The centre of government (CoG) refers to the organisations and units that provide direct support to the head of government (president or prime minister) and perform certain key cross-cutting functions. These functions include the strategic management of the government’s priority goals (working with the relevant policy sectors to define targets and the strategies to achieve them, as well as aligning the budget with the priorities), coordinating the ministries and agencies that contribute to those goals, monitoring the implementation of priority programmes and removing obstacles when performance is lagging; managing the politics to enable the approval and implementation of those programmes, and communicating results to the public. The relevance of the CoG has increased in recent years due to a number of factors, such as the rise of multidimensional issues (e.g. competitiveness, inequality, crime) that require whole-of-government responses, the growing demand of citizens for better results in service delivery, and the need to ensure coherent policies in governments that have expanded their scope of activities and operate in a frantic 24/7 news cycle.

Inter-ministerial coordination is one of the key CoG functions. It is critical to ensure whole-of-government responses to cross-cutting issues, and to minimise unintended duplications or contradictions in government policy. The CoG can be an honest broker between line ministries that have their own sectoral agendas and bureaucratic cultures, aligning them behind a coherent government direction. Moreover, the rise of complex and multidimensional issues, which cannot be addressed solely by vertical ministerial responses, has highlighted the importance of central steering and co-ordination.

In addition to policy coordination, CoGs are also responsible for the strategic management and monitoring of the government’s top priority goals. During the planning phase, this includes working with the relevant line ministries to set specific targets and actionable implementation strategies to achieve them, as well as aligning budget resources behind the strategies. During implementation, this includes monitoring progress and assisting the sectors in unblocking obstacles to enable effective performance. In recent years, a systematic approach to delivery (which some have conceptualised as deliverology) has been adopted worldwide in several CoG institutions at both national and subnational levels of government. This emphasis on delivery has reportedly improved the achievement of priority goals in a number of cases, highlighting the valuable role that CoG units can play in this regard.