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The Office of Statistics, Budget & Economic Management, Overseas Development Assistance, and Compact Management (S.B.O.C.) is entrusted with the following main functions:
- Gathering, analysis, and reporting on socio-economic statistics and other information;
- Assisting the President in the formulation of macroeconomic policies that aim to promote economic and financial prosperity and security of the FSM;
- Overseeing the preparation and administration of government budget and nation-wide Strategic Development Plan;
- Overseeing the effective implementation of the amended Compact of Free Association with the United States.
- Serving as focal point for development assistance to FSM;
The Office is in the process of developing its Medium Term Strategic Plan (MTSP) that will provide a framework for improved service delivery by introducing performance based management systems in the Office. This is an integral part of the Mori/Alik Administration policy on efficient and effective government. The policy looks at two pronged-approaches to streamline the government operation through reform. The first involves the reorganization of government structures and the Office of SBOC was the centerpiece of such a structural reform and second focuses on assessing the human resource needs of the Government to ensure quality service delivery to the public. SBOC was created from the integration of key related elements of macroeconomic framework. These key elements serve as the main functional roles as mandated by Executive Order Number 1(as Amended April 2008) and Public Law No. 15-09, and as provided by FSM Code, title 2, § 202 and 206. The source of power for the re-organization under the said Executive Order is derived from the FSM Code, Title 2.
Still quite young as an institution, the Office naturally experiences challenges and growing pains as it works to gain its footing in an ever rapid national and global environment of change. As it moves ahead in producing and achieving the ambitious mandates set out for it, its greatest strength lies within the people who staff it, hardworking, dedicated and extremely driven to succeed. The greatest challenge or weakness likely remains the inherent test the office poses to the status quo as it seeks to mesh and coordinate its activities within the national government structure, with the four states of the federation, and the international community. It is important to note that without a measure of failure there can be no success. In spite of this, the Office of SBOC has achieved considerable outcomes in less than a year's tme. It has also undertaken a series of self-assessment exercise in preparation of its Strategic Plan.
The MTSP as envisaged for the Office of SBOC will provide yet another opportunity to translate Government policies, aspirations and perspectives into meaningful actions. These actions contribute to the betterment of the people's lives and towards achieving FSM-wide Strategic Development Plan (SDP) goals and objectives particularly that of budgetary self-reliance and sustainable economic growth. The Office of SBOC will, therefore, make deliberate efforts to link its MTSP to the SDP to be able to obtain best results. The major pillar of this Strategic Plan is the articulation of the Office's Vision, Mission and Values.
The Vision of the Office of SBOC is stipulated in the following statement: "Sustainable economic growth and macro-economic stability, sound financial management and accountability achieved and sustained." The Mission of the Office is stated as: "To foster the environmental, social and economic well-being of people of the Federated States of Micronesia in a sustainable fashion." The mission of the Office of SBOC is to achieve and maintain sustainable economic growth, macro-economic stability, sound financial management through assisting the President in the development of robust fiscal policies and enhancing the professionalism and promote the use of Information Technology (IT) to collect, analyze, and publish vital socio-economic statistics for decision-making and planning. The following were agreed to be the Core Values of the Office and are essential to our success:
- Innovation
- Professionalism
- Customer focused
- Commitment to Work
- Efficiency
- Participatory Management
- Teamwork
- Timely service delivery
- Integrity
The rationale for the Strategic Plan is to enable the Office to perform its functions effectively and efficiently. For this, the plan defines Six Key Results Areas that address the following issues:
- Stable macro-economic growth and development
- Financial management and accountability
- Resource mobilization, allocation and utilization
- Efficiency and effectiveness of information systems
- Maintain and develop sustainable human resource capacity to ensure high productivity, full functionality, and quality service delivery to the public.
- Effective consultations and communications with Office of SBOC stakeholders
To realize the outcomes of these areas, the strategic plan includes strategic objectives and strategies for their achievement. To ensure accountability, service delivery targets have been developed. All the components that constitute the strategic plan are summarized in the matrix in the Attachments. From the Strategic Plan, the Office will progress to the stage of operational planning. This involves divisional managers and support units with their respective divisions in the development of costed Annual Operating Plans with output objectives directly derived from the strategic objectives of the Strategic Plan. It is hoped that the Strategic Plan will enable the Office of SBOC to organize itself to improve quality, efficiency, effectiveness and performance of services on a continuous basis and sustain these gains on a longer term.
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