ABSTRACT
In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, governments on both sides of the Atlantic faced problems of economic recession, budget pressures, and a public increasingly disillusioned with government. Both governments introduced similar civil service reforms. In the United States, reforms consisted of the National Performance Review (NPR) (see especially Radin, chapter 6 of this volume) and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) (see Posner and Fantone, chapter 5) and in the United Kingdom, Next Steps Agencies. These reforms sought the replacement of traditional rule-bound structures of accountability by performance-based forms of accountability. Performance-based accountability concentrates on holding civil servants to account for results. Civil servants are given managerial flexibility to improve the efficiency and/or the effectiveness of their agencies and programs. They are then held accountable for results, measured in the form of outputs and/or outcomes. Both governments claim that these reforms have improved civil service efficiency and accountability.
