Implementing PBB: Conflicting Views of Success

A modern budget reform, performance‐based budgeting (PBB) emphasizes the measurement of government performance by agencies and public servants. In this article we define PBB as requiring strategic planning regarding agency mission, goals and objectives, and a process that requests quantifiable data that provide meaningful information about program outcomes. Performance‐based budgeting requirements are now pervasive in the states. Of forty‐seven states with PBB requirements, thirty‐one have legislated the process to be conducted, while sixteen have initiated the reform through budget guidelines or instructions.¹What remains unknown, yet of vital interest to state administrators, their staff, legislators, and citizens, regards implementation status of PBB systems. How many states are utilizing a PBB process as prescribed by law or administrative directive? And if PBB has been implemented, has it been successful regarding improvement of agency effectiveness and decision making about spending? Perhaps most importantly, has PBB influenced appropriation decisions?. This research is based on responses to a mail survey of executive and legislative budgeters regarding the PBB system established in their state. Results discussed in this article consider budgeters’ response about PBB implementation status and effectiveness as conducted. We find that there are differing perceptions across the branches of government regarding both the extent of PBB implementation as well as its success. Results show that states with better‐known PBB systems have not necessarily realized greater success in terms of effectiveness from this budget reform than states with less popularly known systems, at least as perceived by the budgeters included in this article.     

REGULATION AND THE THEORY OF AGENCY1

The major arguments of this paper are that there is a need for an integrating framework for the study of regulation, including the design of regulatory institutions, and that the theory of agency may provide such a framework. The paper provides a brief overview of this approach. The theory of agency is a general theory of social relationships of “acting for” that is now under development in several disciplines, particularly economics and accounting. Regulation is seen as a generic relation observed widely in social behavior, and as a particular type of agency relationship. The problems of agency relations–e.g., the problems of principals in controlling agents and of agents in acting according to the principals' desires–have their counterparts in regulation.     

Performance Contracts and Goal Attainment in Government Agencies

ABSTRACT

Public sector reforms introducing performance contracts provide a unique opportunity to investigate goals set for government agencies and factors affecting goal attainment. The article maps the set of goals contained in performance contracts for Danish government agencies in 2000, 2005, and 2008. Performance contracts are found to reflect the complex character of agency goals with performance goals ranging from project initiation to reducing case work time or increasing productivity. The article also analyzes factors affecting goal attainment. Agencies with a large percentage of goals focused on project initiation and production exhibit higher levels of goal attainment. Also, goal attainment improves as agencies and ministries gain experience with performance contracts.

For practitioners, it is relevant that contracts target a wide variety of goals and over time focus increasingly on results. Contracts serve to focus agency attention as three quarters of all demands are met. A crucial factor seems to be whether agencies are in control of formulating and meeting goals. Efforts to improve the contract regime may thus concentrate on enabling government departments to secure ambitious and relevant performance goals.     

Malaysia's experience in implementing the new performance appraisal system

Malaysia introduced a new performance appraisal system in 1992, as part of its administrative reform efforts to improve the public sector performance in achieving higher productivity and service quality. The New Performance Appraisal System is a departure from the traditional system of appraising employees as it is a performance-based reward system and emphasis is given to performance planning, performance monitoring and review, performance feedback, and development of action plan to coach and counsel employees on an on-going basis. The most notable features of the NPAS include the need to set annual work targets and standards of performance between the manager and the subordinate, a mandatory mid-year review of the work performance in relation to the target set, the use of different appraisal forms for different categories of employees according to grades, and the setting up of a Panel on the Coordination of Performance Appraisal and Salary Progression in each ministry/agency to ensure fair, transparent and objective appraisal, and the selection of excellent employees for reward and recognition. Nevertheless, to ensure the effective implementation of the NPAS, various issues need to be addressed such as commitment by top management, rater bias, training and quotas for recognition and reward.     

Performance Management Routines That Work? An Early Assessment of the GPRA Modernization Act

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 provided a well‐studied framework for U.S. federal performance management initiatives. In the aftermath of the update of GPRA in 2010 with the GPRA Modernization Act, the authors offer the first systematic scholarly assessment of the new legislation. Managerial use of performance data was an explicit goal of the Modernization Act, an objective that eluded prior federal reforms. The Modernization Act established a new series of performance routines to encourage performance information use. The analysis shows that as federal managers experience those routines, they are more likely to report using performance data to make decisions. Specifically, routines centered on the pursuit of cross‐agency priority goals, the prioritization of a small number of agency goals, and data‐driven reviews are all associated with higher rates of performance information use. The authors also find that managers in better‐run data‐driven reviews report greater use of performance data.     

Prosocial Values and Performance Management Theory: Linking Perceived Social Impact and Performance Information Use

Performance management techniques are presented as control mechanisms to save money and hold bureaucrats accountable, consistent with negative agency theory assumptions of bureaucrats. We propose an alternative theory of performance management that rests on prosocial values. This theory argues that public servants who see the social impact of their work are more likely to use performance metrics. We operationalize performance information use in terms of purposeful use for internal organizational means, and political use for external legitimation. Those who perceive that their work has a strong social impact are likely to pursue both types of uses, to improve both the effectiveness of their services, and to maintain resources. The data come from a cross‐sectional survey of U.S. public and nonprofit employees.     

Rail Safety: Targeting Oversight and Assessing Results

Rail safety has emerged as a significant issue in the past two years as a result of two major factors: a statistical lack of improvement in rail safety in the past decade, and a catalytic event in the form of a major derailment involving loss of life at Graniteville, South Carolina, in January 2005. The convergence of long-term leveling of rail safety indicators and the shock of a major rail accident prompted the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask the Government Accountability Office to assess the oversight role of the Federal Railroad Administration, the modal agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation charged with overseeing rail safety. The report is a reminder of the continuing importance of regulatory activities and the general movement in federal management toward greater use of data and performance measures since the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.     

Workplace Relations and Agreement Making in the Australian Public Service

The Howard government has introduced major change to APS employment relations. The long-established centralised system has been replaced by a new employer agenda. Negotiations now occur at agency level and are regulated, as in the private sector, by the Workplace Relations Act 1996. Freedom of association is emphasised, as is the right for individuals to settle contracts with their employer. While the transformation is not yet complete, government policy is pushing toward a new paradigm for bargaining in the public sector.     

The Post-Modern Self: A Retrospective

This paper examines the idea that the self is now post-modern, meaning fragmented, fluid, boundaryless, defenseless and lacking identity. This idea was popular a while back, but it now looks faddish and out-dated. The pomo self theorists over-emphasized some things and under-emphasized others, i.e. they engaged in the fallacy of reduction. They mistook minor changes in the self for major ones. They overlooked the power of the primary group. And they under-rated the self??s defenses, especially inner speech as a device for protecting the self and agency as a weapon for managing one??s environment.     

Reinvention As Reform: Assessing the National Performance Review

The conclusion of the Clinton Administration presents an opportune time to investigate the outcomes of the National Performance Review (NPR). Any such evaluation, however, is complicated by the nature of the objectives sought, many of which relate to subtle and elusive elements of organizational life: empowering employees, inducing a less risk-adverse culture, and enhancing the quality of service delivery. The strategy employed here as a means of gaining insight into such phenomena was to couple a broad review of government-wide survey results with an in-depth investigation into the impact of NPR on a single agency, the Social Security Administration. A conclusion is that many of the NPR's "higher-order" objectives have not been met on a systemic basis. While a variety of proximate explanations for this finding can be identified, a more fundamental explanation relates to a failure by the sponsors to adjust their strategy to account for basic differences between NPR and past reforms.     

Does Involvement in Performance Management Routines Encourage Performance Information Use? Evaluating GPRA and PART

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 and the George W. Bush administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) established new routines that were intended to foster performance management practices. Using data from two surveys, the authors find that the involvement of agency employees in GPRA processes and PART reviews generally had little direct effect on performance information use once other factors are accounted for. The main exception is that managerial involvement in GPRA processes and PART reviews is associated with the use of performance data to refine measures and goals. This reflects the limits of government‐wide reform efforts that depend on difficult‐to‐observe bureaucratic behavior. The authors also find that a series of organizational factors—leadership commitment to results, learning routines led by supervisors, the motivational nature of the task, and the ability to link measures to actions—are positive predictors of performance information use.     

《国家赔偿法》修订后的几大亮点

历经十五年争议的《国家赔偿法》终于修订颁布,新法在归责原则、执法机关的举证责任、刑事拘留导致赔偿的责任确定、公民的精神损害赔偿、民主与平等精神、赔偿程序的合理规范等六个方面较之从前有很大完善,标志着我国宪政制度的巨大进步以及对人权保障的提升。     

Creating a Performance Culture? Performance-based Pay in the Australian Public Service

This article provides a critique of the operation of performance-based pay in the Australian public service from 1992 to 1996 and questions proposals for further experimentation with such managerial initiatives. Performance agreements underpinning performance-based pay were unable to measure adequately the performance of senior officers undertaking policy work. Appraisal reviews of these agreements also failed to increase performance feedback between supervisors and senior officers. The process of rating senior officers by supervisors, and the moderation of those ratings by senior agency management, proved to be inherently subjective and considerably increased the prerogatives of public service managers over senior officers. Linking pay to individual performance undermined teamwork and increased friction between those eligible for performance bonuses and junior officers excluded from the scheme. Yet the emphasis on individual employment relationships did not serve to undermine collective values, in particular workforce commitment to unionism.     

Revenue authorities: are they the right vehicle for improved tax administration?

It is now well recognised that reforms to tax administration are as important as tax policy changes for overall fiscal reform. One institutional model of tax administration, which has been quite widely adopted in Africa in recent years, is that of the semi‐independent Revenue Authority. This approach is based on the executive agency model, widely adopted in the UK and elsewhere, as a way of improving performance of certain governmental functions. This article looks at the arguments for and against the Revenue Authority model, and examines a number of practical issues in the design of such an agency. It draws on the recent experience of Revenue Authorities in a number of countries. It concludes that the Revenue Authority model can offer an appropriate institutional framework for reforming tax administration, particular where low pay rates and rigid civil service systems inhibit effective management. However, Revenue Authorities do not solve all problems, and can only be expected to deliver results if they form part of a wider reform. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computer-Based Performance Information for Executives in Local Government

Performance information is crucial to effective management. Computer-based information systems (CBIS) now play a significant role in the effective delivery of information to senior managers. Executive information systems (EIS) are emerging as popular tools to assist organisations in their strategic decision-making processes. This trend has spread from the private to the public sector, and is now evident in Australian government organizations
This article draws on the findings of a survey into the uses and benefits of CBIS and EIS, from a sample of Australian local government organisations. The study shows that lessons from the private sector are being heeded by system developers in public organisations, leading to successful EIS projects, or at least improved CBIS. The study indicates that EIS, which were originally developed for profit-oriented private companies, are now seen as appropriate for many public sector organisations, providing effective delivery of information to senior managers. Survey results indicate that improved information systems give executives a more accurate picture of their organisation's performance and so provide support for improved strategic decision-making. In addition, EIS are seen by respondents as offering significant benefits not only to managers but also to the rest of the organization.     

行将勃兴的"治理绩效管理"潮流——基于第三次明诺布鲁克会议的预测

在行政学120多年发展过程中出现的各种不同学派的争鸣，仅仅是在不同时期管理主题变动下研究潮流的变迁。在新的管理主题下，一种新的行政学研究潮流正在酝酿。我们在统计分析第三次明诺布鲁克会议资料的基础上预测了行将勃兴的研究潮流将会是“治理绩效管理”。同时，我们大胆预测，该潮流的8个重点研究主题将会是参与式治理、治理管理、治理绩效评估、超越行政管辖范围的治理、公共与非赢利组织治理、民主治理、治理工具和IT与网络治理，并据此建议我国行政学首先需要加强这8个方面的研究。     

Is ‘good enough’ peacebuilding good enough? The potential and pitfalls of the local turn in peacebuilding in Timor-Leste

There is a palpable sense of humility within the United Nations and other international institutions regarding peacebuilding. Rather than seeking to implement the liberal peace, they now pursue the more modest goal of ‘good enough’ outcomes. This shift reflects a growing consensus in the critical literature that space needs to be provided for the local agency that will ultimately determine the outcomes of peacebuilding. At first blush this emphasis on local agency is positive; it offers an important correction to the technocratic and generally top-down nature of liberal peacebuilding. But, is the ‘good enough’ approach to peacebuilding good enough? What are the pitfalls and potential of the local turn? This article uses a case study of Timor-Leste to answer these questions. It finds that the local turn can help lend legitimacy to the state and increase opportunities for political participation and the delivery of public goods at the local level. However, the emerging evidence from Timor-Leste also highlights the pitfalls of the local turn. Most significantly, the state can transfer responsibility for public goods provision to the local level in order to lessen the burden on the state and to divert attention from ineffective or illegitimate central institutions.     

Federal Agency Budget Officers: Who Needs Them?

This article examines the role of federal agency budget officers and their responsibilities from the author's own perspective and experience. The article suggests that it is inadequate to standardize the role of an agency budget oficer other than that used by the agency head to determine if he or she is satisfied with the budget processes in the agency.     

Towards a Study of Human Rights Practitioners

The expansion of human rights provisions has produced an increasing number of human rights practitioners and delineated human rights as a field of its own. Questions of who is practicing human rights and how they practice it have become important. This paper considers the question of human rights practice and the agency of practitioners, arguing that practice should not be conceived as the application of philosophy, but instead approached from a sociological point of view. Whatever the structuring effect of political institutions, human rights is being defined more expansively by practitioners. The weakness of international institutions and the interpretive scope of human rights discourse produce significant opportunity for practitioners to interpret the meaning of human rights. Our exploratory interviews of a small sample of practitioners reveal widely varying histories, in which they interpret their own work as “human rights” practice in differing ways. Practitioners who in the past thought of themselves differently, now identify as human rights activists. They are also becoming more professional, but concerned about professionalization. Their self-interpretations reflect these concerns and also respond to the necessities of career events. Through the conscious and unconscious aspects of their practice, practitioners exercise considerable agency in adapting human rights discourse to their own concerns while also being critical of it.     

CENTRAL AGENCIES AND THE COORDINATION PRINCIPLE*

Abstract: Resource scarcity and social and economic complexity have prompted a growing focus by governments on coordination. New roles for central agencies in Australian State and Federal governments have emerged. An evaluation of these functions is undertaken, starting from the distinction drawn by Leon Peres between "principle" and "interest" as forces in the machinery of government. It is argued that this distinction has deficiencies for the purpose of determining central agency functions, and that the focus should be on procedural values or "rules of the game" that these agencies promote and defend. Added to the procedural values of efficiency, economy and propriety there is now a growing focus on the "coordination principle". That principle, which central agencies should promote, concerns processes of conflict management in the policy process within the context of general purpose rather than sectorally fragmented policy-making. Policy coordination as an objective, associated with central planning and hierarchical control, is rejected in favour of this view of central agency involvement in a multi-organizational governmental setting. The role of cabinet is stressed, with the caveat that cabinet processes do not always entail coordination processes. In conclusion, there is a warning about the growing power of central agencies and concomitant temptations for them to interfere constantly in sectoral or departmental detail, possibly to the detriment of the coordination principle.