Why Government Program Evaluation Methodologies Require Improvement

Government programs in the Russian Federation are often the subject of strong criticism, especially due to the obvious significant shortcomings in the methodologies used for their evaluation. The reasons for those shortcomings are numerous. Executivesin charge of both federal and regional level government programs are sometimes provided with excessive authority for the selection of evaluation methods, and the assessment of target vs. planned indicator values can be statistically unreliable. The criteria for program management assessment are rather perfunctory compared with international practice, which involves meaningful management result evaluation. The algorithms used to calculate efficiency indicators often lead to logical contradictions.Recommendations are given on streamlining assessment methodologies of state program execution, the key ones being: (a) feasibility substantiation and applicationof the modified Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) method for assessing thedegree of meeting the program’s goals, based on three individual ranking scores whichtake into account the advisability of pursuing the program, the quality of the program’smanagement and the program’s final results; (b) method of assessing the program output based on an algorithm which takes account of any inequivalence of subprograms’ target indicators, subprograms themselves and the main target indicators of the state program; (c) method of program performance assessment for a specific calendar year, based on the adjustment of integral evaluation of the program’s output with regard to the correlation between the real and projected amounts of its financing and the dynamics of changes in efficiency assessment rankings for the whole assessment period.