Performance Management in the Public Sector

Wouter Van Dooren, Geert Bouckaert, John Halligan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317814153
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

In times of rising expectations and decreasing resources for the public sector, performance management is high on the agenda. Increasingly, the value of the performance management systems themselves is under scrutiny, with more attention being paid to the effectiveness of performance management in practice. This new edition has been revised and updated to examine:

• performance in the context of current public management debates, including emerging discussions on the New Public Governance and neo-Weberianism;
• the many definitions of performance and how it has become one of the most contested agendas of public management;
• the so-called perverse effects of using performance indicators;
• the technicalities of performance measurement in a five step process: prioritising measurement, indicator development, data collection, analysis and reporting; and
• the future challenges and directions of performance management

Performance Management in the Public Sector 2nd edition offers an approachable insight into a complex theme for practitioners and public management students alike.

Introduction

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To be able to position the performance debate in contemporary public administration, public sector reform, public management and public policy.

To understand the controversy around performance management.

KEY POINTS IN THIS CHAPTER

The concept of performance has many meanings, which can be classified based on the value judgements they imply.

Performance is not only a concept, but also a contested agenda of change which calls for a balanced treatment of the issue.

A clear distinction between measurement, incorporation and use of performance information is vital.

Performance management is embedded in debates of reform, management and policy.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What does it mean when somebody claims an organization (e.g. a railway company, a municipality, a police department) as performing?

Is performance the state of the art of public administration? Why then is it contested?

The subject of this book is the core of public management, certainly in its New Public Management (NPM) form: is it possible to envisage management in the public sector without due regard to the pursuit of performance? Nevertheless, performance management lacks a coherent treatment that explicates its significance, analyses its several dimensions as a working system, compares its application internationally and challenges its shortcomings. The purpose of this book is to develop this comprehensive understanding of performance management as a concept and phenomenon that has swept through OECD countries, in order to examine how it has been applied in practice and in order to review the relationship with public management and public policy.

The aim of this introductory chapter is to situate performance, performance measurement and performance management in some of the current debates in public management. We discuss the many meanings of the word ‘performance’ and how it has become one of the main, but contested, agendas in public administration. We also introduce the sequence of measurement, incorporation and use of performance information, which reflects the structure of the book. We finally argue that performance measurement has become pivotal not only in reform, but also in daily public management and policymaking. We end the chapter with an outline of the book and summaries of the chapters. The discussions are deliberately sketchy since we primarily want to outline the relevance of and controversies surrounding the performance debate. We will seek more definitional precision in the next chapter.

1 PERFORMANCE AS A CONCEPT

Performance can mean many things. Dubnick (2005) asserts that

outside of any specific context, performance can be associated with a range of actions from the simple and mundane act of opening a car door, to the staging of an elaborate re-enactment of the Broadway musical ‘Chicago’. In all these forms, performance stands in distinction from mere ‘behaviour’ in implying some degree of intent.

(p. 319)

In science, connotations vary according to disciplines. For example, psychology, social sciences and managerial sciences use different definitions depending more on individual, societal, or organizational and system performance. Clearly, performance has many meanings, and our task is to characterize this variation.

From Dubnick’s observations of car doors and musicals, we can infer a universal definitional ingredient. Performance is about intentional behaviour, which can be individual or organizational. Based on this understanding of performance as deliberate action, a classification of performance perspectives can be built. The two dimensions of Table 1.1 reflect the importance that a perspective attaches to quality of performance; does a definition imply a statement on whether performance is good or bad? Quality is either (a) the quality of the actions being performed, or (b) the quality of what has been achieved because of those actions. This allows distinctions between four perspectives on performance that also help to organize the performance literature.

Table 1.1

Four perspectives on how performance is understood (based on Dubnick, 2005)

Does the perspective imply quality of actions?	Does the perspective imply quality of achievements?
	No	Yes
No	Performance as production (P1)	Performance as good results (P3)
Yes	Performance as competence/capacity (P2)	Performance as sustainable results (P4)

The first perspective of performance focuses the attention on tasks being carried out by the performing agent (P1). Performance then includes all actions that are performed. A police patrol, a vaccination campaign, a medical treatment, teaching a course, judging in courts: all are examples of performances, irrespective of whether they were successful. Performance is intentional behaviour of government actors. This conceptualization is relatively neutral in nature, but also very broad.

The other dimensions of the concept ‘performance’ contain a value judgement. Performance has a quality that can be either high or low. First, when performance is about the quality of the actions, and not as much about the quality of the achievements, performance is conceptualized as competence or capacity (P2). Under the assumption that a highly competent performer will be more likely to generate more and better quality output from an activity most of the time, performance becomes associated with the competence of the performing institution (Dubnick, 2005: p. 392).

There is substantial literature on high-performing public sector organizations and governments that roughly equates performance with superior capacity of the performing institutions. Using the metaphor of the galloping elephants, Rainey & Steinbauer (1999) explained in a seminal article what makes public bureaucracies perform: supportive behaviours from external stakeholders such as political authorities, agency autonomy in refining and implementing missions, high ‘mission valence’ (an attractive mission), a strong, mission-oriented culture, and certain leadership behaviours were found to drive motivation and performance. Another notable assessment of performance capacity was the ‘Government Performance Project’, initiated by Syracuse University. It studied the performance of US states by measuring how well management capacity is developed (Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 2002).

Second, when performance is about the quality of the achievements and not as much about the quality of the actions, performance equals results (P3). The capacity of the organization is not the focus of this conceptualization. The opinion that only results matter is emblematic of this position (see Box 1.1 for a nice narrative reflecting this perspective). Below, it is argued that results may be both the outputs and the outcomes of the public sector. Many NPM texts see performance like this. As long as the results are proven, it does not really matter how they came about.

Finally, when performance is conceptualized with attention to both the quality of actions and the quality of achievements, it may be typified as sustainable results. Performance refers to the productive organization, that is, an organization that has the capacity to perform and converts this capacity into results – outputs and outcomes. Performance in this text refers to the last conceptualization. In our perspective performance indicators may cover the whole value chain from inputs over outputs to outcomes. We will study how measurement of both capacity and results is embedded in public organizations.

BOX 1.1 ONLY RESULTS MATTER

A priest and a taxi driver both died and went to heaven. St Peter was at the Pearly Gates waiting for them.

‘Come with me,’ said St Peter to the taxi driver.

The taxi driver did as he was told and followed St Peter to a mansion. It had anything you could imagine from a bowling alley to an Olympic-size pool.

‘Wow, thank you,’ said the taxi driver.

Next, St Peter led the priest to a rugged old shack with a bunk bed and a little old television set.

‘Wait, I think you are a little mixed up,’ said the priest. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one who gets the mansion? After all, I was a priest, went to church every day, and preached God’s word.’

‘Yes, that’s true. But during your sermons people slept. When the taxi driver drove, everyone prayed.’

Lesson: only results count.

Source: taken from Hatry, 1999

2 PERFORMANCE AS AN AGENDA

Performance is not only a concept, but also an agenda. The term ‘performance’ expresses a programme of change and improvement, which is promoted by a group of like-minded actors that is usually only loosely coupled. In chapter 3, these groups of actors sharing a performance agenda are called performance movements.

In western societies, the promise of increasing performance has been one of the dominant agendas in the public sector. Ingraham (2005) observes that ‘for much of the twentieth century – and certainly for the last 25 years – performance has been a siren’s song for nations around the world’ (p. 390). The post-war expansion of the welfare state has raised expectations about the role of government. In the 1980s, this expansion was no longer supported (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). Fiscal stress pressured the public budget and legitimacy crises pressured the politico-administrative system. In those days, US president Ronald Reagan marked government as the problem rather than the solution. As a response, governments pledged to do more with fewer resources – a government that works better and costs less (Gore, 1993).

Government across the globe reformed in the name of performance. In particular, in the UK and the USA, this led to cutback management and a reduction of the size of government (Dunleavy, 1986). Other countries followed other trajectories. Pollitt & Bouckaert (2011) identify four strategies: to minimize (privatize), to marketize (bringing private sector techniques and values into government), to modernize (changing public sector techniques and values) and to maintain (using the old techniques more intensely). The societal demand for a high-performing public sector still resonates today, and filters through to the organizational level.

3 A CONTESTED DEBATE

The roots of the performance agenda lie well beyond NPM. It should however not be forgotten that there are quite distinct, but maybe less eye-catching, agendas in public administration such as establishing the rule of law, eradicating corruption, safeguarding equity, transparency and democratization. One of the most persistent lines of attack on the performance agenda is that it does not take these other values into account. Performance may even be at cross-purposes with other values. As a result, positions on performance management have been quite polarized, with proponents contending against the dissenters who argued that the fundamental premises were wrong and produced dysfunctional behaviour.

With tim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Defining the concepts
• 3 The history of performance management
• 4 Performance measurement
• 5 Incorporation of performance information
• 6 The use of performance information
• 7 Users
• 8 Non-use
• 9 The effects of using performance information
• 10 The future of performance management
• Index