Peter Harmsworth, Chairman

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4 November 2005
Effectiveness in Public Administration
Peter Harmsworth, Chairman Chief Executive
Officer
Peter Harmsworth Chairman Chief Executive
Officer State Services Authority
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Session outline

• Recent history of public administration.
• Changing focus of performance measurement.
• Explore public value concepts.
• Victoria as a case study.

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The Changing Face of Public Administration

• 1920s 1970s Traditional legal approach
• Rules based, process oriented.
• Hierarchical bureaucracies.
• Non-partisan public service.
• 1980s 2000 Neo-liberalism economic policy
  focus
• Impact of globalisation.
• Privatisation, corporatisation and outsourcing of
  government services.
• Role of markets.
• New public management approach.
• 2000 onwards Triple bottom line and community
  focus
• Balancing of economic policy by social and
  environmental policies.
• Joined-up government.
• Citizen-centred delivery.
• Community networks.

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In the beginning the focus was on effectiveness
..

• The pertinent question is not how to do things
  right but how to find the right things to do, and
  to concentrate resources and efforts on them.

Peter Drucker Managing for Results (1964)
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In fact, we were introduced to a range of
performance measurement terminology ..

• Effectiveness Producing the defined result
• (doing the rights things).
• Efficiency Best resources usage to
  produce the result (doing things right).
• Equity Achieving results equitably (doing
  things fairly).
• Adequacy Quantity of activity in achieving
  results
• (amount of things done).
• Timeliness Timely delivery of results
• (doing things in a timely manner).

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Then new public management approaches sharpened
our focus toward the private sector..

• Business management drivers
• Financial bottom line focus.
• Measure customer satisfaction.
• Management by objectives.
• Efficiency driven
• markets/competition
• Government out of delivery
• purchaser/provider divide
• public private partnerships.
• Yet business recognised
• The financial bottom line is not enough to
  measure total organisation effectiveness
• Hence Balanced Scorecard (1996).

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But several commentators were worried about
simple measurement models in government ..

• Bikes
• (component level solutions can disassemble)
• Proposition
• What gets measured gets done.
• If you dont measure it, you cant manage it.

• Frogs
• (total system level solution cannot
  disassemble)
• Proposition
• The unmeasurable is important because it is
  unmeasurable.

Hypothesis Governments are complex operations
and are frog like.
Alistair Mant Natural Properties of
Organisations
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Prof Mark Moore enters the measurement debate
with his notion of public value management ..
Public value is what the public values what
it is prepared to give time, money and
freedom for.

• Characteristics
• Public value helps define value in the public
  realm not just the private market.
• Public value focuses attention on what the public
  values and not just what the producers value.
• Public value highlights longer term outcomes not
  just short term inputs and outputs.
• Public value highlights the process of
  co-creation or effective network governance.

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Prof Moores public value model broadens the
performance debate ..
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So the goal posts move in our understanding of
government's role ..
Source Kelly and Muers (2002).
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There is now a debate about whether to measure
Outputs or Outcomes ..

• Why measure Outputs?
• Cheap and easy to do.
• Easy to attribute to managers.
• Can calculate productivity.
• Ensures consistency.
• Why not Outputs?
• Do not measure value.

• Why measure Outcomes?
• Direct measure of value.
• Find out what works.
• Test value proposition.
• Why not Outcomes?
• Difficult (and expensive ) to measure.
• Information comes in later.
• Hard to attribute to managers.

Solution Measure both (as per Balanced
Scorecard Approach).
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So lets compare new public management to public
value management in a case study of the police

• Practice/utilitarian do what works.
• End reduce crime.
• Means money, people and materials.

• Principles/justice do whats just.
• End do justice.
• Means force and authority of the State.

Observation Each framework requires a different
evaluative schema. Prof Mark Moore
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Better still, lets take a total public value
view of the Victorian Government ..
Victorian Government Vision Growing
VictoriaTogether Strategies ? Economic ?
Social ? Environmental sustainability
Source based on a model from Transforming
Government Services PWC 1998
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In Victoria, who is responsible for monitoring
performance ..
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Strategic Uses of Performance Measurement

• Meets demands of External Accountability
  (mobilise support for the Authorising
  Environment).
• Establish Clear, Significant Mission and Goals
  (development measures to recognise public value).
• Foster a strong sense of Internal Accountability
  (focus and drive operational capacity).
• Learn to improve performance (build operational
  capacity through reflective practice).
• Prof Mark Moore

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In Summary

• The performance orientation of public management
  is here to stay . However, there has been a
  tendency to overestimate the potential of
  performance orientated approaches to change
  behaviour and culture, and to underestimate the
  limitation of performance goals and results in
  the public management process.
• Performance, though important, is not
  government's only concern. Governments have a
  limited attention span, and too strong an
  emphasis on performance can distract necessary
  attention from underlying governance values such
  as equity.

Modernising Government The Way Forward OECD
Public Governance Committee (2005)