THE NCLM LOCAL LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION AT WORK

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Citizen Informed Performance Measurement

• THE NCLM LOCAL LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION AT WORK
• NCLM ANNUAL Conference
• October 13, 2008

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CIPM Demonstration Project

• Funded by the NCLM Local Leadership Foundation
• Supported by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan and
  Z. Smith Reynolds Foundations
• Partners
• League of Municipalities
• School of Government, UNC-Chapel Hill
• Fountainworks, Inc.

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CIPM Project Participants

• Mentor Cities
• Concord
• Durham
• Edenton
• Knightdale
• Marion
• Salisbury

• Mentee Cities
• Matthews
• Winston-Salem
• Pinetops
• Laurinburg
• Stallings
• Hickory

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What is CIPM?

• Citizen-informed performance measurement (CIPM)
  is a management tool that incorporates solicited
  feedback from citizens into the design of
  performance measures.
• Several large cities have pioneered efforts to
  implement CIPM, including New York City,
  Baltimore and Chattanooga. A nine city
  demonstration project was conducted in Iowa.

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How is CIPM Different?

• Performance measures developed by professional
  staff often focus on workload, inputs, outputs,
  efficiency, and effectiveness. They do not
  always pay as much attention to the outcomes
  expected by citizens.
• By tracking those aspects of service delivery in
  which citizens express interest, public officials
  can have greater confidence that their management
  decisions are influencing public services in a
  manner that the citizens value.

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Using CIPM

• Citizen-informed measures should augment, not
  replace, existing measures.
• Municipal officials can allocate resources in
  order to balance performance between staff and
  citizen measures.
• Some measures can be reported to the public and
  others can be used internally.

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Why Implement CIPM?

• Make decisions with better knowledge of how
  decisions respond to citizen interests
• Report on performance in a way that citizens can
  appreciate
• Facilitate communication between staff and
  elected officials
• Educate citizens on resource needs

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CIPM Process

• Definition of the Scope of Work (Week 1)
• Analyses of the Selected Service Area (Week 2)
• Focus Group Design and Preparation (Weeks 3-7)
• Solicitation of Citizen Input (Week 8)
• Analysis of Citizen Feedback (Week 9 or 10)
• Development of CIPM (Week 11 or 12)

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CIPM Process

• Definition of the Scope of Work
• Determine which staff members should be on the
  team
• Identify the specific service to be addressed
• Develop a project schedule
• Identify the profile for the citizen focus group
• Collect and review existing data concerning
  performance in the given service area

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Selected Services

• Concord Recreation
• Durham Streets
• Edenton Public Works
• Knightdale Recreation program for
  year-round students
• Marion Public Safety
• Salisbury Community Character

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CIPM Process

• Analyses of the Selected Service Area
• When was the last time we changed how this
  service was provided?
• What led to those changes?
• How does the manner in which this service is
  provided respond to what we understanding the
  citizens to want?
• Does the manner in which this service is provided
  support expressed council goals?
• What are the alternatives to our current method
  of service provision?

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CIPM Process

• Analyses of the Selected Service Area
• How do we think citizens would react if these
  alternatives were implemented?
• The project team develops and refines hypotheses
  about how citizens view the selected service.
• Citizens a primarily concerned about streets in
  their own neighborhood
• Citizens want us to take care of major
  structural problems rather than on appearance and
  comfort.
• These hypotheses will be tested through the focus
  group process.

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CIPM Process

• Focus Group Design and Preparation (2 meetings)
• Design (Meeting 1)
• Create a profile of the categories of citizens to
  be represented on the 12-15 person focus group.
• Select a means for recruiting citizens.
• The demonstration project used market research
  firms to recruit focus group at a cost of around
  1,500 per focus group.
• You could use the same techniques as market
  research firms to recruit citizens at a lower
  cost, but with a greater time commitment.
• You also could recruit from civic groups or
  citizen advisory panels, but these groups may not
  provide the same unbiased input.

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CIPM Process

• Focus Group Design and Preparation (two meetings)
• Design continued (Meeting 1)
• Select exercises for focus group.
• High level exercises that address broad
  perceptions of services.
• Priority setting exercises.
• Conduct training about facilitation.
• Preparation
• Conduct a mock focus group session using city
  staff as citizens
• Analyze the results to identify ways that
  exercises could be improved.

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CIPM Process

• Solicitation of Citizen Input
• 1215 citizens meet for 2½ hours to discuss the
  selected service area
• Citizens take part in structured exercises
  designed to provide useful information about
  service preferences
• Staff serve as facilitators
• If the focus group is held in the evening, you
  may need to provide food to the participants.
• The demonstration project also provided a 75
  financial incentives to the citizens who
  participated. This is a standard amount for
  private sector focus groups, but a lower amount
  could be offered.

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CIPM Process

• Example of Analysis of Citizen Feedback
• Value Feeling safe while walking in my
  neighborhood at night
• End Result Neighborhoods are well lit
• Activities Streetlight installation and
  maintenance

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CIPM Process

• Examples of measures based on citizen input
• Numbers of streets, streetlights, outages
  (workload)
• Hours spent on streetlight repair (input)
• Number of streetlights repaired (output)
• of streetlights functioning at X lumens
  (effectiveness)
• Cost per streetlight repair (efficiency)
• Percent of street miles lit to X lumens (outcome)
• Percent of citizens polled who say their
  neighborhood is lit well enough to feel safe
  walking at night (outcome)

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Input from CIPM Participants
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Questions?

• Karl Knapp
• Director of Research and Policy Analysis
• North Carolina League of Municipalities
• kknapp_at_nclm.org