Driving Performance at Colombia's Communications Regulator
Measuring regulators’ performance can strengthen the contribution of regulatory policies
to sustainable growth and development. While measuring a regulator’s performance is
a fundamental function of a “world class” regulator, it is challenging, starting with
the definition of what should be measured and including the attribution of outcomes
to regulators’ actions and the availability of robust and evidence-based evaluation
methodologies. This review is the first application of an innovative methodology that
helps regulators address these challenges and improve the way in which they assess
their own performance. The mehtodology puts performance measurement in the wider context
of governance arrangements of economic regulators. The review finds a close link between
the independence of the regulator and performance. It also stresses the importance
of focusing on regulatory tools and processes and measuring their quality to help
improve performance. It highlights the need to define clear goals to develop output
and outcome indicators that can be actionable and useful for the regulator. The review
provides a roadmap for strengthening performance assessment by Colombia's communications
regulator and is expected to help advance the better regulation agenda of other Colombian
regulators and economic regulators of OECD members.
The CRC (Colombia's Communications Regulator) has developed a comprehensive system for assessing its own performance and strives to align human and financial resources with strategic objectives
The CRC is also committed to improving its performance through better decision-making processes that are more robust than what is currently required to regulatory agencies in Colombia
Measuring performance is nevertheless challenging and the CRC faces some of the challenges that are common to other regulators, including the need to develop indicators that systematically and analytically track the regulator’s activities and the assessment of the impact of these activities
In addition, the CRC as a special administrative unit attached to the Ministry for Information and Communication Technology is confronted with an institutional setting that does not make it easy to set clear boundaries between regulatory and policy functions. This creates some confusion on the strategic objectives (and who is responsible for what) and the capacity of the regulator to take a long-term perspective to the regulation of the sector