Comment concevoir des systèmes de mise en oeuvre de politiques publiques?

Atelier Complexité et politiques publiquesParis, 23-24 Septembre 2010

Dr. Klaus Lenk, Université de OldenburgProfesseur émérite de Science administrative

Lenk@uni-oldenburg.de www.klauslenk.de

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Mon champ de recherche

• Développer une „ingéniérie administrative“ (Public administration engineering; Verwaltungs-Engineering“) pour faciliter le design des systèmes administratifs dans le courant de la transformation administrative alimenté par les TIC („E-Government“)

• Comment une telle ingéniérie est-elle possible en l‘absence de lois du type de la mécanique?

• Une approche systèmique du design des structures de mise en oeuvre des politiques publiques

• But modeste pour commencer: proposer des méthodologies à l‘usage d‘institutions „watchdog“ déjà existantes telles que le „Normenkontrollrat“

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Le problème

• La mise en oeuvre des politiques publiques passe très souvent par des systèmes hybrides d‘exécution (informatisées) qui ne sont considérés que sous leurs aspects technique et légal; les structures organisationelles facilitées („enabled“) par les TIC ne sont prises en considération que d‘une manière insuffisante

• La complexité est donc escamotée:– Complexité HCI (interaction homme-machine)– Complexité de la co-production des usagers– Complexité des impacts: Comment la société changera-t-

elle par l‘impact des systèmes de mise-en-oeuvre?

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La question de recherche

• Comment concevoir ces systèmes de manière conviviale? – Comment sont-ils conçus actuellement?– Développer une procédure pour les développer autrement,

pour maximiser les avantages et éviter les désavantages

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Cours de la Présentation

• Un cas de la pratique actuelle à remplacer par autre chose: ELENA, le système de stockage de données sur la rémunération des personnes physiques à l‘intention des services publics de redistribution sociale

• L“Innovation Impact Assessment“ comme procédure pour améliorer la qualité du design, faisant partie de cette approche et s‘appuyant sur des tendances de réforme administrative (Regulatory Impact Assessment; E-government)

• Conclusion: Quelle société de l‘information? Y a-t-il des alternatives? �

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ELENA is not a Greek beauty, but...

• ...stands for ELektronischer EntgeltNAchweis (Electronic remuneration evidence)

• About 3 million employers feed all payroll and other income data into a central data base

• About 40 million employees (including civil and military servants, as well as unemployed persons) will need a chipcard-based qualified electronic signature for all applications for jobless and other social benefits

• ELENA is made compulsory by legislation and will be operational in 2012

• Un recours est déposé auprès de la Cour Constitutionelle Fédérale (pour cause d‘atteinte à la vie privée)

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ELENA: The procedure as planned

• Employers communicate all payroll and other income data to a central storage system where they are stored under a pseudonym

• The employee procures herself a signature card for qualified signatures at one of the accredited trust centers. The new German Identitiy Card (fully rolled out in 2020) will serve as a support for the signature (only for German nationals)

• She then signals the card to a special body (the Registratur Fachverfahren, separated from the central storage facility) to serve as a “JobCard”. This body temporarily uses the Card’s certificate to link the Social Security Number with the pseudonym.

• When claiming a benefit, she gets identified via this Card and permits access by the official in charge to the income data stored about her.

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Comment analyser la construction de ce système?

– 4 phases de construction (selon la théorie de l‘innovation dévéloppé par Robert Yin):

• Ignition• Conception• Implementation• Routinisation

– A chaque phase correspond une arène avec ces acteurs, leurs intérêts, positions de pouvoir, coalitions

– Les acteurs changent d‘une phase à l‘autre

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Comment analyser la construction de ce système? (2)

– Micropolitique (Crozier & Friedberg)– Actor-centered institutionalism (Mayntz & Scharpf)– Réseaux multidimensionnels??

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Les arènes du design

Démarrage („Ignition“)

(political) agenda setting

Conception à huis clos? L‘heure des experts qui méconnaissent les besoins

Quelles procédures pour la supporter? (Innovation Impact Assessment?)

Mise en oeuvre La mise en oeuvre du système doit faire appel aux spécialistes qui introduisent leurs valeurs

Opportunity-based change?

Routinisation Design-in-use„Enactment“

Open innovation? Appropriation

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Actor coalitions, interests, implications

• Ignition stage: In 2002, interests in combating welfare fraud and disciplining the work force (typical of the climate of the Hartz Commission and the general stigmatisation of the jobless by the then red-green coalition) join the search for a „killer application“ for the chipcard-based electronic signature. This is backed by a persisting economic policy assuming that such signatures will be required to promote e-business

• Conception stage (2003-2009): More industrial interests enter the arena. Polical promotion of the Information Society becoming stronger in conformance to EU policy. Data protection authorities are called upon to make the system safe, protesting only mildly against the excess of storage of data that might never be used. De-bureaucratisation provides an additional rationale for ELENA, yet administrative burdens for the citizens are not considered.

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Actor coalitions, interests, implications II

• Implementation stage (2009-?): Under-represented interests now come to the fore, creating unforeseen resistance. Official statements conjure the advantages for all participants, not yet realising that the desire to relieve employers of administrative burdens only serves to shift these burdens to employees. In Sept. 2010, the Normenkontrollrat revokes its expertise of Nov. 2007

• Preview of routinisation stage (2012-?): Since jobless benefits will be the main application, this procedure chiefly concerns the lower strata of German society, generally with a low education level, including many foreigners who do not always master the national language. The need to go in person to a labor agency persists, and before that, the applicant has to find a trust center delivering the signature, and to have it registered. - There will no doubt be initiatives to help many less-skilled and disvantaged applicants

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Could such a system have been avoided with an „Innovation Impact Assessment“

during the conception stage?

• A methodology for improving the quality of project design:

• Combining elements of Regulatory Impact Assessment and Technology Assessment

• Object: proposed new socio-technical systems• Criteria: desired values; costs and benefits

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Innovation Impact Assessment• La méthodologie procède en deux temps: • Premier temps: discuter le système projeté sous l‘aspect des

valeurs desirables ainsi que des coûts et avantages• Foreseeable impacts are considered at several levels:

– Individual – Organizational– Societal

• An awesome complexity is created by combining theses steps. Savoir pour prévoir?

• Complexité des relation sociales sur le champ d‘application• C. des normes• C. résultant de leur application

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Innovation Impact Assessment (2)

• Deuxième temps: • Vaut-il la peine d‘introduire le système considéré?• Raisons pour son introduction:

– Opportunités

– Urgences

– Viabilite économique...

– ... et surtout sociale

– Hasards provenant de ruptures

• Considérations économiques élargies (erweiterte Wirtschaftlichkeitsrechnung?)

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Is ELENA just a cobblestone for paving the road to a dismal Information Society?

• A tendency to store all kinds of data (health, income, activities) during the whole life of a person is gaining ground in the name of pre-emptive social policy

• Unwittingly, this is furthered by present business interests of the information industry

• Social bureaucracy is inevitable, but it may assume different forms (e.g. „Infocracy“ versus „No-stop government“)

• The Information Society will become over-organised (and less open for future adaptations) if not designed consciously and responsibly in view of a better quality of public life

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Conclusion

• The Information Society can be designed, at least partly. • By making use of the potential of IT for organizational design,

bureaucratic structures can be minimised or made invisible • The political will to design the Information Society is still

paralysed by an economic policy („iEurope 2010“) which is trying to delay the downswing of the 5th Kondratiev-Cycle, instead of embarking on new „green“ modes of production, thereby opening up new opportunities, also for the information industry

• An Innovation Impact Assessment is proposed to assess new socio-technical systems under aspects of conviviality and sustainability, thus contributing to a better quality of service and of life in general