Publications & Documents

Finding sufficient funds to pay for more resilient health systems is challenging in the current economic context. COVID-19 has shown the need for additional targeted spending on public health interventions, the digital transformation of health systems, and bolstering the health workforce. Rising incomes, technological innovation and changing demographics put further upward pressure on health spending. This could result in health spending reaching 11.8% of GDP across OECD counties by 2040. This publication explores the policy options to finance more resilient health systems whilst maintaining fiscal sustainability. It finds that the scale of the additional health financing needs requires ambitious and transformative policy changes. Robust actions to encourage healthier populations and policies to reduce ineffective spending can put future health expenditure on a far gentler upward trajectory. These would enable spending to reach a more sustainable 10.6% of GDP in 2040. Better budgetary governance is critical. It improves how public funds for health are determined, executed and evaluated. Therefore, a focus of this report is on how good budgeting practices can increase the efficiency of current public spending, and also enable more ambitious policy changes in the medium to longer-term. Findings of this report are targeted at health and finance policy makers, with improved dialogue between health and finance ministries especially important when governments are operating in a constrained fiscal setting.

Open government data has become a vital instrument for addressing both longstanding and emerging policy issues. In particular, the recent pandemic and the green transition have underscored the need for governments to ensure access to timely, relevant, and high-quality data to foster resilience and facilitate a comprehensive whole-of-society response. This paper presents the main findings of the fourth edition of the OECD Open, Useful, and Re-usable data (OURdata) Index for 2023, which benchmarks efforts made by governments to design and implement national open government data policies. It encompasses over 670 data points collected from 36 OECD countries and 4 accession countries throughout 2022.

A risk management approach is important for promoting public integrity efficiently and effectively. This report reviews the current corruption risk management methodology in the Romanian central government through the lens of behavioural science. After introducing the Romanian corruption risk management methodology and analysing the challenges related to its implementation, the report provides four concrete avenues for its adoption and implementation. Behaviourally inspired strategies are designed to improve public officials' capacities, opportunities, and motivations to identify corruption risks, assess their probability and impact, and design more effective control measures.

The Digital Government Review of Romania evaluates the efforts made by the government to transition towards digital government. It provides in-depth analysis and actionable policy recommendations to improve institutional governance, digital investments, digital talent and skills, government service delivery and the strategic use of data, including open government data. The findings can help Romania use digital technology and data to make its public sector more responsive, resilient and proactive in serving citizens and businesses.

This Public Communication Scan of the United Kingdom, the first such scan of an OECD Member country, brings new insights to the OECD’s work on understanding how public communication contributes to democratic governance. The scan analyses how the United Kingdom’s Government Communication Service (GCS) is building a more effective communication function amid changes to the information ecosystem and how it can help make policymaking more responsive to citizens' needs. The analysis and recommendations in this Scan highlight opportunities for the GCS and the UK Government to align ongoing communication reforms with actions to promote more inclusive and people-centred communication that contributes to greater engagement, improved public trust, and better policy outcomes.

This paper provides a critical review of public sector innovation measurement approaches and related gaps. It explores alternative approaches to measure public sector innovation measurement which respond to different use cases, and paves the way for operationalising a measurement framework for public sector innovation. The paper proposes creating a continuous stocktake of public sector innovation measurement activities in Member countries, improving existing frameworks or creating new frameworks to guide public sector innovation measurement more systematically at country level, and identifying indicators that would be most useful for cross-country comparability.

As countries seek to draw lessons the COVID-19 crisis and increase their future resilience, evaluations are important tools to understand what worked or not, why and for whom. This report builds on the OECD work on 'government evaluations of COVID-19 responses'. It evaluates Belgium’s responses to the pandemic in terms of risk preparedness, crisis management, as well as public health, education, economic and fiscal, and social and labour market policies. Preserving the country’s resilience in the future will require promoting trust in public institutions and whole-of-government approaches to crisis management, reducing inequalities, and preserving the fiscal balance. The findings and recommendations of this report will provide guidance to public authorities in these efforts.