Contenu du sommaire : La révision générale des politiques publiques

Purpose, Methods, Results and Evaluation of the RGPP Programme Review. This article seeks to analyse how the RGPP is being conducted by examining its objectives, methods and accountability. It formulates the hypothesis that the RGPP Programme Review is more than just a process for achieving budget savings, for it also constitutes a process of reform and modernisation of the administration. It also shows how the RGPP seeks and manages to be more effective than past efforts at reform, and how it displays certain limitations in terms of its methods and accountability.

The Morphology of the General Review of Public Policies – A Historical and Comparative Overview. The RGPP Programme Review, a new and original type of State reform policy in the Fifth Republic, is examined here on a comparative basis and viewed within the context of the long sequence of reform initiatives in French administration. The comparison focuses on four different dimensions : the commitments of cross-departmental ministries (budget, interior, civil service), the expertise drawn upon in the reforms, the commitment of political leaders, and the range of reform methods and instruments used. Despite the structural continuity with past policies, the article argues that RGPP programme reviews constitute an unprecedented budgetary reform process, which is inspired by private sector models, influenced by strategy consultancy firms, underpinned by integrated information system consultants, advocated by the Ministry for the Budget, Public Accounts, the Civil Service and State Reform – thus establishing a link between budget savings and the reorganisation process – and spearheaded by a Presidency that emphasises centralisation and political control.

« Redesigning the State » : Description and Analysis of a Quebec Reform Inspired by Managerialism. This article examines the modernisation of the State begun in 2003 by the Liberal Government of Jean Charest. A brief overview firstly looks at the historical development of managerialism in Quebec in order to identify elements of both continuity and change. A description of the reform then looks at the motives and approach adopted, the instruments used, the actors involved and monitoring mechanisms set up. Lastly, the reform is analysed and explained in the light of current challenges, in particular efforts to balance budgets to help tackle the economic crisis.

The Modernisation of the State : The Comprehensive Spending Review in the UK – This paper examines the phenomenon of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in the UK. This analysis focuses on the ideas of modernisation, as espoused by the New Labour Government which was elected in 1997 and remained in office until May 2010. The CSR was first introduced in 1998 as part of New Labour modernisation policies. This is a story of continuity and change. The New Public Management (NPM) ideas of the previous Conservative Governments of 1979-1997 are evident in the innovation of the CSR. The newly elected UK Coalition Government of 2010 has sought to distance itself from its predecessor Government by a revamping of its review of public expenditure. However, fundamental continuities remain. This is a story of rebuttal of the ancien régime but with the replacement of even more refined versions of its government machinery.

Programme Review in the UK : Measuring Performance. This article examines how the UK undertakes regular programme reviews. It shows how these reviews are carried out, particularly with regard to the performance of public policies. Performance is understood in the wide sense of the term, which even includes the utility of the policy in question. It shows that measuring performance is a long-standing and deeply-rooted concern in UK administrative culture, for which it is a necessary means of ensuring accountability. Nevertheless, the instruments used for conducting programme reviews and related performance measurement are not all as effective or useful as one another.

The RGPP Programme Review : a Neoliberal View of the Role of the State ? Despite its name, the RGPP Programme Review is not a programme review that entails a review of the goals pursued by administrations. It is more of a reorganisation of their structure in order to achieve economies of scale. The broad aim of restructuring State administration in this way is to “do better with less”, in other words to increase the performance of public officials while reducing their number. In parallel to the neoliberal view of the role of the State underpinning this reform, the principles of new public management are now fully taken for granted.

Elites of the Reform. The RGPP Programme Review has been implemented by a specific administrative elite. This article distinguishes between three circles of innovators, which are grouped according to their involvement in the reform process and ability to influence it. The reform pursued since 2007 is supported by new networks, and the “top circle” of innovators has been extensively renewed. The article shows that the RGPP has been implemented by a very tight core network of senior civil servants. They do not have the same profile as young civil servants from the corps techniques and the middle classes who seek to use new public management methods in order to counter the power of the grands corps. Quite the contrary, they are members of the grand corps administratifs, who have acquired professional experience in the private sector and ministers'private offices. They constitute a unique network of specialists in financial matters. Their profile is thus very different from the civil servants who are members of the two other circles responsible for implementing the reform.

Consonance and Dissonance between the RGPP and the LOLF. In principle, the LOLF Finance Act and the RGPP Programme Review constitute complementary areas of State reform. This article identifies three areas where they interact and sometimes even conflict with one another, which merit further elucidation in order to ensure better coordination of the two instruments and ultimately the long-term success of the RGPP. The first concerns the management of State reform by the Government in the framework of the RGPP, in which Parliament would like to be more involved. The second focuses on the role of performance, which has an important place in the implementation of the LOLF, but which some RGPP initiatives seem to ignore. The third concerns the difficulty of developing an effective common approach to the multiannual programming of public finances.

Public Management : Lessons from a Survey on Perceptions of the RGGP Programme Review. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a survey conducted among actors involved in the RGPP Programme Review regarding their perceptions of the way the process has been managed and how this could be done in the future. It shows that, over and above the programme review itself, this sort of reform requires further in-depth debate on a number of key questions : is change necessary ? Can one participate in the definition of objectives and also the methods of delivery ? Is it not essential to clarify the purpose and goals of services that are not in the private sector?

The RGPP Programme Review and Human Resources Management. Improved human resources management constitutes one of the areas of modernisation of the RGPP Programme Review. It will achieve this by applying private sector optimisation techniques to the administration. This is in line with past guidelines focusing on three key points : the introduction of faster career paths, the development of a results-driven culture and the diversification of civil service recruitment. However, it entails certain significant changes which reflect a different view of the civil service.

Cross-fertilisation of the French Territorial Model – The RGPP Programme Review and the Reorganisations of the State at Territorial Level. This article analyses the reform of the State at territorial level (known as RÉATE – réforme de l'administration territoriale de l'État) undertaken in the framework of France's RGPP Programme Review (RGPP : Revision générale des politiques publiques – General Review of Public Policies). It is the most far-reaching reorganisation since 1964, affecting both the distribution of work between different parts of decentralised government and the hierarchical relationships between central, regional and department administrations. However, the article asks whether it constitutes a genuinely unprecedented reform or, on the contrary, whether it follows on from previous initiatives. This article seeks to distinguish between processes of institutional replication and processes of change. It develops two arguments. Firstly, it shows that the RGPP has provided an appropriate framework to revive and broaden the territorial administration reform already underway since 2002. Secondly, the conflictual process through which the reform has been introduced has entailed a compromise which “cross-fertilises” the traditional organisation of State administration at territorial level in an original way.

The Impact of the RGPP Programme Review on Administrative Review. Administrative review of local government decisions, which, according to Article 72 of the Constitution, are a “constitutional task of the State's representative in local and regional authorities of the Republic”, are particularly affected by the RGPP Programme Review. To try to improve these “health checks”, it proposes solutions such as local review strategies, attempts to focus reviews on the most sensitive local government decisions and further reductions to the list of decisions which must be referred, all of which are designed to make up for the shortage of qualified staff. Although these objectives are commendable, they may well not be enough to improve the situation for administrative review.

Programme Review and Local and Regional Authorities. Aside from being a State-designed and developed method for implementing different reforms, the RGPP Programme Review concerns several modernisation programmes, which, when considered together, show that it is primarily a State concern and not one for local authorities. However, although launched by and for the State, the RGPP necessarily has a positive impact on local authorities (in terms of shared benefits) as well as a negative impact (new transfers of expenditure). But, for different reasons, it is also important to note that the RGPP approach is being extended to local authorities as a means of bringing about a “general reduction in public policies” and local forms of the RGPP are thus emerging.

White Papers : A Method of Reform Introduced in the Wake of the RGPP Programme Review – The Case of the White Paper on France and Europe in the World. While foreign policy has traditionally been the subject of white papers in the United Kingdom, this was not the case in France until the summer of 2008. The publication of the White Paper “La France et l'Europe dans le monde” has put foreign policy on a par with other public policies, so that it can also be subject to programming. This is the result of a medium-term process aimed at adapting the diplomatic service to globalisation. The foreign ministers Alain Juppé and Hubert Védrine gave during the 2000's a decisive impetus to this process. The White Paper attempts to reconcile two different policy approaches, one based upon the notion of security, and the other on the recognition of a transnational view of external relations which entails an extensive overhaul of cultural machinery. An examination of the reforms of the past decade (1998-2008) and the reasons for them raises the issue of the possible medium-term privatisation of whole swathes of external policy. The White Paper sidesteps this debate.

The New Organisation of the State at Regional Level. The reform of the territorial administration of the State at regional level, which has just been completed, includes two major innovations. Firstly, this decentralised level of the State can now implement public policies under ordinary law. Within this framework, extensive changes have now been made to the organisation of the territorial level : for the implementation of government policy, only eight bodies – instead of about 20 – now come under the responsibility of regional prefects and their offices. The second innovation concerns the preeminent role of regional prefects, which has been greatly consolidated, in that they now have the power to give instructions to department prefects and the right to take up matters on their behalf.