Performance Management in the Public Sector

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Performance Management in the Public Sector

• Approaches and Impacts in European Local
  Governments

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Questions

• How is Performance Management implemented in
  European Local Governments (England, France,
  Germany)?
• What are the effects of different variants of
  Institutionalization?

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Research Background

• HBS-project Ten Years of the New Steering
  Model Evaluation of Local Government Reform
  (2004-2006)
• DFG-project European Local Systems under Change
  
• (2007-2009)
• with Jörg Bogumil, Sabine Kuhlmann, Falk
  Ebinger, Renate Reiter at the universities of
  Bochum and Potsdam

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Structure of Presentation

• Performance Management and the NPM
• The Implementation of Performance Mangement in
  three countries (E,F,G)
• Effects on the Local Level
• Conclusions

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A New Wave?

• The movement has been striking because of the
  number of nations that have taken up the reform
  agenda in such a short time and because of how
  similar their basic strategies have been (Kettl
  20001)
• Diagnoses
• Extensification
• Intensification
• Externalisation
• But Big Differences between States and
  Administrative Levels

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Performance Management (PM) The Promise

• Performance Management for
• Improvement
• Efficency and Savings
• Accountability
• Protection
• Learning and Self-Improvement

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Variants of Perf. Measurements

• External vs. Internal
• Measured units
• Measured levels
• Measured dimensions
• Problems of measurability, multidimensionality
  and comparability
• Transparency
• Unintended consequences

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European Local Governments Traditional Profiles
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Reform Experiences since the 80s
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England Externally imposed Perf. Management

• Replacement of CCT durch Best Value (BV, 1999)
  and the Comprehensive Performance Assessment
  (CPA, 2002)
• BV indicator based supervision of local
  performance and output quality
• Binding for all local councils
• Annual review of Performance Indicators
• Requirement for LGs to develop BV-Performance
  Plans
• Periodical evaluation of local services

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France Pragmatism from bottom up

• Communes innovatrices as triggers of reform
  (bottom up)
• Performance and Quality control for outsourced
  services (délegation)
• State level as follower (LOLF) global budgeting,
  performance evaluation (top down)
• Spread of Quality and performance Management
• (N82 Städtegt5.000 EW)
• Performance reports (tableaux de bord 30)
  Städte über 20.000 EW 50
• Cost accounting (comptabilité analytique 55)
• Professional Controlling (15)
• contratualisation (contrats dobjectifs)

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Germany Performance Management by Blueprint NSM

• New Steering Model (NSM as a blueprint of reform
• Bottom-up-Movement
• Discursive Hegemony 82,4 NSM-oriented
  municipalities (over 10.000 Inhabitants)
• But large implementation gap

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(n870)
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Comparison of PM-systems
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Effects England
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Effects France
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Effects Germany
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Conclusions

• Strong (at least disursive) impulse for
  installation of procedures of self-evaluation and
  monitoring with the possibility of organizational
  learning
• Gains in transparency for decision-makers which
  could foster accountability
• In the case of voluntary systems in F and G the
  implementation remains heterogenous and
  incomparable
• The use of information for evidence-based
  decision-making remains low in highly
  standardized systems
• Costs for conception, implementation and standard
  operation of PM remain high
• Transparency deficits in continental Europe
  remain
• Political decision makers show little interest in
  making data transparent

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Perspectives

• Growing importance of PM due to fiscal pressures
  and interventions from the state level
• Growing self-interest of decision-makers for
  evidence-based policy-making (accountability)?
• Quality management as a part of consumer
  democracy (Sweden)
• Fostering the use of performance data for
  steering?
• Reduction in the number of indicators
• Orientation on real steering needs
• Abdication of generalist approaches

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• Thank you for your attention!