Today’s thesis is that in virtually every objectively progressive endeavour, the overriding objective is success, however widely or narrowly defined. The inference is that there must be some mechanism by which that success is defined.
That mechanism maybe characterised as the critical success factors, evaluation criteria or performance metrics. Whilst those could be assessed by quantitative, qualitative measures or a hybrid therein, the ultimate goal is meeting or exceeding the set objectives and providing satisfaction to stakeholders.
For example, the English Football Premier League attracts the best teams there and is the most watched football league globally with an audience of approximately 4.7 billion. According to Ernst & Young, in 2019/20 alone, the league supported 94,000 direct and indirect jobs across the UK, generating £3.6 billion in tax receipts for the exchequer, plus a gross value addition of £7.6 billion to the country’s economy.
To get to the premier league, a football team must successfully progress through lower league divisions. At the premiership level, the overriding objective of each team is to win the premiership trophy. Because, that’s what each club’s owners, shareholders and each team’s supporters wish to see. And, winning the premiership title is big bucks too.
The 2023 premiership winner, Manchester City FC, gained over £160 million as a success prize. And the three weakest premiership teams are relegated each year. There are critical interdependencies and stakeholders here including the footballers, must perform consistently to increase their likelihood of future selection and potentially lucrative contracts; the owners, who invest optimum resources to procure the best players globally; and managers, who perform a vital role formulating the strategy and tactics for each game which the players execute.
The performance incentive could not be clearer. A manager rises or perishes by the success of his team. The critical success measures are pretty clear: win all or as many premiership games as possible and secure the title. Thus, laurels are received for winning and failure is routinely rewarded with the sack!
What does premiership football have to with public sector agreements and national development? To the extent, that a premiership football manager is held directly accountable for the successful or unsuccessful performance of his team, it has everything to do with it on three key grounds. First, there is a clear goal in both cases to deliver good results.
For a football manager, that’s winning all games and securing the premiership trophy. In the public sector, the overarching objective is to consistently deliver on manifesto commitments and policy priorities – on security, law and order, economic development and employment, education, health, infrastructural development, transport, science and technology development, digital inclusion, youth engagement etc – for the benefit of all the electorate irrespective of voting patterns.
Second, just like in premiership football, where there is a singular point of accountability for the performance or non-performance of a team, in the person of the football manager; the submission here is that a minister should be accountable for the successful delivery or non-delivery of agreed policy priorities regarding his department.
Third, like the premiership football case study, key stakeholders notably, club owners, local and international supporters, and the team’s footballers themselves, must have a significant degree of confidence in the ability of each manager; so too, is the logic of the electorate, taxpayers, international and local partners, having supreme confidence in the capacity of a minister to exercise optimal stewardship and successful delivery of agreed priorities concerning his department.
The logic of Public Sector Agreements (PSAs) is simple: you cannot manage what cannot be measured. That’s why people are required, aside from rigorous training, and obtaining credible references, to take (and pass!) aptitude and psychometric tests for admission to top universities, to secure employment with superior organisations, to become doctors, engineers, judges, lawyers, nuclear physicists, pharmacists, pilots, etc in civilized countries. And because these are all sensitive positions, society evidently demands accountability from those in these and related roles to enhance public confidence and, by extension, save lives, safeguard the rule of law and advance human development.
That said, why is it that society holds the aforementioned category of persons to greater scrutiny than politicians who oversee millions and, in some cases, billions of dollars in several developing countries? If, one accepts the reasonable proposition that a key ingredient of national development is for the electorate to witness a consistent return on their “investments”, like, tax contributions; in exchange for greater security of lives and property; quantitatively and qualitatively better socio-economic outcomes; consistently higher levels of educational attainment; more effective policy development, coordination and execution; why are those in charge oftentimes not demonstrably accountable for non-performance?
In the competing objectives of partisan politics and its relatively inherent short-termism, and that of the citizens, and their legitimate expectations of credible leadership, good governance and beneficially impactful programmes and projects, which should be accorded the greater priority?
PSAs are specific, measurable, actionable and timebound (SMART) objectives linked to public sector modernisation, reform and delivery. Afterall, it is pointless specifying an objective if there is no one to execute it. Therefore, the person in overall charge of a ministry, department or agency is held accountable for the successful performance or non-performance therein measured via objective evaluation criteria. That person in overall charge is, in civilian dispensations, the Minister. The equivalent in the military or law enforcement context, would be the head of the relevant military service, police force or paramilitary organisation. Of course, a president is directly accountable to the electorate via the periodic elections so, there is no debate there.
A SMART objective to the Infrastructure Development Minister, for instance, could be: to oversee the construction and rehabilitation of 3,000km of critical arterial road networks across country A; in 3 years, y1, y2 and y3; at a cost of USD xx million; to agreed budget, time and quality considerations. Here, none expects the minister to execute the construction himself as the objective patently reads to “oversee”. Nevertheless, whilst the minister could delegate this objective to others within his line management, he remains the accountable person.
So, if the policy objective of road construction is executed to those budget, quality and time parameters, which by extension, catalyse economic activities and productivity, create shorter commuting times across interlinked supply chains, thereby reducing transaction costs, the minister takes the credit. Conversely, if the objective is not met by y3, y4, y5, y6, he gets the flak for non-performance and, vicariously, the unintended consequence of conferring hardship on people, harming economic activities.
This simple illustration does not ignore harsh realities of governance in country A, and, the minister may well advance a defence. For example, the financial resources were no longer be available to execute the objective; the budget was not hypothecated, justifying the redirection of resources to other policy priorities; the contractor demanded a renegotiation given a rise in the cost of materials.
The compelling counterarguments to such a defence would include the fact that one, the project’s business case specified the SMART objective/deliverable, therefore any attempt to justify non-performance was just a red herring. Two, robust programme, project and risk management discipline ought to have factored in periodic evaluation mechanisms, anticipated and mitigated the risk(s) of non-delivery by providing early warning, thereby scaling back the project; but still ensuring that key elements were delivered like 2,000 km, if 3,000km was impeded by force majeure.
Three, the reputational damage to the government would be immense in that the electorate were sold a false prospectus because they were promised 3,000km of roads by y3 and that did not materialise. Four, the competence of the minister’s department to negotiate an impeccable commercial contract would automatically be called in question if a contractor breached agreed terms without cogent and verifiable reasons. Five, the opportunity cost of non-performance against this particular objective is another important health or educational initiative which could have been undertaken at a fraction of the cost and time!
For context, David Sengeh, the 2014 Lemelson- Massachusetts Institute of Technology healthcare innovation prize winner, and the current Sierra Leonian Education Secretary of State, was recognised as the Best Minister in the World in 2023, at a ceremony at the UAE, in recognition of those government Ministers who “demonstrate their excellence in a public sector, their efforts to implement, promote innovation in their domain.”
And in recent times, ministers have been removed for under-performance in Malaysia, Solomon Islands, India and beyond. In September 2022, Kwesi Kwarteng was removed as Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer owing to serious economic policy mishaps. A month later in October 2022, then-Prime Minister, Liz Truss, quit on similar grounds.
To end, the importance of SMART, public sector agreements cannot be overstated because they are critical mechanisms by which heads of government, ministries, public corporations, can be held accountable for the successful (or unsuccessful) implementation of policy imperatives.
PSAs incentivise office holders perform to high (er) standards. Likewise, they constitute a healthy check and balance on the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government at the instance of the general public and the fourth estate of the realm, the press. Unsurprisingly, therefore, PSAs have been used creatively and effectively in Australia, Britain, Canada Ireland, and further afield. It follows that short-term partisan politics should not get in the way of credible leadership, good governance and beneficially impactful programmes and projects, which should be accorded the greater priority
Six recommendations reinforce the arguments. First, is the case to embed PSAs as part of the government’s standard operating procedures across the board, to enhance accountability. Second, without effective performance evaluation and monitoring of policy priorities, outcomes become variable at best and, at worst, non-existent fuelling corruptive tendencies.
Third, public confidence in the administration of government is enhanced by transparency, which PSAs afford. A person can be in Benin, Birmingham, or Bulawayo and, at a glance, tell, by simply viewing a department’s website from any portable device, to know exactly what PSAs attach to a department or public body, the senior responsible owner and the performance trajectory.
Fourth, there should be a singular point of accountability or programme/project delivery “owner” for departmental PSAs in the person of the relevant Minister. Fifth, effective programme, project and risk management protocols needs to be incorporated to the machinery of government to increase the propensity of effective policy delivery. And, the case for a Central Programme and Policy Delivery Unit within the Presidency cannot be overstated, as it will enhance strategic oversight, scrutiny, coordination, monitoring, risk management and mitigation.
Together, these will increase the propensity of successful delivery of programmes and projects, which will ultimately impact the lives of ordinary people positively, concurrently, advancing national development. The business consultant, Kenneth Blanchard, neatly encapsulated the essence too: “all good performance starts with clear goals.”
Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria.
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