Performance through the Common Assessment Framework. A Critical Review for Romania

Abstract

The performance management is the framework of a good implementation of the strategy in an organization. It shows how plans transform in results and it underlines the importance of the integration of processes, methodologies and activities which used isolated will not give the same results. The aim in this paper is to analyze one of the mechanisms which is considered appropriate for the improvement of public administration results: the Common Assessment Framework. The objective of the practical study consists in the preparation of the implementation of the Common Assessment Framework in one city hall from Romania: the city hall of Vulcana-Băi commune. The main tools of the research were the questionnaire and the focus-group. The interpretation of results was made in the light of information collected following some steps: the presentation of the associated criteria and sub criteria; the presentation of the questions that we used for the focus-group session; the statistic interpretation. The notation system we used was according to the classical notation of CAF 2006. Conclusions and recommendations of the study were pertained to the meaning of public administration performance and it represents the starting point of an appropriate performance evaluation in the context of Romanian local public administration.