ABSTRACT
It is often claimed that the provision of positive performance information will increase the trust that users, in particular, and citizens, more generally, have in our public services (Van de Walle, 2010, pp. 310–312). This is one—though only one—of the reasons why so much time and effort has been invested in improving the provision of performance information throughout the public domain. In this chapter we argue that this simple equation (better performance information = higher public trust) is multiply mistaken. This chapter complements the contribution by Greasley, this volume, which also acknowledges the fallacy of a simplistic performance information–trust link, although he maintains that a composite summary score for government performance can solve cognitive problems faced by citizens in coming to a view and that the relationship between performance and trust is in some part accounted for by the effects of aggregating multiple views. We maintain that the circumstances under which performance information is likely to significantly increase public trust are fairly rare. We explain why we hold this pessimistic view but will eventually argue that the provision of evidence-based performance information is nonetheless a vital ingredient of public-service improvement, and, furthermore, it not only fits with the zeitgeist but is also the ‘right’ thing to do. We will confine our analysis to evidence from the developed liberal democratic states of north-west Europe and North America because research on this topic is particularly culturally contingent, although the underlining philosophical argument may be less so.
