Public governance

As a theme, public governance cuts across several of the OECD’s directorates, but is centred in the Directorate of Public Governance (GOV), which is overseen by two committees (Public Governance Committee and Regulatory Policy Committee). The early roots of public governance in the OECD were in technical assistance work, which evolved in the 1960s and 1970s into a focus on conventional public administration, constituting a core of work around budgeting, human resource management, policy coherence (central agencies), effective regulation and taxation, integrity (anti-corruption) and accountability. By the early 2000s, the OECD was an international leader in global public management debates, focused on this core. After the 2000s, the scope of public governance expanded to include management of key public services such as health and education, benchmarks such as equity and inclusion, and results, such as equality and access. As the portfolio of work expanded into niches beyond the core, it has lost coherence, and the OECD is currently more a follower than a leader in global public governance debates.