mildred B. Villacorta
MPA Student

2. Nature and Thrust of Public Policy
PUBLIC POLICY
 addresses a host of issues like hosting,
transportation, education, health, social
services, among others
 it creates orderly structures and standards,
and a sense of direction
 a course of action which a government
adopts to tackle specific public concern or
issue in the form of regulations, laws, program
or decisions

3. Three Components of Public Policy
Making
1. Problem – is a particular apprehension that
often requires specific resolution
2. Players – refers to the actors or group of
actors that design specific formula to tackle
the issue at hand
3. Policy – is the finished course of action ready
for implementation

4. Building Public Policy
Public policy commences with the
discovery of a problem and usually the
government is confronted with the varying
ways to deal with it.
a) citizens
b) interest groups
c) private sector

5. Otherwise, the pressure groups may
exploit the situation through different forms
of lobbying techniques as they spot the
problem.
With this, Congress or the legislative
department comes in but in many cases the
government and the citizens may work
together to formulate a sound policy resulting
from public opinion, which is seen as the most
influential factor in policy making process.

6. Public Opinion is Advanced Through:
a) lobby groups
b) survey studies
c) media exposure or mileage
The Policy making process revolves within
several factors which trigger agenda
initiation, government formulation and
implementation, and policy evaluation.

7. Every policy designed for public purpose
aims to bring solvency and normalcy to the
situation once jeopardized. The success of
policy implementation, however, is largely
dependent on policy implementers. This is the
stage of the policy process, which is
purportedly regarded as the common cause of
policy defeat and eventual failure.

8. Does Government Exist? Does It Really
Matter?
Government policies generally are aimed at
achieving the betterment of the lives of the
people in the state, or in crude terms, they refer
to the ability of the government to make things
either better or worst for the people.
The most basic principle is either potentially
true or plausibly false.

9. Public Administration and Public Policy
Aims to examine:
a) how policy was initiated
b) prepared
c) executed and reviewed
d) how the policy outcomes could be
improved for the better

10. Earlier in 1922
Charles Merriam – a political scientist, started to
hypothesize the relationship between political
theory and its application to reality.
Shafritz (2009) – government perpetually suffers
from a problem similar to that faced by
Shakespare’s Hamlet, the indecisive prince of
denmark, who struggled whether “to be or
not to be”

11. Thus, public policy and public administration are
two sides of the same coin. One decides the
other does. They cannot be separated because
one side cannot exist without the other does. But
because policy is a continuous process, it cannot
end with implementation.
Therefore, public administration cannot exist in a
policy vacuum. It must have administrative
structures that are directed by leaders who wish
to do something-if only to maintain the status
quo. Thus, all of public administration is
inherently an instrument of policy, whether that
instrument plays well, poorly, or not at all.

12. Defining Public Policy
Thomas Dye - defined public policy as “
whatever governments choose to do or not to
do.”
Roskins – a political analyst, modified the earlier
definition in this wise: “whatever the
government does to do or not to do”

13. Policy – is a course of action of action or a series
of program adopted by a group or a person or
a government in view to address or respond
to existing issues or concerns.
Issues – is a topic or matter of significance; it is a
recognized part of a political agenda which is
being sought to remedy its spills.
Public Policy – is an action taken by the
government to meet a particular demand
growing out of the society.

14. Public Policy Analysis
a) is the study of how governmental policies are
made and implemented
b) the application of the available knowledge to
governmental policies for the purpose of
improving their formulation and
implementation
c) referred to “the monitoring of different
government agencies that directly affect a
specific community
d) to provide the government with facts and
statistics about the extent to which such
initiatives are working

15. Three Traditional Ethics of Public Administration:
1. effectiveness
2. efficiency
3. economy
Hogwood and Peters (1991) in Hague (2001)
- Declare the profession of policy analysis is to
social science while medicine is to biology.

16. Policy outputs – are those referring to what
government does, or better put
to what government achieves
or fails to achieve
Outputs – are reasonably measurable
Outcomes – are rather harder to quantify since
outcomes are the effects of a policy,
both unforeseen effects and
unintended ones.

17. Policy Outputs Model
Environment
Policy Inputs
Policy Process
or conversion
Policy
Outputs

18. Policymaking Process
Two Aspects:
1) it involves in a link series of actions or events
2) it is a process in the sense that it
distinguishes the ‘how’ of the government
from the ‘what’ of government

19. The Public Policymaking Process
Environment Situationer
---------------
Feedback
Agenda Setting
Policy Decision or Non-
Decision
Implementation of a New
Program
Criticism from Citizens
and Formal Program
Evaluation
Source: Modified from Shafritz, 2009

20. Policy Initiation/Agenda Setting
Initiation
• is the primary stage of policy agenda that
resulted from an issue regarded to come out as a
problem if not attended to appropriately.
• refers to the making of decisions in a certain
aspect where policy initiation determines the
political agenda through identification of
emerging problems as issues of relevance, and by
determining how those significant matters are to
be responded by the government

21. Agenda Setting
• is the process by which ideas or issues bubble
up through the various political channels to
wind up for consideration by a political
institution such as a legislator or court
Policy initiation
• Can be influenced from top leader, state
bureaucrats or lawmakers or “from above”
and “from bottom” is also worth noting

22. The Agenda Setting Process
An issue is
identified by
citizens, groups or a
public policy
Because of the
noise created by its
supporters, formal
decision-makers are
forced to consider
the issue
High publicity like
press release,
violence and the
media, the issue
then is expanded to
larger audience
Modified from Shafritz, 2009

23. Anthony Downs attempts to explain the way in
which many policy problems evolve on the
political agenda. The cycle is premised on the
notion that the public attention rarely remains
focused on any one issue. Downs in Shafritz
(2009) said that the cycle consists of five steps:
1. The pre-problem
2. Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm
3. Recognition of the costs of change
4. Decline of public interest
5. The post-problem stage

24. Policy Formulation
• is the job for government officials, politicians,
consulted groups and key advisers
• entails also the definition of issues, framing of
objectives, and setting priorities
• is the conceptualization stage of policy
process where the detailed development of a
policy is framed into more or less concrete
proposals

25. • includes “not only the translation of broad
proposal into specific and detailed
recommendations but also the filtering out of
proposals and perhaps even the fundamental
recasting of the issue under consideration
As Heywoods (2002) puts it, it is important to note
however, that the final decision which brings the
formulation process to an end, may be little
more, than a formality: discussion, arguments,
and debate having summits thus often ratify or “
rubber stamp” decisions that have effectively
been made elsewhere.

26. Rational and Incremental Models of
Policymaking
Rational Model Incremental Model
Goals are set before means are
considered.
Goals and means are considered together
A good policy is the most appropriate for
the desired ends.
A good policy is one in which all main
actors can agree.
Analysis is comprehensive, all effects of all
options are addressed.
Analysis is selected. The object is good
policy, not the best policy.
Theory is heavily used. Comparison with similar is heavily used.
Modified from Lindblom (1959:81) and Parsons (1995:285) in Hague’s
Policy Process cited in Lazo, 2009

27. Rationalism (Lasswell’s) as a way of formulating
decisions or policies is posited on the
following rational decision-making approach.
Quoting Lasswell’s book seven Significant
phrases for every decision should be
considered:
1. The intelligence phrase, involving an influx of
information
2. The promoting or recommending phrase,
involving activities designed to influence the
outcome

28. 3. The prescribing phase, involving the
articulation of norms
4. The invoking phase, involving establishing
correspondence between prescriptions and
concrete circumstances
5. The application phase, in which the
prescription is executed
6. The appraisal phase, assessing intent in
relation to effect
7. The terminating phase, treating expectations
(right) established while the prescription was
enforce.

29. Policy Implementation
Implementation
• is the process of putting the government
policy into effect; it is total process of
translating a legal mandate, whether an
executive order or an enacted statute, into
appropriate program directives and structures
that provides services or create goods.
• the doing part of public administration

30. Policy implementation
• is also called policy execution, meaning
putting out the policy into practice.
There are some conditions to be required in
order to achieve perfect implementation in
the sense of ensuring that policy is delivered
exactly as intended:
a) a unitary administrative system with a single
line of authority to ensure central control;

31. b) uniform norms and rules that operate
through the system;
c) perfect control;
d) perfect information, perfect communication
and perfect condition;
e) Sufficient time for administrative resources
to be modified.

32. Policy Evaluation
• appraises outcomes of a policy as
implemented; meaning, what the government
achieves
• is the appraisal or review of a policy being
implemented as to its success or failure
Policy appraisal – is the culmination of a course
of action which will result in a decision
whether it will be continued, altered or
terminated

33. It has been said and overly stated that without
the mechanism of policy evaluation, the
government will almost always fail to learn
from its experience. In fact in highly
developed democracies like the United States,
at least 1% of the funds allotted to any
government project or program shall accrue to
system evaluation.

34. Distributive, Preventive, and
Regulatory Policies
Preventive policies – are those courses of
actions intended to curb or derail any
significant impact of an issue or perceived
problem to arise by preventing the occurence
of a shock
Distributive policies – are programs which by
nature aim to provide goods and services
among members to the society

35. Regulatory policies – do impose certain
performance operations, standards of services
delivery and other rules and mandates are
rigid policies to ensure continuity, consistency
and accessibility of these provisions to the
general public

36. Strategic Management and
Benchmarking Approaches
Benchmarking management
• is basically culled from a military strategy of
operation success through tactical planning
and systematic execution
Benchmarking
• is often seen as dramatic and ambitious
management approach to compare or
contrast successful organization endeavors,

37. • it nevertheless proved that benchmarking is
truly something to reckon with as institutions,
public or private, grow in search for winning
ways of dealing and coping with the challenges of
the millennium
• offers new meaning in public administration
as it tries to look into best practices of the other
governmental entities as to how they
operationally work successfully thereby enticing a
unique and more effective governance
framework being demonstrated in some parts of
the world

38. Nature and Thrust of Strategic
Management
6 features that identify a strategic management
approach:
1. The identification of objectives to be
achieved in the future which are often
announced in a vision statement;
2. The adoption of a time frame or planning
horizon in which these objectives are to be
achieved;

39. 3. A systematic analysis o a current
circumstances of an organization especially
its capabilities;
4. An assessment of the environment
surrounding the organization both now and
within the planning horizon;
5. The selection of a strategy for the
achievement of desired objectives by future
date, often comparing various alternatives;
and
6. The integrity of organizational efforts among
this strategy.

40. Strategic Management in the Public
Sector
2 Major Challenges
a) the long term policy consistency required
accommodating the planning and
implementation of the organizational
changes often triggered by the introduction
of new management techniques is hard to
obtain

41. b) the relatively simple accountability model
found in modern private sector organization,
wherein executive directors are responsible
to the board for both strategy formation and
the management of the execution of this
strategy

42. Attempt at Strategizing National
Security Framework
• Was first propounded by Col. E. Dimacali in
1996
• He argued that designing a foreign policy
direction should anchor on multifarious
national goals.
• He propagated the framework of geo politics
vis a vis foreign policy objectives for national
security device

43. Adopting Strategic Management
Approach in the Public Sector
The public sector should juxtapose its strategic
management approach with that of the
private sector strategy in order for the
government to reassess the capability of the
business group in attaining its objectives, or to
compare or compete with them by adopting
some of their best practices or strategies.

44. Benchmarking the Best Practices
• Benchmarking systematically compares work
process with those of competitors or with best
practices in the industry.
• It involves choosing and strategizing key
performance areas in an organization and
often involves entering into cooperative
arrangement with particular organizations.

45. 3 Modalities of benchmarking
Performance
Benchmarking
Progress
Benchmarking
Strategic
Benchmarking

46. The Role of NEDA in Planning
Development
• serves as the national and regional
development plan and program coordinator
based on its mandate from Presidential
Decree 1 and Executive Order 230
• it issues the planning guidelines and
conducts multisectoral and regional
consultations for inputs to the development
plan

47. • it is tasked with the coordination of official
development assistance and the appraisal of
programs and projects and conducts program
and project evaluation and onsite reviews and
consultations
2 Distinct Entities
a. The NEDA Board is a cabinet level board
composed of the major government
departments and is chaired by the President
of the Philippines.

48. b. The Secretariat provides technical and
secretariat services to the different NEDA
Committees, inter-agency bodies in
governments and other clients such as local
government units.
• It is tasked to provide technical staff support
and assistance including the conduct of
studies and the development of policy
measures and other recommendations

49. Source:
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE
PHILIPPINES
by: RICARDO S. LAZO
Chapter 8
EXECUTING PUBLIC POLICY WITH STRATEGIC
MANAGEMENT AND BENCHMARKING