A.4 Service delivery oversight, management, and systems

TABLE A.4 Service delivery oversight, management, and systems

Promote devolution beyond counties. Devolve responsibility toward the point of service delivery and deliver predictable finance.

KEY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES CONSIDERATIONS POLICY OPTIONS

Centralized management structures within counties concentrate decision-making and resources at county headquarters, undermining service delivery. Counties need to delegate responsibilities and authority to the subcounty level, urban boards, and facilities. Counties and sector ministries need to jointly agree and clarify respective roles and responsibilities (potentially as part of the proposed SDF process), which involves appropriate delegation to the following subcounty structures and facilities:

Counties have not delegated enough operational responsibilities to their “agents.” County departments have not delegated operational autonomy to their frontline service delivery units to the degree necessary. This means that local service delivery can be paralyzed or cumbersome. This is the case in: - Health, where health facilities do not have budgets for operations - Water supply and urban development, where the principal-agent relationship between county governments and various “semi-autonomous” subcounty institutions is not always clear (for example, water supply companies, urban boards) Data and performance monitoring systems are not functioning effectively in many sectors. Poor information management is a threat to county service delivery. It weakens the basis for decision-making, programming, and resource allocation, makes it difficult or impossible to assess service delivery results, and undermines intracounty and intergovernmental coordination. Good information management underpins good service delivery. National government departments need to take a more proactive role in supporting information management systems.

Counties do not appear to ensure enough in the way of oversight, supervision, quality assurance, and on-the-job support for frontline service delivery units. Oversight, supervision, and quality assurance of service delivery need to be strengthened at the county level.

- Urban boards - Subcounty health offices and health facilities - Subcounty education offices and boards of management for ECDE centers - Subcounty agriculture offices.

Establish or strengthen information management systems in all sectors and across counties.

National government MDAs need to consult with counties on MIS and survey data that will both meet counties’ management needs as well as national government. Sector MIS need to be developed or strengthened to meet agreed-on data needs and rolled-out with training for counties in each sector.

Survey instruments, including the household survey, are strengthened to provide periodic countywide data on service delivery outcomes and socioeconomic indicators. Lead: NT&P National ministries County departments KNBS Next 12 months

IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES

Lead: MoDA MoTIHUD MoH MoE MoALF CoG

Involved: MoPSYGA

TIME FRAME

Next 12 months

Lead: CECs Next 3 years

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TABLE A.4, continued Promote devolution beyond counties. Devolve responsibility toward the point of service delivery and deliver predictable finance.

KEY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES CONSIDERATIONS POLICY OPTIONS IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES TIME FRAME

These “meso-level” (or “back-up”) functions appear to be poorly assured by county departments. This weakens their ability to track performance and thus to ensure quality. This is of particular importance in sectors such as health, ECDE, and agriculture. Operating spending is not effectively supporting service delivery. Sector departments and frontline service delivery units do not reliably receive the funds they need (and were promised in the budget) to deliver services. In many counties, county-level financial management has been over-centralized (by county treasuries), depriving frontline service delivery units of spending authority and slowing down day-to-day operations. This has not only impeded service delivery; it has also had a negative impact on budget execution. Counties to improve cash management, ensuring operational funds for service delivery projects. Clarify modalities for ensuring funds get to and are available at facility or subcounty level. Ensure operating funds reach the front line. Counties need to improve cash management processes to ensure that all county departments can reliably receive the operating funds they are promised in budgets and to ensure that funding reliably reaches the front line. County cash management practices need to become more decentralized to ensure that service delivery facilities receive budget resources regularly and on a timely basis. Counties need to find ways of providing their service delivery units with more spending authority. Options include imprest-type arrangements.

County performance on development budget execution has been poor. There are also large variations in performance between counties. Develop a common understanding of the reasons for variable performance. Improve project appraisal, prioritization, and budgeting. Improve contract management and oversight of project implementation. There is not a clear understanding of the reasons for variable performance. Better understanding the bottlenecks to improved county public investment management should thus be a priority through a diagnostic study to identify different bottlenecks to project implementation. Develop PIM guidelines and systems for appraising and prioritizing of projects and management of project implementation for counties. Promote peer learning between better- and worse- performing counties based on the findings of the diagnostic study. Lead: CECs (finance) NT

Lead: National Treasury CECs (finance) Next 12 months

Next 3 years

Source: World Bank. Note: CECs = County Executive Committees; CoG = Council of Governors; ECDE = early childhood development and education; KNBS = Kenya National Bureau of Statistics; MDAs = ministries, departments, and agencies; MIS = management information system; MoALF = Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives; MoDA = Ministry of Devolution and the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands; MoE = Ministry of Education; MoH = Ministry of Health; MoPSYGA = Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs; MoTIHUD = Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing, Urban Development and Public Works; NT = National Treasury; NT&P = National Treasury and Planning; SDF = Service Delivery Framework.