Overcoming the Inadequacies of Performance Measurement in Local Government: The Case of Libraries and Leisure Services

Abstract

The key to meaningful advances in performance measurement in local may lie in meeting public interest challenge. In this case, challenge will be met not only by formulating measures that address public interest but, perhaps more critically, by reporting measures that capture public interest. Advocates of improved performance measurement in local have long emphasized importance of suitable performance yardsticks for municipal functions in lieu of private sector's bottom-line measure of profit or loss. Absent a marketplace barometer of product value and customer satisfaction, well-conceived measures of municipal services would nevertheless offer a gauge of progress or slippage over time--and perhaps even a gauge of performance adequacy relative to targets, standards, or comparison jurisdictions. A scorecard that could provide such would be as vital to public sector success as it is in any other endeavor where evolving strategies are predicated on knowledge of whether one is winning or losing (Hatry, 1978; 28; Hatry et al., 1992; xv, 207). For many years, measurement proponents have urged local governments to report not only how much they spend, but also how much work they do, how well they do it, how efficiently, and, ideally, what their actions achieve. Advocates have promised that more sophisticated measurement systems will undergird processes, better inform resource allocation decisions., enhance legislative oversight, and increase accountability. The call for improved performance measurement, heeded by some local governments but unheeded by many others, has been taken up by a series of new voices throughout this century with only minor variations in fundamental message. Among recent developments have been resolutions passed by National Academy of Public: Administration (NAPA) in 1991 and by American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) in 1992 encouraging performance reporting (Epstein, 1992), and declaration of Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) that information about service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) is an essential element of accountability and that such should have a place in general purpose external financial reporting (Hatry et al., 1990; v; GASB, 1992; iii; GASB; 1994; 1-3; Wholey and Hatry, 1992). Despite growing momentum in support of performance measurement and even recent legislation requiring measurement at federal level and in some states,[1] as yet no decree has forced broad compliance at local level. Moreover, even where legislative mandates seemingly have settled debate, issues of performance measurement defy solution and remain controversial. Measurement, in fact, recently has been labeled as one of the big questions in public (Behn, 1993). What may prove distinctive and perhaps decisive in current wave of performance measurement advocacy is recently attenuated focus on citizen--both as a consumer of performance measurement reports (Hatry et al, 1990) and as a source of input for performance measures (i.e., as an evaluator of adequacy of particular services or as a judge of overall local performance [e.g., Miller and Miller, 1991]). The recent surge of interest in service quality and in satisfying citizen-customer, key elements of total quality management and reinventing government movements, may prove to be a major boon to a reintensified focus on performance measurement (e.g., Cohen and Brand, 1993; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). A half century ago, Clarence Ridley and Herbert Simon (1943) identified citizens, along with managers and city council members, as key beneficiaries of improved performance measurement. With proper measures, they suggested, citizens would have a simple yardstick by which to gauge whether they were getting efficient or inefficient government (Ridley and Simon, 1943; ix). …