Public Management Institute

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Public Management Institute

• The use of indicators on output in management and
  policy applications

Dr. Wouter Van Dooren University of Leuven,
Belgium London
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Whats the issue?
A Public Administration perspective on measurement
Quality of Measurement per se is important, but
the key question is whether the data are used, by
whom, why, why not and with what effect?
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Whats the issue?
Supply and demand of information

• Examples
• Marginal green accounting? arent we missing
  something?
• Frustrated supply social indicator movement,
  official statistics?
• Frustrated demand objective performance of
  governance
• Intense measurement employment statistics

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Whats the issue?

• The institutional context in which information
  is embedded, should be taken into account.

• New Public Management doctrine (1980s and 1990s)
  
• ? more measurement
• ? more use
• ? more effects, both positive and negative

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Whats the issue?
THE NPM triangle
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Whats the issue?
In between, output and outcome
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Issues in output measurement design
Issue 1 Output as a Transaction or Output as a
Provision? -gt Economic notion output is counted
when the transaction is complete, i.e. when the
output is consumed. Ex. Number of pupils,
prisoners. -gt Public Administration output as
products or services that come out of the
production process. Ex. Number of hours taught.
Why is this important? which indicator would
you put in a performance contract?
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Issues in output measurement design
Issue 2 Easy to measure vs. hard to
measure Issue 3 Individual vs. collective

Job counselling
National defence
Road construction
Vehicle registration
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Issues in output measurement design
Issue 2 Easy to measure vs. hard to
measure Issue 3 Individual vs. collective
Why is this important? Eurostat directions make
direct output measurement compulsory for
individual services, and recommended for
collective ones. BUT the examples show that the
distinction individual/collective is not the same
as measurable/not measurable
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Issues in output measurement design

• Issue 4 simple versus aggregate
• How to aggregate and to weigh indicators?
• Weights are seldom politically neutral, they
  reflect policy choices.

Why is this important? Challenge for uniform
international measurement standards, such as for
calculating GDP
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Some useful measures

• Useful measures are measures that allow for
  policy learning. Three examples from the
  report of the Dutch Social and Cultural Planning
  Office Public Sector Performance, an
  international comparison. (downloadable from
  www.scp.nl)

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Some useful measures
Cost effectiveness education (note, outcome
measure)
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Some useful measures
Convicts versus personnel (labour productivity)
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Some useful measures
Cost effectiveness health care
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Background document
OECD project on Management in Government
Comparative Country Data Issues in Output
Measurement for "Government at a Glance OECD
GOV Technical Paper 2 (Second Draft) Wouter Van
Dooren (University of Leuven), Jana Malinska
(OECD), Nick Manning (OECD), Miekatrien Sterck
(University of Leuven), Dirk-Jan Kraan (OECD),
Geert Bouckaert (University of Leuven)