Examining statements of service performance: Evidence from wastewater services in new zealand

Abstract

The statement of service performance is a mandatory report provided by local governments in New Zealand. Despite 20 years' reporting experience, the Office of the Auditor-General (2008) criticised the poor quality of these reports. Past theoretical literature has attempted to develop a framework for the accountability expectations of documents provided by public-sector entities (Stewart, 1984). The purpose of this paper is to measure the consistency of the statements of service performance about wastewater services made by New Zealand local governments with the accountability expectations, using an accountability disclosure index. The paper reveals a moderately high level of consistency. “Probity” and “legality” accountability disclosures are high while “process/efficiency” and “performance programme-effectiveness” accountability are less emphasised. The results suggest that accountability expectations provide a useful tool for evaluating statements of service performance.

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“…Only three departments report cost per unit, although the OPDC guidelines require it. This insufficient disclosure about efficiency seems to be a common weakness of government reporting as also found in the studies by Boyne and Law (1991), Hyndman and Anderson (1995), Keerasuntonpong et al (2014) and Taylor and Rosair (2000).…”

“…There were four categories – probity/legality, efficiency, policy and performance/effectiveness accountability and 13 items across these categories. Note that performance/effectiveness items are not mandatory but are widely referred to in various literature (Boyne and Law, 1991; Hyndman and Anderson, 1995; Keerasuntonpong et al , 2014; Taylor and Rosair, 2000). The financial budget items are not mandatory for annual reporting and excluded from the paper.…”

“…Referring to process/efficiency accountability, disclosures about the actual cost per unit as required by the OPDC’s (2005) reporting guidelines were close to none and is a most troubling area of government (Keerasuntonpong et al , 2014; Taylor and Rosair, 2000). This limits the knowledge of the public to assess the procedural use of public resources.…”

“…The process/efficiency of government performance can be expressed by the cost per unit as required in the OPDC’s (2005) reporting guidelines. While the program/effectiveness of the performance is measured by KPIs and their variances which are examined by much prior research (Banks et al , 1997; Boyne and Law, 1991; Hyndman and Anderson, 1995, 1998; Keerasuntonpong et al , 2014; Lonti and Gregory, 2007; Pendlebury et al , 1994; Taylor and Rosair, 2000), they are not addressed in any regulations. However, the effectiveness of government can be seen in the policy and policy implementation as required in the OPDC’s (2005) reporting guidelines as part of policy accountability.…”

“…While government reforms worldwide address public accountability objectives, a number of studies on governments’ annual reporting and the way they discharge accountability have been undertaken. For example, Pendlebury et al (1994) and Hyndman and Anderson (1995) analyzed the adequacy of the disclosures of UK Government annual reports, Herawaty and Hoque (2007), Stanley et al (2008) and Taylor and Rosair (2000) considered Australian Government annual report disclosures, Keerasuntonpong et al (2014), Thompson (1995) and Smith and Coy (2000) examined New Zealand Government annual disclosures, McCall and Klay (2010) examined the disclosures of US Government entities and Steccolini (2004) investigated Italian Government annual reports. These studies focused on the disclosures of public reporting only, and mostly found that financial information is well reported while non-financial reporting needs improvement.…”