Assessing public sector performance and untangling the complexity of public performance measurement

Abstract

This research conceptualizes a continuum approach to public performance across a variety of measurement dimensions and suggests that the focus of these dimensions may vary in management areas, including the types of reform, policies, service delivery methods and programs that are utilized by public organizations. The pairing of a continuum approach to performance measurement along with specific management activities provides public managers with a new understanding of how performance measurement systems may be designed to reflect the complexity of public organizations.

Keywords:

• performance
• complexity
• public sector

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The competing value frame conceptualizes four dimensions of organizational effectiveness as follows: (1) the human relational model (2) the open systems model (3) the internal process model (4) the rational goal model.

2. Scholars suggest the concepts of responsiveness or accountability are important performance measures that reflect public values (Andrews & Boyne et al., 2011; Moynihan & Ingraham, 2003). This research did not address these concepts because they are close to bureaucrats’ attitudes or duties which are measured by output or outcomes indicators.

3. In the public sector, technical efficiency is mainly used because it is difficult to measure the allocative and economic efficiency of public services. Allocative efficiency is the price of a service or product that equals the marginal cost (a value or price that consumers put on the service or product). Economic efficiency is maximized when the production costs of outputs is the lowest by achieving technical and allocative efficiency.

4. The recent market-oriented performance reforms also stress subjective measures such as citizen satisfaction of public services (Andrews & Boyne et al., 2011), but the focus is on how to quantitatively measure citizen satisfaction levels of service quality.

5. Even though the NPM and recent market-oriented reforms focus on increased efficiency, they also attend to public sector effectiveness by enhancing public service outcomes. In other words, these reforms seek efficiency by producing maximum outcomes with minimal inputs.

6. PART puts greater emphasis on outcome measures by asking the following question: ‘Does the program have a limited number of specific long-term performance measures that focus on outcomes and meaningfully reflect the purpose of the program?’

7. Rosenbloom (2007) introduces the democratic/constitutional impact scorecard. It attempts to balance the procedural aspects of public sector performance by measuring individual rights, constitutional integrity, transparency, and the rule of law.

8. Lowi conceptualizes four types of regulative, constitutive, distributive and redistributive policies, according to the likelihood and application of coercion, while Peterson suggest three types of developmental, allocational and redistributive policies.