Reviewing Performance

Monitoring progress in policy coherence is a complicated process, and no country has yet developed a comprehensive set of indicators that that adequately measures changes over time in the institutional mechanisms that are required to improve PCSD. In 2018, to help a country assess such progress, the OECD suggested indicators for each of their Eight Building Blocks.

In section, an attempt is made to review Scotland’s performance against the OECD suggested indicators using their 3-level rating system, with an explanation of the Scottish specific context where appropriate. The table below also includes more general and top-level recommendations to highlight how Scotland could perform better against each indicator. These can be developed, changed and reviewed over time.

Using the rather crude, 3-level rating in the suggested indicators,it can be said that Scotland has made progress in many areas but that such performance still scores low in all eight key elements. It is worth noting that the OECD 2018 rating does not account for no action; therefore, even a low score demonstrates that some progress has been made.

In July 2019, the OECD published their latest PCSD report that was presented at the UN HLPF in New york. In this most recent edition of the research into PCSD, they make further suggestions about developing indicators to measure progress on PCSD. They build on the 2018 framework that we use below, and suggest further process indicators for each building block using a 5-point rating scale. They also offer other suggested ways countries can develop indicators that measure policy interactions and policy effects.

There is no presumption that this Wiki has all the answers to the complex issue of measuring progress on PCSD, rather it is hoped that ideas presented here can be developed and tailored to the Scottish specific context by key stakeholders in and outside government.

It is also worth noting that the first version of this table below has been developed by those outside government who do not have a full overview of all internal government mechanisms. Therefore, we encourage that this assessment of institutional mechanisms for PCSD is developed further by a multi-stakeholder partnership of both government and civil society representatives.