Blame avoidance, scapegoats and spin: why Dutch politicians won't evaluate ZBO-outcomes

Agencification came with high expectations. Compared to government bureaucracy, semi-autonomous agencies were expected to operate more business-like, provide more value and quality of public services for less money, operate at... [ view full abstract ]

Agencification came with high expectations. Compared to government bureaucracy, semi-autonomous agencies were expected to operate more business-like, provide more value and quality of public services for less money, operate at a distance from politics and closer to citizens, ensure more transparency and accountability, and offer a more motivating work environment for employees. It would seem reasonable to expect politicians to want to know whether these objectives have been met. However, there is a generic lack of evaluation studies on semi-autonomous agencies (see Pollitt & Dan, 2013 for an overview of 20+ countries). How can this lack of interest of politicians in the results of agencification be explained?
To answer this question, this paper delves into the case of Dutch ZBOs. Although legally mandatory, 70% of the 118 ZBOs have never been evaluated during their existence. Using the reports that have been published, we examine which organizations have been evaluated compared to the overall population, to ascertain which conditions do or don’t heighten political interest to order a ZBO-evaluation. Theoretically, Hood’s theory on blame avoidance strategies (Hood, 2002) is used to predict why or when politicians will show interest in doing evaluations and in using evaluation reports in political debate and decision-making, or abstain from such interest. The analysis shows several cases of gaming, staging and other blame avoidance strategies.

References:
Hood, C. (2002). The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self-Preservation in Government. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Pollitt, C. & S. Dan (2013). Searching for impacts in performance-oriented management reform: a review of the European literature. Public Performance & Management Review, 37(1), 7–32.