Performance Contracts and Goal Attainment in Government Agencies

ABSTRACT

Public sector reforms introducing performance contracts provide a unique opportunity to investigate goals set for government agencies and factors affecting goal attainment. The article maps the set of goals contained in performance contracts for Danish government agencies in 2000, 2005, and 2008. Performance contracts are found to reflect the complex character of agency goals with performance goals ranging from project initiation to reducing case work time or increasing productivity. The article also analyzes factors affecting goal attainment. Agencies with a large percentage of goals focused on project initiation and production exhibit higher levels of goal attainment. Also, goal attainment improves as agencies and ministries gain experience with performance contracts.

For practitioners, it is relevant that contracts target a wide variety of goals and over time focus increasingly on results. Contracts serve to focus agency attention as three quarters of all demands are met. A crucial factor seems to be whether agencies are in control of formulating and meeting goals. Efforts to improve the contract regime may thus concentrate on enabling government departments to secure ambitious and relevant performance goals.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank Jørgen Grønnegaard Christensen, Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen, and Bente Bjørnholt for collaboration in collecting data utilized in this article. Also, thanks are due to the anonymous referees and editor Steven Kelman for comments and suggestions that have significantly improved the manuscript.

Notes

Notes: N = 136 (60 groups). Levels of significance: *= 0.1; **= 0.01; ***= 0.001.

It is worth noting that while ambiguity in the evaluation of a single goal gives the agency leeway in evaluating goal attainment, ambiguity in the form of a large number of goals is hypothesized as having the opposite effect, as a large number of goals make it more difficult to obtain a high level of goal attainment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz

Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Government at Aarhus University, where she also earned her PhD. Her research focuses on political actors in the media, the interaction between politicians and civil service, governing by contracts, strategies of influence, pluralism, corporatism, and elections in the media.

Mogens Holm

Mogens Holm was, at the time of this research, a research assistant at the Department of Political Science at University of Aarhus. He is currently a management consultant at Quartz+Co and also served as Staff Officer Planning & Policy at NATO.

Kirstine Korsager

Kirstine Korsager was, at the time of this research, a research assistant at the Department of Political Science at University of Aarhus. She is currently Head of Section at the Danish Ministry of Health in Copenhagen.