Basic Report

  
  
    
   The purpose of this study is to set up a self-evaluation system of investment programs by local governments in Korea.
    While the number of public investment programs by local governments has been increased dramatically with the progress of local autonomy, many of them have been implemented inefficiently according to the recent report by the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea. One of the reasons for inefficient implementations is due to the absence of integrated evaluation system.
   Currently, investment programs by local governments are first to be included in the Medium-Term Local Fiscal Planning, and then most of them are evaluated under the Appraisal for Local Treasury Investment and Loan. After these ex-ante evaluations, few programs are assessed by a program evaluation or an ex-post evaluation because there is no general evaluation system covering most investment programs. Thus, it is natural to say that in Korea, current program evaluation system is ex-ante evaluation oriented.
   This study does not attempt to develop a completely new system substituting for existing evaluation schemes, instead it proposes an integrating system that can utilize the results by current individual evaluation schemes. Therefore, the self-evaluation system of investment programs by local governments should be linked to the existing evaluations, such as Medium-Term Local Fiscal Planning, the Appraisal for Local Treasury Investment and Loan, the Program Validity Appraisals, and the Evaluation of the Special Account for the Balanced National Development.
   The objective of this study is for evaluations to produce timely, relevant, credible, and objective findings and conclusions on program performance, based on valid and reliable data collection and analysis. These standards will provide a basis for local governments conducting internal self-assessment and quality improvement activities.
   Since local investment programs may have their own unique characteristics based on the phases and types of programs, the self-evaluation of local investments should contain those characteristics.
   Therefore, we propose the self-evaluation system of local investments that contain the following frameworks.
   First, the Self-Evaluation for Local Investment Programs(SELIP) is divided into three sections by phases, such as planning, implementing, and ex-post evaluating phases.
   Second, the SELIP is designed to reflect the characteristics of program types or program financial resources. Although most questions are the same, the self-evaluation divides into several categories for the purpose of asking additional questions unique to a particular type or a particular financial resource of the program.
   Like the Program Assessment Rating Tool(PART) in the U.S., the SELIP is a systematic method of assessing the performance of program activities by local governments.
   The SELIP is composed of a series of questions designed to provide a consistent rating approach to assess programs across performance related issues. The questions require the user to explain the answer briefly and to include relevant supporting evidence.