Policy analysts a new professional role in government services 1

1. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 1
Policy Analysts: A New Professional Role in
Government Service
Yehezkel Dror

2. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 2
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 2
Introduction
• The main contemporary reform movement in the federal administration of the United States
is based on an economic approach to public decision-making.
• The roots of this approach are:
 economic theory.
 quantitative decision theory.
• The main tools of this approach are:
 operations research.
 cost-effectiveness.
 cost-benefit analysis.
Program budgeting and system analysis.

3. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 3
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 3
Introduction
• Together, these elements constitute main components of the Planning-Programming- Budgeting
System (PPBS) .
• Planning-Programming Budgeting System (PPBS) Is the main contemporary reform movement in the
Federal administration of the USA government which is in essence a restatement of earlier
budgeting theory combined with systems analysis and put into an integrated framework.
• To work with this these reforms constitute an invasion of public decision-making by
economics must go far beyond the domain of economic policy-making, the economic
approach to decision-making views every decision as an allocation of resources between
alternatives, that is, as an economic problem.

4. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 4
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 4
Introduction
• Application of suitable tools of economic analysis should contribute to the improvement of
decision-making, whatever the subject matter of the decision may be This is the main
innovation of the Planning- Programming-Budgeting System, which is in essence a
restatement of earlier budgeting theory combined with systems analysis and put into a
coherent and integrated framework.
• A main question is how to reap the full benefits of the economic approach and to improve
public decision-making and policymaking.

5. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 5
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 5
What is System Analysis?
• Systems analysis is an approach intended to develop and implement the best possible system
configuration.
• It Is based on an economic approach.
• the professionals of the economic approach are the systems analysts.

6. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 6
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 6
Weaknesses of systems analysis
• Strong attachment to quantification.
• Incapacity to deal with conflicting non-equivalent values.
• Lack of significant treatment of essential extra-rational decision
elements.
• Lack of instruments for taking into account individual motivations,
irrational and behavior.

7. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 7
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 7
• If systems analysis in its present form is applied to complex political
issues, it cannot provide the hoped-for benefits. Systems analysis has
weaknesses in the fact that it cannot deal with issues related to the
qualitative.
• What is needed is a more advanced type of professional knowledge, which
can bring significant benefits to the improvement of public decision-making.
• systems analysis must be developed so as to be applicable to
complex and non-quantifiable issues.

8. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 8
• Policy analysis should combine the present methods of systems analysis
with qualitative methods and a full awareness of the special characteristics
of political phenomena.
• What is needed is a new interdisciplinary subject , an integration between the
disciplines of political science and public administration with systems analysis,
decision theory, and economic theory. This combination should be in the form of a
compound rather than a mix.

9. Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 9
Nada A Alsubki
28-Sep-19
Slide 9
Policy Analysts : A New Professional Role in Government
Service.
• The decision in 1965 to introduce PPBS in the federal administration and the
preparation for including a social report in the State of the Union message both
provide in the United States an opportunity to introduce policy analysis as a new
professional role in government service and create an urgent need to do so as
expediently as possible.
• The development of policy analysis depends on a number of transformations in
the disciplines of political science and public administration.