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This publication examines public governance arrangements in Finland and Estonia in two key areas: whole-of-government strategy steering and digital governance. This integrated review reflects the fact that the two countries face common challenges in setting and co-ordinating the implementation of whole-of-government strategies.

Public governance reforms are high on the policy agenda in Estonia and Finland. The first OECD Public Governance Review of Finland was carried out in 2009-10 for the public administration’s 200th anniversary. Estonia’s first Public Governance Review was carried out in 2011, after a 20-year period of rapid economic growth and successful transition post-independence, which saw the development of the full institutional set up of independent statehood. Economic integration across the two countries, and the perception of joint governance challenges, provide the framing of this integrated Public Governance Review of two countries for the first time in OECD history.

This chapter examines the Centre of Government’s capacity to steer strategy setting and implementation effectively in Estonia and Finland. It provides an overview of the state of strategy setting and implementation in both countries, and highlights similar challenges faced by each country. It notes recent advancements in reforming strategy setting and implementation processes while emphasising the need to better link budgeting with strategy setting, to ensure whole-of-cabinet decision making and to enhance the strategic visioning of the government’s strategy.

This chapter provides an overview of Estonia’s and Finland’s institutional set-ups corresponding to the Centre of Government and highlights that both countries share similar Centre of Government structures. It emphasises the need for strong co-ordination among Centre of Government institutions to achieve successful whole-of-government strategy steering.

This chapter analyses the priorities and strategies for digital government set by Estonia and Finland. It uses responses to an OECD survey and other information sources to draw conclusions about the coherence of digital government across the large public sectors in each country. Governance and leadership issues are closely related to digital government coherence and performance. The choices each government has made for government IT co-ordination are therefore compared in light of their effectiveness to address national policy priorities. This also includes a look at co-ordination with local levels of government which, especially in Finland, have important policy competencies in areas such as education and healthcare. The chapter concludes with an assessment of practices, issues and challenges for digital government prioritisation and co-ordination.

This chapter sets out the context for digital government in Estonia and Finland. It outlines some of the traits that are common to the two countries: high levels of connectivity, important domestic information and communication technology sectors, and sound innovation policy frameworks. It also analyses important variations, such as the different policy developments over the past decades, which have an impact on today’s state of digital government in both countries.

This chapter examines the ability of the governments of Estonia and Finland to take effective decisions based on a robust set of evidence. It provides an overview of the state of evidence-based decision making in both countries, and assesses it as a function of their capacity to effectively generate and integrate regulatory impact assessment, performance information, citizen engagement, strategic foresight information and existing knowledge bases into government’s decisions. The chapter notes recent advancements in improving these processes while emphasising the need to formalise institutional arrangements to foster evidence-based decision making in order to ensure major legislative and strategic initiatives have been informed by a robust set of evidence.

Public governance reforms are high on the policy agenda in Estonia and Finland. Over the last five years, both governments have engaged strongly in an international dialogue on public governance reform, inviting the OECD to conduct for the first time a joint OECD Public Governance Review over the course of 2014, which follows previous comprehensive Public Governance Reviews of each country in the early 2010s.

This chapter examines the ways in which the governments of Estonia and Finland manage the implementation of cross-cutting government IT projects. A particular focus is set on the “business case” approach, which leading OECD countries have adopted as a critical instrument to review, monitor and assess the impact of digital government projects, especially those with high stakes and high risks attached. This chapter highlights co-operation with non-government stakeholders, as well as the availability of adequate skills across the public administration. Skills gaps pose important challenges to digital government in both countries – as in most OECD countries – although they take different forms in Estonia and Finland, which in turn requires different approaches to address them. The chapter concludes with an assessment of implementation issues.

Estonia and Finland are seeking to change how their governments function, in order to better address strategic challenges and create more opportunities for their citizens and businesses. To support this reform, the governments of Estonia and Finland invited the OECD to conduct a joint Public Governance Review in 2014.

This chapter examines the flexibility the governments of Estonia and Finland have in reallocating resources to address shifting strategic priorities. It provides an overview of the current state of structural and resource flexibility in the two countries and highlights recent successes at governance reform to address these challenges. It assesses for each country how joint action by the Centre of Government institutions is being pursued to enable coherence in policy making to meet shifting demands, and how nimbly or flexibly they can move human, financial and institutional resources across the government to respond to emerging strategic priorities. This chapter underscores the need to enhance flexibility in financial-resource allocation through tools such as contingency funds and spending reviews, while also enhancing flexibility in human resource management and in institutions, by breaking down institutional and regulatory barriers.

Estonia and Finland have developed close partnerships and co-operation on information and communication technology policies. The two governments now share the ambition to take this co-operation further and expand the availability of interoperable digital public services, data exchanges and infrastructures across the border. This chapter identifies customer-facing transactions as well as background exchanges in four high-impact policy areas: taxation, healthcare, social affairs and private sector development. It discusses how political intentions can be converted into tangible implementation, including the establishment of shared governance, co-ordination and management mechanisms. The roadmap proposed in this chapter aims to support exploring, piloting and implementing digital cross-border services and data exchanges.