Challenging the NPM Ideas About Performance Management: Selectivity and Differentiation in Outcome‐Oriented Performance Budgeting

Abstract

This paper shows how the performance budget of a local government organization, in this case a province in the Netherlands, can be attuned to the specific task characteristics of the programmes in these budgets. Three ways of alignment are suggested: differentiating between standardized and complex programmes; focussing on the politically most relevant programmes in order to avoid information overload; and distinguishing between the types of performance information in terms of the role of the province in the programme (facilitator versus executor) and the stage in the policy making cycle (policy development, policy elaboration or policy execution). These suggestions challenge the generally straightforward NPM rationale of performance budgeting, in which standardized outputs are directly related to resources. Our empirical research shows on the one hand that the redesigned programme budget based on the above principles received substantial approval of its users, i.e., the provincial councillors. On the other hand, as regards the use of this programme budget the picture is rather diffuse, i.e., the majority of the councillors indicate that they use the information rather intensively, but its formal use in official Council and Council committee meetings remains limited.

Constructing institutional performance: a multi-level framing perspective on performance measurement and management

“…In doing so, I identify three distinct paths of institutional development, characterised by varying degrees of change and stability, and discuss how each path generates varying degrees of frame alignment around broader or narrower notions of institutional performance (see Figure 1). The second example of how contradictory PMM practices foster discursive strategies dominated by frame shifting originates in the efforts to re-orient PMM practices in the public sector from a heavy emphasis on outputs to outcomes as part of broader reforms aimed at replacing market-based governance mechanisms with more network-like modes of governance (Catasús and Grönlund 2005, Modell et al 2007, Watkins and Arrington 2007, Cuganesan and Lacey 2011, Wiesel and Modell 2014, ter Bogt et al, 2015. The discourse surrounding such reforms has often entailed pronounced criticisms of the plethora of conflicting goals and performance metrics of a short-term nature that often prevail in the public sector and which allegedly hamper the pursuit of a more unified, or joined-up, conception of the long-term effectiveness of public services.…”

Psychological Empowerment: Antecedents From Goal Orientation and Consequences in Public Sector Employees

“…This study extends research in the field of psychological empowerment, indicating a strong and significant relationship between LGO and psychological empowerment and between psychological empowerment and the well-being outcomes of job satisfaction, affective commitment, and job anxiety, for a sample of Spanish local authority employees. The Spanish local government context is representative of traditional NPM ideals and the more recent performance-based reforms, with a growing concern to improve efficiency (Garcia, 2007; Ter Bogt et al, 2015). At the same time, resistance to change from the latent “administrative law culture” (Serna, 2008; Torres et al, 2011) and recent reforms, stagnant wages, frozen recruitment, and increased working hours introduced following the 2008 crisis have all generated an hostile environment for employees (López-Andreu, 2017).…”

“…Public employee management has taken more notice of the role the workforce plays in improving performance (Feeney & DeHart-Davis, 2009; Nicholson-Crotty, Nicholson-Crotty, & Fernandez, 2017), which is the aim of many recent public sector performance-based reforms (Hall, 2017; Onesti, Angiola, & Bianchi, 2016; Van Dooren, Bouckaert, & Halligan, 2010) undergirded by the New Public Management (NPM) approach (Ter Bogt, Van Helden, & Van Der Kolk, 2015). In this context, employees need to take risks, be more creative and proactive, and find ways to improve the services they provide and their performance in general (Diefenbach, 2009; Pitts, 2005).…”

Öffentliche Planungs- und Steuerungssysteme für das 21. Jahrhundert

“…Lange Zeit galten die NPM-Steuerungskonzepte und Prämissen, wie sie zu Beginn dieses Artikels eingeführt werden, als erstrebenswerte Bezugsrahmen. Zusehends taucht aber die Frage auf, ob komplexe Systeme mit unterschiedlichen und teils widersprechenden Zielsystemen, heterogenen Anspruchsgruppen an der Schnittstelle von Politik, Verwaltung und Gesellschaft nach einer simplen linearen Logik gesteuert werden können (Ter Bogt et al 2015). Die Wissenschaft setzt sich auch mit der Frage auseinander, inwiefern es in einem sich schnell wandelnden und politisch volatilen Umfeld möglich ist, längerfristig zu planen oder steuern.…”