General Public Administration & Civil Service Terms [ TOP ] |
Administrative corruption | The intentional imposition of distortions in the implementation of existing laws, rules and regulations to provide advantages to either state or non-state actors as a result of illegal transfers or redirection of private funds to public officials. |
Administrative decentralization | Redistribution of authority, responsibility, and/or financial resources for providing public services. It is the transfer of responsibility for planning, financing, and managing certain public functions from the central government and its agencies to field units, subordinate units or lower levels of government, semi-autonomous public authorities or corporations, or regional or functional authorities. Administrative decentralization has three major forms - deconcentration, delegation, and devolution. |
Allowances | Current rewards other than base pay. These can be provided as part of the employment contract (e.g., transportation, housing, meals, telephone, travel, cost-of-living), or can be provided on a non-contractual basis or as intangible rewards (e.g., trips abroad or training). |
Alternative Service Delivery | Alternative Service Delivery (ASD) refers to the organizational and structural choices for improving the delivery of programs and services. It is originally a Canadian term used to encourage managers to think imaginatively concerning the best organizational option. |
Armed forces
(employment) | All enlisted personnel (including conscripts) and professional military. Administrative employees of the Ministry of Defense are generally excluded from this category and accounted for as Civilian Central Government employees. |
Base pay | The salary or wages that every civil servant receives regularly (usually fortnightly or monthly) from the government by virtue of being on the payroll. Base pay is usually linked to an employee's position and is uniform across similar positions. The base wage is often cited to compare wages in the public and private sectors. It is, however, only one component of civil servants' total rewards. |
Bureaucratic unreliability | The source of departmental unreliability where the primary obstacle to policy implementation stems from the departments, not the member of government (minister or secretary). |
Business process re-engineering
(same as downstream organizational review) | A review process that envisages dropping or changing specific activities and services, or a detailed restructuring of a few specific agencies. |
Cabinet Office/ Chancellery | A secretariat usually staffed exclusively or primarily by professional public servants, that directly supports the policy management system and the head of government's leadership role in this regard. May also be called executive office or, government office or 'apparat' of the government. |
Central agencies | Those organizations in the executive branch that co-ordinate the activities of, and provide guidance to the operating ministries and agencies. Terminology varies widely from country to country, but central agencies are generally regarded as including: the Ministry of Finance the Cabinet Office/Chancellery/Apparat, or the ministry assisting the Prime Minister or the Council of Ministers in the development and co-ordination of policy the ministry or agency responsible for developing and coordinating policies in relation to human resource management within the public sector the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in certain areas of work such as European integration policy |
Central government wage bill | The sum of base wages and salaries paid to civilian central government and the armed forces. Wages and salaries consist of most payments in cash, but not in kind, to employees in return for services rendered, before any deductions for taxes and employee pension contributions. Monetary allowances (e.g., for housing, transportation) are included in the wage bill. Countries vary as to whether state contributions to pensions or all monetary allowances are included within this total. |
Charters | Statements of service targets published by service-providing agencies that set standards for the agency and can define compensation to be provided to the public if they are not achieved. These are known by such names as "Citizens Charters" (UK) or Public Service Charters (Korea). |
Civil service
(as employment category) | Distinctive employment status for some public servants, generally defined by law and usually with four characteristics: Civil servants are "appointed" by decision of an authorized public institution in accordance with the civil service law. A decision by a representative of the State to "appoint" a civil servant must conform to established rules that structure the hiring process. Once appointed, there are many constraints on dismissal. This is because civil servants are not simply employees of the state; they also have a constitutional role. The intent of civil service legislation is to balance the requirement these employees be responsive to the government of the day, with the parallel requirement that they respect and maintain state institutions over time. In other words, additional job security is provided in order to prevent short-term political pressures from leading to inappropriate personnel changes. There are more constraints on the actions of civil servants than on other groups. Again, this is because of the strategic and constitutional role of civil servants. Civil servants are part of the employment categories of civilian central government or subnational government. These two categories generally exceed the number of staff defined as civil servants. There are other employment arrangements in the public sector that provide something akin to civil servant status. For example, the judiciary can often be employed under arrangements that provide constitutionally-based constraints on dismissal. Yet, members of the judiciary are rarely known as civil servants. |
Civilian central government (excluding education, health, and police)
(as employment category) | Employees in the central executive and legislative administration, in departments directly dependent on the Head of State or the Parliament, together with all other ministries and administrative departments of central government, including autonomous agencies paid by central government. The exceptions are education, health, and police employees, which are accounted for in other employment categories.
NB Accounting for these employees within one employment category for the purposes of measuring the size and cost of the public sector, does not remove the need for some institutional separation of powers between the legislature, executive and judiciary. |
Closed career system | In closed career systems in the civil service, the recruitment arrangements ensure that initial entry to the civil service is generally based on a relevant university degree or academic credentials. Closed career systems allow subsequent mobility and promotion within the civil service. Overall, they are characterized by limited possibilities for lateral entry and a strong emphasis on career development. They are sometimes referred to as 'mandarin' systems.
This is in contrast to position-based systems where the emphasis is placed on selecting the best-suited candidate for each position to be filled, whether by external recruitment or via internal promotion or mobility. |
| Collateral damage | The unintentional distortion of incentives and undermining of existing institutional arrangements in of the client government that can arise from external technical and financial assistance. |
| Collegial executive | An executive that has the following three characteristics: - It is composed of senior decision-makers, between, say, 5 and 40 - forming a compact group as a result of most of them having known and worked with each other in a political party and in the legislature for a substantial period before joining the government.
- All major government policy matters go to this group for final ratification.
- The members of the group publicly support all decisions that have been collectively ratified.
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| Compression ratio | See vertical compression ratio. |
Consolidated central government
(employment category) | This category, consistent with data originating from the IMF, corresponds to civilian central government plus education, health, and police employees of the central government. |
| Contract Intensive Money | Contract intensive money is the proportion of the money supply that is not held in the form of currency (i.e. the proportion that is held in bank accounts and as other financial assets). The percentage of contract intensive money indicates in part how much faith investors have in the government's ability and willingness to enforce financial contracts, and to refrain from expropriating financial assets. It is a measure of trust in banks and in the government. CIM = 1 - currency outside of banks / (Money + Quasi-money) Consistent with the IMF's International Financial Statistics, this is one minus line 14a divided by the sum of lines 34 and 35. |
| Contracting out | Government transfers supply or operation of a function to a contractor for a specified period of time, but without relinquishing program responsibility or accountability. |
| Core executive | The most senior officials, elected and appointed, within the executive. In effect this is the senior levels of the central agencies, head of government and senior political colleagues, and the most senior staff of the line departments. The core executive is generally characterized as a set of overlapping networks rather than a well-defined group of staff or set of organizations. All members of the core executive, even those with a strong resource base such as the head of government and staff, are dependent on other member of the core executive actors to achieve their goals. See (Goetz and Margetts. 1999; Peters, Rhodes and Wright 2000; Rhodes and Dunleavy 1995; Smith 1999) |
| Decision trees | A method for conveying succinctly the complex assumptions and criteria that underpin functional and program reviews. Also, the foundation of functional and program review critiques of existing policies and organizational structures. |
| Decentralization | The transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organizations or the private sector. This covers a broad range of concepts relating to the type of decentralization -- political, administrative, fiscal, or market. |
| Deconcentration | A form of administrative decentralization. The redistribution of decision-making, financial, and management responsibilities among different levels of the central government is often considered the weakest form of administrative decentralization, and is used most frequently in unitary states. Within this category, however, policies and opportunities for local input vary: deconcentration can merely shift responsibilities from central government officials in the capital city to those working in regions, provinces, or districts. Or it can create strong field administration or local administrative capacity under the supervision of central government ministries. |
| Degree of centralization | The percentage of total public employment accounted for at the national or federal level; the proportion of total government spending that is undertaken by central government; and the degree of autonomy of subnational government. |
Delegation
(as a form of administrative decentralization) | Transfer of responsibility for decision-making and administration of public functions to semi-autonomous organizations. |
| Departmental unreliability | The source of executive policy unreliability where the primary cause of unreliability can be attributed to individual members of government (ministers or secretaries) and/or their departments creating, or at least not removing, obstacles to policy implementation. |
| Devolution | The transfer of authority for decision-making, finance, and management to local government. Devolution usually transfers responsibilities for services to municipalities that elect their own mayors and councils, raise their own revenues, and have independent authority to make investment decisions. In a devolved system, local governments have clear and legally recognized geographical boundaries over which they exercise authority, and within which they perform public functions. It is this type of administrative decentralization that underlies most political decentralization. |
| Divestiture | A form of privatization involving the outright sale of government-owned assets or enterprises. After divestiture, government generally has no role in the financial support, management, regulation, or oversight of the divested activity. Government may sell its assets or controlling interest in a service to a private company but protect the public interest through regulation. |
Downstream organizational review
(same as business process re-engineering) | A review process that envisages dropping or changing specific activities and services; or a detailed restructuring of a few specific agencies. |
Education
(employment category) | Primary and secondary public school teachers. Administrative employees of the Ministry of Education and local school administrators are generally excluded from this category and accounted for as Civilian central government employees. |
| Efficiency and effectiveness reviews | A discrete approach for developing recommendations for change, outside of the usual budget and planning cycle. |
| Employee Take Over (ETO) | An agreement between government and an employee group for the employees to become private owners/operators and provide sevices that formerly were performed within government. |
Executing agency
(same as supervised body) | A form of semi-autonomous agency that is responsible for executing government programs, reporting to ministries (or reporting to members of government - ministers/secretaries - but under the day-to-day supervision of a ministry). The relevant minister/secretary generally defines their objectives and their funding sources can include some revenue earnings. They are given some form of managerial autonomy, and are most often staffed with public servants whose statuses and/or employment conditions differ from general employment rules. Most function under public law (when relevant). |
| Executive policy unreliability | The degree to which the broad policy commitments of the executive are either not implemented, or only partially implemented, within a reasonable timescale -- or if implemented, are prone to rapid reversal. |
| Fiscal decentralization | Fiscal decentralization can take many forms, including: - Self-financing or cost recovery through user charges
- Cofinancing or coproduction, in which users or suppliers participate in providing services and infrastructure through monetary or labor contributions
- Expansion of local revenues through property or sales taxes or indirect charges
- Intergovernmental transfers of general revenues from taxes collected by the central government to local governments for general or specific uses
- Authorization of municipal borrowing and mobilization of national or local government resources through loan guarantee
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| Fiscal weight of public employment | The public sector wage bill as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). |
| Franchising | A form of contracting out whereby government confers the right or privilege to a private concern to conduct a business or sell a product or service in a specific geographic area according to prescribed terms and conditions. |
| Functional Review | A form of efficiency and effectiveness review that examines the functions and structures of state agencies or budget entities and asks whether the functions need to be done at all, whether other agencies or actors could do them more efficiently or effectively, and what the consequences are for structure. |
| GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP) (current international $) | PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP as the U.S. dollar has in the United States. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in current international dollars. For more information, see World Development Indicators Table 1.1. |
General government
(employment category) | Employment in "all government departments offices, organizations and other bodies which are agencies or instruments of the central or local authorities whether accounted for or financed in, ordinary or extraordinary budgets or extra-budgetary funds. They are not solely engaged in administration but also in defense and public order, in the promotion of economic growth and in the provision of education, health, cultural and social services." (International Standard of Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Series M No. 4, Rev 3- 1990). There are six mutually exclusive categories of employment within general government: - Armed forces
- Civilian central government (excluding education, health, and police)
- Subnational government (excluding education, health, and police)
- Health employees
- Education employees
- Police
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| Government | In most parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, this term refers to the entire executive branch of the state, or to the members of governments (usually termed "ministers" but occasionally called "secretaries") selected by the legislature or appointed by the head of government to run the executive branch. In the United States, the term "government" is used in a variety of ways. It can refer to the entire executive branch of the federal government, to the federal government generally, and sometimes to federal, state, and local governments combined. |
| Government owned/ Contractor operated (GOCO) | An organizational and commercial arrangement where a government-owned facility is operated by a third party, usually a for-profit contractor. |
| Governmental unreliability | Executive policy unreliability where, in collegial governments, the primary cause lies collectively with the senior decision-making members of the executive as a whole or, in hierarchical governments, it is the responsibility of the president or head of government. |
Health employees
(employment category) | Medical and paramedical staff (doctors, nurses, and midwives) and laboratory technicians employed in government hospitals and other government health institutions at all levels of government. Administrative employees working in the health sector are generally excluded from this category and accounted for as Civilian central government employees. |
| Heterogeneous public sector environments | Public sector environments that allow a large number of different organizational forms to emerge. Horizontally, this heterogeneity is more likely in presidential regimes where large numbers of special purpose bodies have been created by legislatures for specific purposes. Vertically, significant decentralization is often considered to produce provincial and state governments that act as test laboratories for larger public sector reforms. |
| Hierarchical executive | An executive that has the following three characteristics: - There is no common characteristic of senior policy-makers which would make them form a group.
- Decisions may frequently be taken by the leader alone.
- Senior policy makers are accountable for the performance of their agencies only.
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| Horizontal compression | The degree to which earnings differ for officials at the same grade or level in the same or in different agencies. It is the ratio by which the total remuneration of a civil servant can differ from that of a colleague at the same level of seniority, as a consequence of discretionary allowances. Horizontal compression is measured by dividing total monetary compensation - including all discretionary allowances - by base compensation. |
| Hybrid appointments | Appointments made subject to merit, defined by meeting explicit and contestable criteria, as well as by subjective political judgments. |
Independent regulator
(same as statutory commission) | Semi-autonomous agencies can be "statutory commissions" or independent regulators when they have a well-defined, separate legislative existence. Their objectives are often enshrined in a charter, and their functions are defined by legislation in addition to any powers of direction held by the Minister. They may be non-asset owning (legally distinct but unable to own assets) or asset owning. They can be budget dependent (subvented) or collect significant revenue earnings. They can also have legal competence to enter into contractual relationships. |
| Individual ministerial responsibility | The source of departmental unreliability where the primary cause of unreliability can be attributed to individual members of government (ministers or secretaries). |
| Information-intensive reform activities | Reforms that require a stronger and more developed information systems infrastructure. |
| In-kind benefits | Non-monetary rewards such as health insurance, transportation, housing, meals, and travel. |
| Institutional malleability | The ease with which the state institutions can be changed, as reflected in the following four factors: - High degree of political centralization
- Politically neutral, permanent senior administrative positions
- Anglo-Saxon administrative tradition
- Limited trade union membership in the public sector.
It is important to emphasize that these are not "virtues." They are simply distinctive arrangements that give reformers a stronger grip on the public sector. |
| Integrated mandarin/ministerial careers | Career paths in which senior civil servants frequently become Ministers at some point in their careers. |
| Intermediate functional and agency review | An efficiency and effectiveness review that considers reshaping some programs, dropping some activities, and/or restructuring entire agencies, but without large scale changes to the machinery of government. |
| Labor force | Total labor force comprises people who meet the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition of the economically active population: all people who supply labor for the production of goods and services during a specified period. It includes both the employed and the unemployed. While national practices vary in the treatment of such groups as the armed forces and seasonal or part-time workers, in general the labor force includes the armed forces, the unemployed, and first-time job-seekers, but excludes homemakers and other unpaid caregivers and workers in the informal sector. For more information, see World Development Indicators Table 2.2. |
| Lateral entry | Entrance to the civil service by external recruitment or otherwise than through promotion or transfer from within the service. Arrangements for lateral entry are generally most widespread in position-based systems where the emphasis is placed on selecting the best-suited candidate for each position to be filled, whether by external recruitment or via internal promotion or mobility. |
| Licensing | A variation of contracting out in which government grants a license to a private concern to sell a product or service that would not otherwise be allowed outside the public domain. |
| Locally-initiated reform | "Locally-initiated reforms" start from the premise that participation at the local community level can be a powerful point of entry to broader reforms. These reforms assume that without some purposeful destabilization of existing dysfunctional public sector equilibria (for example, by providing local communities with greater voice in the production of local public services) there will be no change. This approach notes that many donor-supported "whole of government" reforms have been unsuccessful in many countries. Although "locally-initiated reforms" reforms can be viewed as distinct from "whole of government" reforms, often reform programs contain elements of both. |
| Machinery of government | Primarily an Anglo-Commonwealth phrase, though it also has some resonance in other settings. It generally refers to the organizational structure of the executive (including the reporting lines and accountability arrangements for Departments and Ministries and other organizational units), and the allocation of functions to those organizations. In the United States its meaning is more political. |
| Majoritarian governments | Governments with a form of representation that confers political power on the basis of a simple majority. |
| Members of government | Ministers, in the terminology adopted by most national executives, or secretaries, according to the expression used in presidential systems following the American model, most often serving as heads of individual government departments (or ministries). |
| New Public Management | This is a slippery label. Generally, it is used to describe a management culture that emphasizes the centrality of the citizen or customer, as well as accountability for results. It also suggests structural or organizational choices that promote decentralized control through a wide variety of alternative service delivery mechanisms, including quasi-markets with public and private service providers competing for resources from policymakers and donors. NPM tends to include a greater reliance on contracts and contracting out, and places more emphasis on managerialism than formal rules and procedural standards, while de-emphasizing a career civil service. NPM does not claim that government should stop performing certain tasks -- although the New Public Management often is associated with this policy perspective. NPM is not about whether tasks should be undertaken or not. It is about getting things done better. |
| Performance budgeting | This is a widely used, but poorly defined term. There are few examples of mechanical connections between measures of performance and budget allocations. A performance orientation is generally achieved by the greater dissemination of performance monitoring data alongside the published budget. |
| Performance management | Generally understood to be the management of the performance of government organizations as a whole, their chief executives and their staff. |
| Personal disposable income | Personal emoluments minus any employer deductions such as those for income tax, provident fund/pension contributions, etc. |
| Personal emoluments | Base pay plus monetary allowances such as transportation, housing, meals, telephone, travel, cost-of-living. |
Police
(employment category) | All personnel -- whether military, paramilitary or civilian -- that exercise police functions, including corps like Gendarmerie and Carabinieri. |
| Policy | This note uses the working definition that policy is the sets of laws, regulations or other government enforced rules, or funding arrangements, that: - require, restrain or pay for actions from individuals, enterprises and government officials;
- together contribute to the achievement of specific government objectives; and
- are recognized as interlinked.
Government policy is distinguished from isolated government action, in that it refers to a set of laws, regulations or other rules or government actions that attempt to have some impact on economic and social actors. To count as 'policy', this collection of rules must be somehow interlinked and, whether effectively or otherwise, must in some way seek to achieve some objectives of government. We have to acknowledge that 'policy' is a particularly slippery notion. For some authors, it means statements by key actors about their intended course of action (Lasswell and Kaplan 1950), or the actual consequences of actions by those actors even if they had never made their intentions explicit or even coherent (Anderson 1979; Lindblom 1980), or even statements that are never intended to be translated into action. See also (Peters 1996). |
| Political decentralization | Political decentralization aims to give citizens and their elected representatives more power in local public decision-making. It is often associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, and it can also support democratization by giving citizens or their representatives more influence in formulating and implementing policies. Advocates of political decentralization assume that decisions made with greater participation will be better informed and more relevant to diverse interests in society than those made only by national political authorities. The concept implies that the selection of representatives from local electoral jurisdictions allows citizens to better know their political representatives and allows elected officials to better know the needs and desires of their constituents. Political decentralization often requires constitutional or statutory reforms, development of pluralistic political parties, strengthening of legislatures, creation of local political units, and encouragement of effective public interest groups. |
| Position-based systems | Position-based career systems in the civil service place an emphasis on selecting the best-suited candidate for each position to be filled, whether by external recruitment or via internal promotion or mobility. Position-based systems are characterized by relatively open access to positions at all levels, with lateral entry relatively common. This is in contrast to closed career systems in the civil service, where the recruitment arrangements ensure that initial entry to the civil service is usually based on a relevant university degree or academic credentials. In those systems, appointments tend to be made via promotion within the civil service. Closed career sysstems are sometimes referred to as "mandarin" systems. |
| Private, not-for-profit agency | A formal agency volunteer program or a private non-profit service organization in which volunteers provide all or part of a service, either independently or under government direction. |
| Privatization | Shifting functions, in whole or part, from government to the private sector when there is no continuing public policy reason to retain responsibility within government, or when that responsibility can be discharged through regulation. |
| Program review | An efficiency and effectiveness review that envisages comprehensive policy reforms, shifting from low to high priority programs, including large scale restructuring of the machinery of government. |
| Public interest civil service tradition | See Rechtsstaat civil service tradition. |
| Public partnership | An intergovernmental agreement in which two or more jurisdictions contract with each other to deliver public programs or services. |
| Public servants | A wider group of employees than civil servants. For example, teachers and doctors in publicly owned schools and health facilities may or may not be legally civil servants, but they are always public servants if employed by budget-funded organizations. |
| Public/private partnership | A cooperative or joint venture between two or more parties in the public and private sectors, built on the strength and expertise of each partner. |
| Rechtsstaat civil service tradition | A civil service ethos that provides civil servants with a profound sense of the importance of preparing and enforcing laws in order to maintain the integrity and continuity of the state. This is in distinct contrast to the Anglo-Saxon "public interest" tradition that sees civil servants as restraining the partisan actions of politicians on behalf of the public. |
| Reform leverage | The arrangements that provide central agencies and reform leaders with a distinctive capability to introduce changes in the public sector: - Tradition of a single strong central agency;
- Tradition of single party majority;
- Tradition of integrated mandarin/ministerial careers;
- Anglo-Saxon administrative tradition;
- Tradition of heterogeneity in the public sector.
It is important to emphasize that these are not "virtues." They are simply distinctive arrangements that give reformers a stronger grip on the public sector. |
| Reform outcomes | The eventual impact of a reform on service delivery, accountability improvements and on aggregate expenditure. |
| Reformer's traction | The combination of reform leverage and institutional malleability available to reformers. It is important to emphasize that these are not "virtues". They are simply distinctive arrangements that give reformers a stronger grip on the public sector. |
| Semi-autonomous agencies | Semi-autonomous agencies can be organizations responsible for executing government programs, reporting to ministries or to members of government under the day-to-day supervision of a ministry. The relevant minister/secretary generally defines their objectives. Their funding sources can include some revenue earnings. They are given some form of managerial autonomy, and are often staffed with public employees whose status and/or employment conditions differ from general employment rules. Most function under public law (when relevant). Semi-autonomous agencies can also be statutory commissions, independent regulators, or other bodies with a separate legislative existence. Their objectives are often enshrined in a charter, and their functions are defined by legislation in addition to any powers of direction held by the minister/secretary. They may be non-asset owning (legally distinct but unable to own assets) or asset owning. They can be budget dependent (subvented) or collect significant revenue earnings. They also may have legal competence to enter into contractual relationships. Such bodies tend to be established for regulatory purposes, although in some presidential systems they can also be service providers. |
| Senior Civil Service | See Senior Executive Service. |
| Senior Executive Service | In many countries a group of senior public servants is identified as a "senior executive service" (SES). This is a mobile cadre of senior executives that have broad management expertise and an overview of public sector values and responsibilities. The purpose of the SES is to prevent the management of individual departments from becoming "in-grown" and to promote policy coordination between departments. Examples include Australia, USA, Netherlands, and South Korea. In the UK and Hungary it is known as the Senior Civil Service. |
| Service shedding | A form of divestiture that occurs when government reduces the level of service or stops providing a service altogether due to lack of demand, insufficient resources, or the desire to reduce the size of government. |
| Shared services | A form of public partnership involving a joint service agreement where two or more levels of government (for example federal and provincial) act together to plan, finance, and deliver a public service. |
| State capture | The actions of individuals, groups or firms, both in the public and private sectors, to influence the formation of laws, regulations, decrees and other government policies to their own advantage as a result of the illegal transfer or concentration of private benefits to public officials. |
| State-owned enterprise (SOE) employees | Employees of enterprises that are majority-owned by government. |
Statutory commission
(same as independent regulator) | Semi-autonomous agencies can be "statutory commissions" or independent regulators when they have a well-defined, separate legislative existence. Their objectives are often enshrined in a charter, and their functions are defined by legislation in addition to any powers of direction held by the Minister. They may be non-asset owning (legally distinct but unable to own assets) or asset owning. They can be budget dependent (subvented) or collect significant revenue earnings. They can also have legal competence to enter into contractual relationships. |
Subnational government (excluding education, health, and police)
(employment category) | All general government employees who are not members of the armed forces or directly funded by the central government. This includes municipalities, as well as regional, provincial, or state (in federal systems) employment. The distinction between central and subnational government employment categories is budgetary, not geographic. If central government agencies are geographically dispersed, but without changing their ultimate sources of finance, then the staff in those agencies are included in the employment category civilian central government. |
| Subsidiarity | Decentralizing the provision of public service to the lowest level of government where it can be properly carried out. |
Supervised body
(same as executing agency) | A form of semi-autonomous agency that is responsible for executing government programs, reporting to ministries (or reporting to members of government - ministers/secretaries - but under the day-to-day supervision of a ministry). The relevant minister/secretary generally defines their objectives and their funding sources can include some revenue earnings. They are given some form of managerial autonomy, and are most often staffed with public servants whose statuses and/or employment conditions differ from general employment rules. Most function under public law (when relevant). |
Total civilian central government
(employment category) | All general government employees who are not members of the armed forces or directly funded by subnational government. The distinction between central and subnational government employment categories is budgetary, not geographic. |
| Total compensation | Personal emoluments plus in-kind benefits and allowances such as health insurance, transportation, meals, or travel. |
| Total public employment | State-owned enterprise (SOE) employees plus General Government. |
| Total rewards | Total compensation plus non-contractual/intangible rewards and allowances such as job security, prestige, social privileges, and future expectations such as pension or anticipated housing or land grants. |
| Utility | A system, works, plant, pipeline, equipment, or service operated by government in the public interest. |
| Vertical compression ratio | The ratio of the highest salary to the lowest on the central government's main salary scale. The OECD measures wage compression in OECD countries as the mean of ninth decile salaries divided by the mean of first decile salaries. The OECD's approach ensures that a handful of salaries will not dramatically skew the compression ratio. However, all compression ratio approaches can be misleading if there are significant monetary allowances not captured in the calculations, or if the perceived value of non-monetary rewards represents a significant proportion of total rewards. |
| Veto player | An individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision. May be sub-divided into partisan veto players (those within government) and institutional veto players (those outside government such as the legislature or judiciary, or in some systems the president). (Tsebelis 1995) |
| Whole of government reform | The design of "whole of government" reforms focuses on civil service restructuring and budget reforms, emphasizing that it is the vertical integration of public bureaucracies (with central controls and the over-arching discipline of a unified budget) that prevent local elites from capturing policy, and discourage patronage or public salaries in excess of the market rate. "Whole of government" reforms are also concerned with the risk that public bodies will engage in quasi-fiscal activities (e.g., fee-based services, special concessions to certain groups) that resemble taxes and subsidies, and may exceed the original policy intention of the national government. "Whole of government" reforms can be viewed as distinct from "locally-initiated reforms," but often reform programs contain elements of both. |
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