3.2. International best practices

China represents an example of business involvement in strategic planning process. Drawing up economic plans involves movement of information "from the top - down", "bottom - up" and the combination of these two approaches. As a rule, in the preparation of long-term and midterm plans information is moving "down twice, once up," that is, initially, the State Council is developing a plan and target (recommendation) numbers, then regions and industries represent to higher authorities their draft plans and, finally, the State Planning Commission with the help of complex balances develops a plan of economic and social development.

The procedure of the plan preparation is the following. Initially, the Commission on Economic Reform in relation to the development of Gosplan prepares annual and five-year plans. They define when and how to carry out those or other economic activities. In advance are gathered suggestions and relevant information from the provinces. There are three options of each of these plans: fast, medium and slow. For each of the options are counted costs of their implementation, estimated "pros" and "cons." Each option is discussed with scientists, enterprises representatives, departments and regions. After appropriate improvements, all three options are sent to the State Council on consideration. After discussion and refinement the final version is going to National People's Congress (NPC). However, NPC approved plan is not a directive. This is just a reference point for the future. Each region and each ministry on its basis creates their own plans, which may provide a faster or slower implementation of various economic measures, depending on the specific situation in the region or industry. To coordinate work on economic reform, the Commission staff comes directly to regions. After the approval of plans for socio-economic development and economic reform, the State Council is considering on the monthly basis the progress of their implementation and takes necessary measures to regulate the social and economic processes at the macro level, including changes in the regulatory framework.

Further, plans are quite clearly divided into public and private in the sense that if a specific goal is needed first and foremost to the state, than its achievement and financing is mainly provided by the government. Private companies can join this process if they are willing to work with government’s prices. Such problems make up only a small part of the standard five years, however, a large proportion of the plan accounts for certain installation guidance for the private sector. This combination allows obtaining the maximum benefit from the advantages of both planned and private systems with mutual leveling of their shortcomings.⁷²

Experience of the UK is worth demonstrating in terms of key stakeholders involvement in the first stage (called Project Validation Review) of Gateway Review of major projects (considered in the previous chapter)⁷³.

‘It engages with a large number of key stakeholders in programs and projects on a confidential basis, and because those being interviewed by the review team know that the individuals concerned have no baggage or particular pre-determined view, they are prepared to be open and honest with them…’. The review is independent.

Since Office of Government Commerce (OGC) times a reviewer pool has been built up, with some of 1000 accredited people. The review teams are specially created by the Gateway team, you find the expertise and then you put it all together so that the key issues in that particular gateway can be addressed efficiently and with a degree of knowledge. The really important thing is that the review team is not seen as auditors or inquisitors, but is actually seen as a critical friend of the program or project. The purpose of the review team is not to come and tell the project team how to run the project, it is really for them to allow the issues to bubble to the surface and say potentially have you considered pursuing this course of action, have you considered pursuing that course of action. The speed of the review means that at critical decision points during a project or program lifecycle, an external team can come in and really give an independent view of the state of health of that project or program and feed that back very quickly to the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO).

Public involvement in strategic planning process has usually both formal and informal part. Unlike in Europe, in the USA positive outcomes of strategic planning are often due to the great role of informal organizations and efficient self-organization of society. A telling example is the informal regional organization in the state Utah called ‘Envision Utah’. Having extremely scarce resources it has managed to launch and maintain the development in theregion. Wide participation of all stakeholders is provided on each stage of planning. They (stakeholders) formulate goals, elaborate scenarios of development. What is important here is that authorities and business are aware of all processes. They don’t initiate such activities, but join in some stage, making the procedure official and taking part in realization. There are two success factors of the given model: mentality of the population and significance of the media campaign promoting a chance to influence the future.⁷⁴