Does performance measurement improve public sector performance? A case of Australian government agencies

Abstract

The paper investigates whether performance measurement drives performance improvement in Australian government agencies. Because the answer to such a question is rarely unconditional, contextual factors such as jurisdiction and type of organisation are considered. The paper uses documents such as budgets and annual reports of nine government agencies in three Australian jurisdictions to analyse how results against targets influence subsequent measured performance. It finds that performance measurement does not drive performance improvement for the agencies studied. The paper also explores two types of mechanism by which performance measurement might improve performance in Australian government agencies. One mechanism is that setting targets focuses effort leading to improved performance. A second mechanism assumes that policy intent plus resources leads to good performance measures, which produces better information and decisions and hence higher performance. No discernible impacts of these mechanisms on performance improvements in these agencies were observed. A systems‐based approach to understanding the forces acting on managers and organisations showed that the mechanisms described above were less effective than countervailing influences that tended to derogate from the use of performance measurement.

Australian Public Service capability

“…Australia has been committed to performance management for over three decades, during which the measurement and performance frameworks have been refined and the capacity to monitor performance has increased. However, practice has fallen short of aspirations with persistent issues with the quality and use of performance information, internal decision-making and external reporting, and the variable engagement of departments and limited interest by parliamentary committees (Alexander and Thodey 2018;Smith et al 2021).…”

Evaluasi Kinerja Pemerintah Desa dalam Pelayanan Publik di Kota Bekasi

“…Hal ini dikuatkan oleh studi Shinohara (2022); Smith et al (2021); yang menunjukkan bahwa efek yang lebih kuat dari informasi negatif pada persepsi warga negara terhadap kinerja pemerintah. Ekspektasi warga terhadap kinerja pelayanan publik berdampak pada sikap dan perilaku mereka terhadap pelayanan, termasuk kepuasan, pilihan layanan dan pandangan politik mengenai layanan tersebut (James, 2011).…”

Government accounting in Canada: A special issue

“…Performance measurement was a prominent feature of New Public Management and remains a key feature of public accountability and public sector management (Pollitt, 2006; Spekle & Verbeeten, 2014). While there is evidence that public sector organizations can benefit from the implementation of strategic performance measures (Pollanen, 2005; Pollanen et al., 2017), the efficacy of performance measurement systems in the context of public management is not always clear (Gao, 2015; Smith et al., 2021). A well‐known performance measurement tool, particularly in the for‐profit sector, is the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1992).…”