HOW CAN WE GET THERE?

Strategies provide part of the answer to the question of ‘How can we get there?’

Strategies are defined as an integrated set of decisions about how to achieve goals and objectives. Several ideas are offered in respect of the formulation of strate-gies. First, it is possible to make use of a SWOT analysis by taking pairs of items from a completed analysis and putting them together to suggest a strategy. For example, a strategy that is designed to reduce a weakness and address a threat is labelled a WT strategy. An SO strategy uses a strength and takes advantage of an opportunity. A WO strategy may attempt to eliminate a weakness by responding to an external opportunity. And an ST strategy uses an identified strength to counter an external threat.

An alternative suggestion is to identify the problems anticipated in reaching goals and objectives and then devise a course of action that will address the prob-lem and take the organization towards its goals and objectives.

Those engaged in strategic planning are advised to check their strategies in terms of resources, which is obviously an important issue in judging the feasi-bility of proposed strategies. They are also advised to check that strategies and objectives are in harmony. Presumably, this advice means checking that all the organization’s goals and objectives are being addressed in one way or another by all the planned strategies.

There is then some advice about questions that might be posed that are clearly part of the process of determining the strategy that is to be followed. In other words, there should be some attempt to check on the feasibility and desirability of alternative strategies. The questions proposed are:

1 What are the alternative ways and methods that can be followed in order to reach the goals and objectives?

2 What are the costs, positive and negative aspects of alternatives?

It is known from research (Poister and Streib, 2005) that successful strategic plan-ning in local government has been correlated with checking on the feasibility of alternative strategies before committing to them. So the two questions just cited might be supplemented by a third question about whether or not any proposed strategies were dropped because they did not appear to be feasible.

It is striking that the guidance is relatively detailed in its coverage of cost esti-mation in this section of the strategic management process. It may well reflect the fact that strategic planning was introduced as part of a package to improve public financial management in the wake of the 2001 crisis in Turkey. As noted before, budgeting must be put on a better basis as a result of strategic planning, and therefore it is probably not surprising that the cost planning aspect was treated as very important within this guidance. Consequently, the idea in this part of the strategic planning process was to build a strong connection between the new strategic plans and the budgets of the government, which it was thought would be very helpful in making decisions about spending priorities.

Logically, strategies would have significance for public sector organizations, either by leading to a change in the ongoing activities of units or by the setting up of projects. Costing proceeded by linking activities and projects to the objec-tives in the strategic plan. With cost estimations of the activities and projects made, these costs could be attributed to the goals within the strategic plan, and then aggregated to provide an estimated cost of the strategic plan for each year of a five-year plan. This could be set out as a cost table, which is shown in Table. 5.5.

The issue is, of course, not just estimating the costs but also resource planning.

So, in addition, those doing strategic planning have to plan the resources side.

This involves identifying resources both from the budget and from outside the budget. In the case of the Turkish ministries at this time, the resources available would include the budget specified in the Medium-Term Financial Plan, which

covered the first 3 years of the 5 years. Taking account of both the costs and the resources, those planning were supposed to modify plans so that cost projections matched financial resource availability. Less expensive strategies might have to replace more expensive ones. A less ambitious rate of delivery of outcomes might be needed. Maybe there would have to be pruning of strategic goals and objectives. This would require a process of iteration so that estimated resource availability (partly based on the Medium-Term Financial Plan) and the costing of the strategic plan over a five-year period were consistent. The resource plan could then be presented in a format as shown in Table 5.6.

Noticeable here is the attention given to prudence in financial resource esti-mates and an acceptance that strategies may need to be adjusted or even dropped to ensure the financial feasibility of strategic plans.

■ Table 5.5 Cost table for a strategic plan Strategic goals Plan year

1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year Goal 1

Objective 1.1 Objective 1.2 Goal 2 Objective 2.1 Objective 2.2

…..

Total

■ Table 5.6 Table of resources for a strategic plan

Sources Plan year

1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year General budget

Special budget Local administrations Social security institutions Non-budgetary funds Revolving fund Foundations and

associations External funds Other (source will be

specifi ed) Total

For completeness we may note here that the strategic plans finalized in this third step of the strategic management process would then need to be trans-formed into annual operational plans. The strategic plans were not meant to provide details of how strategic plans were delivered through activities and projects. It was at the stage of turning the strategic plans into operational plans that the details of activities and projects would be considered. In the guidance it is made clear the operational planning is done through what are called perfor-mance programmes. These were described as annual implementation segments of the strategic plans. It was envisaged that the connection between strategic plans and budgets would be worked through in more detail as a result of the per-formance programmes. This was because the perper-formance programmes would contain details of ongoing activities and projects to deliver the strategic plans and these would be backed up by action plans and would be budgeted. The preparation of performance programmes was addressed in separate guidance.