ABSTRACT
The role of monitoring by government, or by a public sector organization, may seem completely obvious. The functions of monitoring have been to improve public governance and to serve the public better. There appears to be nothing objectionable in such functions. The public want their governments to keep their promises, get good value for taxpayers’ money and run the public services professionally. How can governments tell if they are living up to these public expectations? How can governments tell if their top priorities for action are being successfully delivered? They need to obtain data on the performance of public services andmeasure the outcomes that are being achieved for the public. Performance data will need to be looked at on a regular basis so that the trends can be understood and gaps between intention and outcome can be identified. Then, of course, it will be important that this monitoring leads to action if the implementation is not succeeding as intended. The introduction and application of performance monitoring in the public
sector has many critics (and it sometimes feels like few supporters). Some critics complain that monitoring is top-down centralized government and centralized management. They appear to dislike it because it signifies top-down control. What is the alternative? One answer seems to be to dispense with monitoring and trust professionals in the public services to act responsibly by putting the interests of the public and their clients first. There are others who suggest performance monitoring is undermined by ‘gaming’, where people spend time trying to outwit the top-down control and defeat the purposes of the
monitoring processes. Data collection and reporting are falsified or distorted. Operating practicesmay even be adjusted to impact on the results being reported (i.e. effective service to the public is reduced to enhance apparent performance). Michael Barber, in his book Instruction to Deliver (2007), looks at these arguments against performance monitoring and suggests how those responsible for monitoring can respond to them. In this chapter, we will be looking at different approaches to performance
measurement and reporting. These can be politically owned, or owned by top civil servants or appointed publicmanagers.Wewill be looking at the significance of different types of performance indicators and targets, especially output and outcome indicators and targets. This is followed by a consideration of performance plans and programme assessment tools. Finally we look at how issues of uncertainty and acceptability can be handled when setting performance targets.
THE EMERGING REALITY OF MONITORING
