[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Who Assesses the Whole? Responsibility and Capability for Cross-Boundary Policy Outcomes in Norway

## Details

**Authors** Peter Fusdahl

**Year** 2026

**Publisher** Administrative Sciences

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Public Policy

**Secondary disciplines** Political Science

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci16100468) 
10.3390/admsci16100468

## In authors' words

### Abstract

Public policy objectives often depend on contributions from multiple ministries, administrative bodies and levels of government. Implementation duties may be clear even when responsibility or capacity to assess the overall outcome is not. This article examined eight purposively selected Norwegian policy, financial-management and performance-audit documents. Qualitative framework analysis separated objective setting, implementation, information production and integrated outcome assessment, and distinguished horizontal, vertical and intergovernmental relationships. The general-steering documents showed that the financial-management framework permitted outcome-oriented evaluation, although recent reviews identified weaknesses in information about resources and results. The long-term research plan paired a broad judgement about research quality with relevant but incomplete indicators and acknowledged wider assessment mechanisms and indicator limitations. The health documents showed that the Ministry of Health and Care Services held overall responsibility for national health policy and steered the state specialist-health-service chain. However, routine linked information about patient pathways across specialist and municipal health services was unavailable. The health-service coordination case therefore showed formal responsibility with an assessment-capability gap, not an assessment-responsibility gap. The findings did not establish prevalence or policy effects. Together, the cases illustrated why distributed implementation duties alone do not ensure capacity to assess and explain the overall outcome.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To examine who holds responsibility and capability for assessing overall outcomes of policies that depend on contributions from many ministries and levels of government.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Eight purposively selected Norwegian policy, financial-management and performance-audit documents.

### How they did it (methods)

Qualitative framework analysis separating objective setting, implementation, information production and integrated outcome assessment, and distinguishing horizontal, vertical and intergovernmental relationships.

### What they found (results)

Norwegian health-service coordination showed formal responsibility for the overall outcome but lacked routine linked information across specialist and municipal services, an assessment-capability gap rather than an assessment-responsibility gap.

## Commentary

### In short

An overall policy outcome is a whole that cannot be assessed from its parts alone, so it depends on the relationships that link the parts' information.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

**Added** 2026-09-29

**How to cite this** Peter Fusdahl (2026). Who Assesses the Whole? Responsibility and Capability for Cross-Boundary Policy Outcomes in Norway. Administrative Sciences.