PIA 2020 Introduction to Public Affairs

Managing Budgets and Money

Week 11

PIA 2000 Focus

Themes for the Week:

Bureaucracies, Budgets and Decision-Making

How Purposeful?

Decision-Making Models and Spending: An Overview of Concepts

1. Rational- Comprehensive

2. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

3. Bureaucratic Politics

4. Group Think

5. Satisficing/Incrementalism

6. Cybernetic Theories (chaos theory)

7. Decision-Making and Financial Management (The Hub of the Debate)

Decision-Making and Budgets

Themes and Definitions

1. Rational Model Comprehensive Approach

Optimal for achieving a goal or solving a problem. Determining optimality for rational behavior

Complete Availability of Information

Zero Based Budgets

2. Standard Operating Procedures- SOPs

Standard Operating Procedures Pre-defined steps and activities of a process

or procedure. An SOP provides employees in an organizational set of actions response to common external practices, activities, or tasks.

Established Procedures

SOPs- Scientific Origins

Bureaucratic Politics

Officials are motivated by the need to promote their own organizations special interests in Competition with other Agencies in the decisions that they make

“Defending their Turf”

 

Bureaucratic Politics Military Phrase:

Group Think Group members, fearing to upset the leader,

try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoint

Group Think?

Satisficing/Incrementalism Satisficing is a decision-making strategy

that attempts to meet an acceptability threshold (first available option) at a very low level of analysis (Herbert Simon)

Incrementalism is a method of working by adding (or subtracting) to a project using many small (often unplanned) changes

Satisficing/Incrementalism

Incrementalism

Cybernetic Theories vs. Chaos Cybernetic Theories:  Causal chains of action that

move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and again to action (Models based on electricity, mechanics, or machines)

Chaos: Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes

Cybernetics

Chaos

Decision-Making and Financial Management

A Review of Themes

Themesa. Budget: Recurrent vs. Capital (Development) Budgets

b. Financial Management- Incrementalism and Satisficing vs. Zero Based Budgeting (Planning Systems)

c. Accounting- Cost and Benefit vs. profit and loss

Themesd. Auditing vs. Accountability-

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

e. Evaluating- Assessment vs. Judgement

f. Budgeting: Two themes- Reforming and Decision-making

Acounting vs. Acountability

1. Privatization and Contracting Out- Commercialization and intra-governmental competition (E.S. Savas)

2. Economic Bureaucracy, Public Sector Management: An Asian Model? (Chalmers Johnson)

3. End of the Third World? End of

Development Budgets (SAPS) (Nigel Harris)

Decision-Making and Financial Management (Review of Issues and Authors)

The Asian Model Issue

Decision-Making and Financial Management 4. Imbalance- Political vs. Bureaucratic Development in the role of financial management (The Corruption Problem) (Ferrel Heady)

5. Values and Education, money and Bricks- Development Management (John Armstrong)

6. International Organizations, NGOs and Development (Contracts vs. Grants) (Paul Nelson)

Bureaucracy and the Danger of Corruption- World Patterns

Decision-Making and Financial Management8. Private Sector Development vs. Development Management: The role of public sector financial management (Oversight) (Mark Turner and David Hulme)

9. Public Sector Reform (Guy Peters and Michael Barzelay)

10. (Planning vs. Budgeting) Naomi Caiden and Aaron Wildavsky-

11. Is Budgeting and financial management impacted by Group Think? (Irving Janis)

Planning, Financial and Budgetary Management Systems in Poor Counties

Five historical periods- From

a development perspective

Caiden and Wildavsky- Planning and Budgeting in Poor Countries

Best Book on realities of Public

Budgeting and Development

Historical Periods: Famous Fivei. Until the 1950s- recurrent budgets- law and order.

ii. 1950s-1960s- growth. Domestic development Funds with bilateral technical assistance

=Recurrent vs. Development budgets

iii. 1960s-1970s: Distribution and basic needs. World Bank and Poorest of the poor

Ten Minute Break

iv. Mid-1970s to mid-1980s: Planning vs. Budgets Planning demanded by technical assistance

Technical assistance- both grants and loans (no private loans to Africa)

Project planning "wins" over national planning and budgeting systems

v. The Current State of Financial Management: Structural Adjustment

(Since 2001)- Structural Adjustment vs. Social Crisis

Conditionality- What is the future? Privatization of the economy

a. divestiture

b. contracting out

c. liquidation

d. sell off public private partnership shares

Privatization Debates

The Current State of Financial Management1. IMF Stabilization- currency reform, auctions and trade liberalization

2. Decentralized Budgeting- Part of Governance Debate

3. World Bank and UNDP "Management" - Opposing views to SAPs

4. Human Resource Development (Millennium Development Goals)

The Current State of Financial Management

5. Continued Absence of recurrent budgets and loss of control in Crisis: especially re. “Terror Prone,” Collapsed and Fragile States

6. Activity (economy) driven by technical assistance projects - the only game in town

7. Bridging and sectoral loans and grants- major source of international involvement

8. Crisis in Governance and Human Security

Somalia- 2008

INDEPTH: ECONOMYOutsourcing: Contracting out becomes big businessCBC News Online | March 7, 2006

Canadian Broadcasting System Image

What is the Future?Privatization (Commercialization) of the bureaucracy

vs. IN-SOURCING- Reinventing Government

Book Discussion The Promised Land (Nicholas Lemann)

What does this book tell us about Public Policy and Public Affairs?

Presentations: Next Book Discussion November 8

MPA Group- Daniel Okrent, The Last Call

MPIA Group-Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman, Betraying Our Troops

MID Group- Louis A. Picard, A Fragile Balance

MPPM Group- Janine Wedel, Shadow Elite

Daniel Okrent- New York Times Born 1948 (PUA)

Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman (IA)

Dina Rasor is the Chief Investigator of the Follow the Money Project

Robert Bauman was Criminal Investigator for the Department of Defense

Janine Wedel (PPM)

Terry Buss (2010) and Louis A. Picard (and Colleagues, 1966) (ID)

Discussion for Next Week