Suchergebnisse

This article examines what impeded programme evaluation from being embedded in the Australian Public Service (APS), being relevant to the Australian Government's current priority of embedding evaluation in the APS. It draws on a case study of evaluation as the major element of the 1980s APS 'Managing for Results' (MfR) reform and the reasons for evaluation's later demise. During MfR, evaluation was intended to demonstrate the effectiveness of APS programmes. Although evaluation was incorporated into APS practice by 1992, after 1997, evaluation was no longer required. Currently, agencies must demonstrate their annual non-financial performance over 4 years under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, with evaluation being recommended to support this requirement. It is pertinent to current Government consideration of a National Indigenous Evaluation Strategy, which supports the creation of an independent Evaluator-General to embed APS evaluation practice.

The younger generation of poets and novelists in the GDR either voted with their feet or just turned their backs

"As a nominally neutral power during the Second World War, Sweden in the early postwar era has received comparatively little attention from historians. Nonetheless, as this definitive study shows, the war--and particularly the specter of Nazism--changed Swedish society profoundly. Prior to 1939, many Swedes shared an unmistakable affinity for German culture, and even after the outbreak of hostilities there remained prominent apologists for the Third Reich. After the Allied victory, however, Swedish intellectuals reframed Nazism as a discredited, distinctively German phenomenon rooted in militarism and Romanticism. Accordingly, Swedes' self-conception underwent a dramatic reformulation. From this interplay of suppressed traditions and bright dreams for the future, postwar Sweden emerged"--From publisher's website

AbstractPublic sector leaders in the Australian Public Service (APS) can learn from the demise of programme evaluation introduced as part of managing for results reforms, as they implement the evaluation of agency performance outcomes under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act (2013) (PGPA). This paper demonstrates that public sector management reforms require more than top‐down initiation by agency heads and that implementation needs to occur over an extended time frame. Although there has been increased communication of APS agencies' purpose in annual reports, as required by the PGPA Act (2013), ambiguity continues in relation to how planned performance aligns with performance outcomes. The potential for inertia and resistance to management reforms from middle managers and employees may also re‐emerge where there is insufficient training to develop their skills to conduct performance evaluations; skills shortages and inertia from middle managers and employees may also be more evident in geographically dispersed APS offices. To increase the potential for performance reporting and evaluation reforms to be embedded, central agency and agency public sector leaders need to work together to reinforce the value of these reforms, particularly where government ministers or governments change.