The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Lyonchhen Tshering Tobgay signed the Annual Performance Agreement for the fiscal year 2016- 2017 on Wednesday, with all the ministers, dzongdas, thrompons and heads of 7 autonomous agencies.
This is the third annual performance agreement since it began in the fiscal year 2014-2015. The actual set up began with the Institution of National Technical Committee and recently 55 people have been trained in this field.
National Technical Committee comprises of Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC), Government Performance Management Division (GPMD), Ministry of Finance (MoF), National Statistical Bureau (NSB), and Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC). The committee reviews plans, policies, and targets in the beginning of the year, and evaluates achievements at the end of the year.
Government Performance Management System (GPMS) is an initiative taken by government to address the concerns of good planning thwart by poor implementation.
The system works on a result-based management by holding agencies accountable at the outcome and output level, and providing flexibility at the activities input level. It also aims to strengthen decentralization by restricting the roles of the central agencies to policy, planning, monitoring, evaluating and leaving the implementation flexibility at local government.
“While we are good planners, we are not best executers, and through this annual performance agreement, I am sure we will be able to execute our plans and policies well. In this way, we may fulfill the His Majesty’s concern,” Lyonchhen said.
The government could not carry out the mid-year review coinciding with the mid-term review of the 11th Plan, however, the online report on the mid- year progress of annual performance agreement 2015-16 has been done.
Year end progress data is currently being collected through online GPMS system and self reported progress will be assessed by National Technical Committee beginning July 19.
The evaluation will find out data and indicator quality, problems of data collection system, help come up with a more coherent and effective data management system for the 12th Plan, and will appeal to all agencies to support the evaluation.
RCSC has already piloted the individual performance management system linked to GPMS, the head of agencies will be evaluated based significantly on annual performance agreement performance and individual civil servants will be evaluated on APA scores.
Annual budget activities to APA targets have been discussed between national technical committee and agencies, budget become performance based or result based and value for money checked.
GPMS is also gaining international or regional attention, for this very purpose UNICEF HR Executive Director and South Asia Regional Director visited Bhutan for result based management and GPMS. Bangladesh Cabinet Secretary and team also visited Bhutan for such a study.
IT systems are developed and managed separately by different agencies to share information across different agencies efficiently, accurately and timely in GPMS.
GPMS will further be signed between secretaries and departments in ministries, between dzongdags and sectors and gewogs which is optional, head of autonomous agencies and division under it.
“The outcome of the annual performance agreement has been very significant. Not only are the heads of the local government, but general public also aware of its achievement. It indicates how successful we have been with last 2 years,” Lyonchhen said.
