Measurement as a means of accountability

Abstract

Independent scrutiny can help empower bureaucracy's critics so that they might question “government as usual” tendencies, and therefore pressure governments to produce services as advertised. Our premise is that in order to honestly share access to decisions bureaucracies must share access to the information necessary to make those decisions. In particular, more pointed and sophisticated external scrutiny may embarrass management into fully applying the tools it now has available, but often fails to utilise. Data-based dialogues can make government more responsive and responsible in its use of available resources, that is, more productive and more accountable.