'How Well Did the Government Respond to COVID-19?' Comprehensive Overhaul of Current Government Evaluation

Establishment of New Evaluation Indicators and Additional Points for Each Ministry's COVID-19 Response Efforts
Reduction of Quantitative Evaluation Weight and Simplification of Evaluation Procedures to Alleviate Evaluation Burden

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun is delivering the third supplementary budget policy speech at the National Assembly plenary session on the 29th, with Future United Party members absent. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] As the government is making every effort to respond to the unprecedented novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), it announced that it will newly establish evaluation indicators related to COVID-19 response efforts in this year's government performance evaluation and focus on assessing them.

On the 30th, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun held a Cabinet meeting in the morning and finalized the "2020 Government Performance Evaluation Implementation Plan Amendment" in accordance with the Government Performance Evaluation Act. Although this year's government performance evaluation implementation plan was prepared and finalized in December last year, it was inevitable to revise the plan due to the shift in government policy priorities following the outbreak of COVID-19. The evaluation areas include four sectors: jobs and national agenda, regulatory innovation, government innovation, and policy communication.

The government will newly establish evaluation indicators to separately assess each ministry's COVID-19 response efforts, awarding an additional 10 points in the jobs and national agenda sector. Instead, to allow ministries to focus on overcoming the COVID crisis and achieving national agenda outcomes, the government will reduce the proportion of existing evaluation indicators and quantitative assessments and simplify the evaluation procedures, significantly reducing the evaluation burden on ministries.

With the introduction of COVID-19 evaluation items, the jobs and national agenda sector will conduct only qualitative evaluations, while the number of evaluation items in the regulatory innovation and government innovation sectors will be reduced from 40 to 28 and from 53 to 33, respectively. The policy communication sector will be reduced from 30 to 22 items. Prime Minister Chung said, "In line with the changed policy environment, this year's government performance evaluation will focus on each ministry's COVID-19 response and preparations for the post-COVID-19 era, while minimizing the evaluation burden," and urged, "I ask the Cabinet to work in unison to ensure public safety and livelihood."

Additionally, the government plans to revise the evaluation plans for local governments and public institutions in line with the central administrative agencies, centered on the evaluation agencies. Specifically, 43 central administrative agencies will be evaluated in four sectors: jobs and national agenda (65 points), regulatory innovation (10 points), government innovation (10 points), and policy communication (15 points).

The results of each evaluation sector will be aggregated to conduct a comprehensive institutional evaluation. The government will classify and announce the results of sectoral evaluations and comprehensive institutional evaluations into five grades: S, A, B, C, and D, and will provide monetary rewards and commendations to outstanding institutions and contributors. To encourage active efforts by ministries, monetary rewards will also be given to outstanding institutions in each sector as well as to overall excellent institutions.

A government official explained, "Considering the purpose of the amendment to the government performance evaluation implementation plan, we will promptly proceed with follow-up measures such as forming an expert evaluation group to ensure that this year's evaluation is prepared without any setbacks."