The author recommendation is that as an act of policy, more structured and determined attention should be devoted to the art and science of implementation. Good performance management makes a significant contribution to successful implementation. Accountability is prominent in two senses: good performance management and an in-built obligation of responsibility to each other no matter what the position in the organisational hierarchy. Mainly as a result of external pressure, local authorities set performance improvement targets and measure performance against them routinely. Progress on performance appraisal against personal objectives linked to service and council objectives is relatively slow and inconsistent within and across agencies, though awareness of its importance has increased. Less well developed but coming along is the setting of targets through council-wide service planning and performance management frameworks that locate councils' aspirations and government targets within cross-cutting, service specific and personal plans. These provide potential for real linkage to Local Strategic Plans and the performance-management arrangements of partner agencies.