Financial Health in Australian Local Government: The Application of a Funding Assessment Model to Brisbane and Sydney City Councils

Local government financial viability measurement in an accrual budgeting environment poses complex challenges. Financial measures frequently generate conflicting results. A rating scale to assess financial management, constructed originally for South African municipalities (Dollery & Graves, 2009), represents a useful tool to analyze financial health trends. Applying a “Likert-like” scale to financial performance measures to assess “funding compliance”, the model in this article assists municipalities to avoid financial difficulties. To demonstrate the applicability of this model, we apply the model to the Brisbane City Council and the Sydney City Councils. Results show that the model represents a valuable aid to financial management decision-making.     

Team Characteristics and Team Member Knowledge,Skills, and Ability Relationships to the Effectiveness of Cross‐Functional Teams in the Public Sector

Abstract

This study examines members of cross‐functional teams in the public sector for the necessary knowledge, skills, and ability (KSA) to be effective team members. It was determined that members of cross‐functional teams in the public sector possess the necessary KSA to perform effectively. The following characteristics are statistically significant factors: (1) years of professional work experience; (2) frequency of team participation; (3) the type of team training, i.e., collaboration and performance management; and (4) situational entry to team assignments (volunteered, assigned, requested), specifically volunteer and requested. The findings are significant in that managers within the government have some guidelines on team formation. They now know who should be team members, team members should be volunteers, and management should ensure that the team members have specific training in the areas of team collaboration and performance management. The findings are significant for employees as well. To acquire experience, employees should be interested in participating in a team environment (i.e., volunteering for the assignment). They should participate on numerous teams, so that they can become more effective as team members. Employees should acquire training in specific team skills (i.e., collaboration and performance management) to help them better understand how to work within the team and the team members and get results.     

Value-For-Money Audit for Accountability and Performance Management in Local Government in Ghana

Public sector organizations, including local government (LG) entities, continue to resort to value for money (VFM) audit to enhance performance and accountability. Based on the analysis of the consolidated reports on the annual performance-based Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT)—VFM audit—in Ghana to determine the efficacy of VFM on performance, this article argues that VFM audits constitute a significant public management tool that could enhance LG performance. However, the FOAT reports, like most VFM audits, only provide quantitative evidence, which fails to capture the qualitative or other relevant explanatory factors behind the recorded performance improvement.     

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN POST-1997 HONG KONG: POLITICAL CHALLENGES,MANAGERIAL RESPONSES?

One of the major reforms promoted by the new Special Administrative Region government of Hong Kong after the 1997 handover is that of the civil service. The March 1999 civil service reform consultation document outlined a number of proposed changes ranging from entry and exit, disciplinary measures, performance management, to performance-based reward system and training and development. This article examines the external and domestic forces (and crises) inducing the reform, and puts the discussion within the context of post-1997 political challenges to bureaucratic power. Given that the civil service stands at the outer firing line bearing the brunt of such challenges which interface with a mixture of legitimacy, accountability, probity and operational deficiencies, the significance of the present reform cannot be fully understood within a narrow managerial discourse of reform for greater efficiency and flexibility. The reform in fact represents managerial solutions to problems essentially of a “political” nature.     

How electoral incentives shape performance measurement efforts

Although scholars have assessed how the electoral connection of legislators and chief executives affects their support for performance measurement, we know less about how electoral considerations might influence agency administrators’ focus on performance measurement. I suggest that independently elected administrators’ attention to their agency's performance measurement system may be conditional on the likelihood that their efforts in this area will help them realize their electoral goals. Because there is a greater electoral incentive to focus on performance issues when government performance is deficient, elected administrators should be as likely as, if not more likely than, their non‐elected counterparts to focus on performance measurement when the government is performing poorly and less likely to do so when the government is performing well. I find evidence that supports this expectation. This article provides insight into the implications of electoral incentives for management decisions.     

Evidence-Based Practice: Challenging the Rational Wisdom

The field of performance measurement (PM) is firmly entrenched as a management practice in many governments, agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Though emerging later, the field of evidence-based practice (EBP) has developed simultaneously as a new approach to enhance agency performance. While both rationality-oriented reforms intend to enhance program or agency performance, these two related rational approaches are seldom considered in concert. This essay examines the conceptual underpinnings and practical linkages between PM and EBP to explore how EBP and PM can be jointly implemented as tools to advance agency goals. As rational approaches aimed at improving performance, these two distinct tools are not substitutes, but integrated components of a results-driven strategic management approach. As a conceptual assessment, the article offers practical advice and broad appeal to performance-oriented practitioners seeking to improve agency performance.     

The prevention of suicide in India and the developing world: the need for population-based strategies

Very high rates of suicide have been reported from India and the developing world. However, much of the debate on suicide prevention focuses on individuals, methods, site-specific solutions, or particular suicide prevention strategies. This article argues for population based approaches that focus on improving the general health of populations (e.g., macroeconomic policies that aim for social justice, schemes to meet basic human needs, organizing local support groups within vulnerable sections of society, developing and implementing an essential pesticide list, addressing gender issues, and increasing public awareness through the mass media) rather than medical, psychiatric, and other strategies that target individuals (e.g., treatment of mental illness, counseling, etc.) in order to reduce high suicide rates in India and developing countries. Individual approaches will help people in distress and prevent individuals from committing suicide, but will not reduce population suicide rates.     

Management by Measurement? Public Management Practices Amidst Ambiguity

In the public sphere, a management by measurement (MBM) movement can be traced. Practitioners attempt to strengthen the transparency and effectiveness of administrative systems by introducing rational measurement cycles. When issues are managed, ambitions must be stated, options must be assessed, optimal options must be chosen and performance must be monitored and evaluated. This cycle rests upon assumptions that are often untenable. When issues are ambiguous, interpretative spaces exist; when interpretative spaces exist, strict measurement cycles do not work because required conditions and assumptions cannot be met. This article explores the nature of interpretative spaces by identifying three types of public management practice. In this typology of public management, practices differ in terms of the extent to which issues can be classified, as well as the extent to which standards are contested. Management by measurement fits canonical practices where issues are known and standards are shared, it is argued, but is less appropriate for evaluating non-canonical practices and practices-in-transition where such a classification of issues is weak and consensus on standard is absent. MBM focuses on data; the other practices require dialogue in order to manage ambiguity and interpretative spaces.     

Radical Beliefs and Violent Actions Are Not Synonymous: How to Place the Key Disjuncture Between Attitudes and Behaviors at the Heart of Our Research into Political Violence

This article develops and elaborates on three core points. First, as with research into other social science themes, it is argued that it is necessary to apply the logic of correlation and causality to the study of political violence. Second, it highlights the critical disjuncture between attitudes and behaviors. Many or most individuals who support the use of political violence remain on the sidelines, including those who sympathize with insurgents in Afghanistan (reportedly 29 percent in 2011), and those supportive of “suicide attacks” in the Palestinian Territories (reportedly reaching 66 percent in 2005). Conversely, those responsible for such behaviors are not necessarily supportive of the ostensible political aims. Third, it is argued that the motives that drive these attitudes and behaviors are often (or, some would argue, always) distinct. While the former are motivated by collective grievances, there is substantial case study evidence that the latter are commonly driven by economic (e.g., payments for the emplacement of improvised explosive devices), security-based (i.e., coercion) and sociopsychological (e.g., adventure, status, and vengeance) incentives. Thus, it is necessary for the research community to treat attitudes and behaviors as two separate, albeit interrelated, lines of inquiry.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Public Procurement Performance Management Systems in Local Governments

Increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance of public procurement (PP) has become an ongoing concern for governments. Public administrations at different levels are realising that – in order for PP to fulfil its mission – appropriate control and diagnostic systems must be put in place. This study aims to investigate the architecture of PP performance measurement systems (PP-PMSs) in local governments, drawing on four case studies from Italy and four from Wales. The theoretical background is provided by the emerging literature on procurement PMSs in the private context as well as the specific literature on the public sector. PP-PMSs are specifically analysed with respect to performance areas covered (i.e., cost, quality, time, compliance, innovation, sustainability). Results show that performance dimensions should be extended beyond traditional cost measures, with KPIs not limited to those imposed by national/regional regulation. Furthermore, we show that this is likely to happen where the procurement function is recognised as strategic in the public institution.     

More dissimilar than alike? Public values preferences across US minority and white managers

Interest in public values has grown considerably over the past two decades. Much of this attention reflects a growing awareness that public values hold considerable significance for citizens and public employees. Yet, despite the rapid expansion of research on public values, we still know little about the role of race in shaping and determining public employees’ values preferences. To begin remedying this gap, this article examines whether minority and white public managers in large US local governments exhibit the same value preferences when making departmental decisions. Results from a multiple group confirmatory factor analysis indicate that minority and white managers express similar preferences for traditional public administration values; however, minority managers report a stronger preference for both traditional public administration (e.g., efficiency and effectiveness) and social equity‐oriented (e.g., equity, representation) values.     

Catering to Organizational Needs in Ethics Management: The Case of the European Commission

This article examines the ethical challenges encountered by European Commission officials in their day-to-day work. Based on an intra-organizational comparison between three Directorate Generals (DGs), the analysis reveals that ethical questions differ in these settings, depending on the type of external actors employees engage with. This internal heterogeneity makes the European Commission an interesting (unusual) case, which highlights the challenges of practising ethics management in a way that is truly responsive to organizational needs. The policy solution implemented by the Commission as a response—the appointment of “ethics correspondents” at DG level—has been only moderately successful.     

Thermometer or sauna?: Performance measurement and democratic assistance in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

This article presents a case study of performance measurement in the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID's) democracy and governance program. Its purpose is to illustrate the juxtaposition (and sometimes contradiction) between the high standards of causal logic and accuracy required of performance measurement, and the untidiness involved in the 'politics of democratization'. Based on USAID experiences in numerous countries, the article concentrates on four specific themes drawn mainly from the literature on re-engineering but also from new public administration. These are: the complexity of politics; the challenge of attribution; the danger of distortive incentives; and the interrelated questions of product and process and quantitative and qualitative measures. Problems of measurement are clearly complicated by the fact that the Agency does not deliver service directly, has limited control over its expenditures, and, in the case of democracy assistance, by the need to operate in a complex and sensitive area, across international borders and diverse political systems and cultures. The article includes a discussion of some innovative qualitatively-oriented USAID responses to these problems.     

Meritocracy and the Singapore Political System

The separation of implementation from policy has been diffused as ‘agencification’ around the world. It is considered an organisational reform based on new public management (NPM). The semi-autonomous public organisations executing policy are set up and are given a greater flexibility in operations in exchange for strengthening accountability for results. The central government of Japan also adopted the organisational reform in which agencies were called independent administrative institutions (IAIs). The reform intends not only to make the public service more transparent but to improve efficiency and quality of services through separating the implementing functions from the policy units, ministries and departments. It is assumed that flexibility in operations and result orientation would improve organisational performance through a feedback instrument of evaluating results into the budget other than an incentive mechanism. This article investigates whether the intended objectives have been accomplished. The specific focus is on the impacts on the budgetary system in terms of performance. The analysis shows that in Japanese agencies, ex-post performance information has not been fed into the budget process. Also the actual outcomes are explained by an incremental funding system, technical problems in measurement of results (performance measurement) and bureaucratic motivation through adopting a principal agent model.     

Motivations Behind Using Performance Measurement: City-wide vs. Selective Users

Abstract

This article identifies and describes the utilisation of performance measurement in Florida local governments. Two research questions are considered here: which factors influence Florida city governments to use performance measurement? And how do the factors associated with cities that are city-wide users differ from cities that are selective users? The paper develops a framework constructed from literatures in performance measurement and management innovation to develop hypotheses that are tested with 2005 Florida local government data. This study finds strong support for the role of community attributes, form of government and internal capacity as contributors to the use of performance measurement. The study also finds the factors that influence city-wide users are different from factors that influence selective users, especially with regard to revenue size and the reward/incentive system.     

International Sanitation Management and Performance Measurement: Taking Out the Trash

Internationally, sanitation management has been a critical area of contention, especially in recent years with tightening budgets and resource reductions to public services. Our article reviews the management strategies, actions, and developments that have led to sanitation incidents of piling trash and public health concerns. These incidents will be reviewed from a public management perspective underscoring the role of performance measurement and management. The key influences associated with the varying cases are discussed. Both the negative and positive factors of international cases of sanitation management are reviewed.     

Conflicts of Interest and Governance Mechanisms in Italian Local Public Utilities

Stemming from different theoretical perspectives the article examines the conflicts of interest arising among the actors (citizens, local governments, private shareholders, service providers) that at various levels are involved in local public utilities governance systems. The main results of a multiple case study analysis on 10 Italian listed local public utilities are summarized. Different and coexisting situations of conflicts of interest among multiple principals and agents are identified. In this context, governance mechanisms (e.g., the board of directors) have different roles and functions and may prevent and mitigate such conflicts. However, our findings suggest that the ownership structure influences board composition and functioning and that higher numbers of independent directors do not necessarily mean “actual” board independence. The article contributes to the debate on conflicts of interest and governance mechanisms in local public utilities.     

Knowledge Utilization in Canadian Health Service Organizations: A Path Analysis

The aim of this article is to study direct and causality effects of variables involved in knowledge utilization (KU) explanations. Based on a survey of 928 managers and professionals in Canadian health service organizations (HSOs) (ministries, regional health authorities, and hospitals), the results of the path analysis indicate that the extent to which research results are used in policy and practice is influenced by the format of research results, by organizational and contextual variables (e.g., research culture and absorptive capacity), by the formal partnership activities initiated between the producers of research and users (formal linkage mechanisms), and by the user’s relational capital (informal linkage mechanisms), among other variables. Formal and informal linkage mechanisms have a positive and significant impact on KU in different causal explanations. The article shows that utilization processes are interdependent in their causes and effects, and thus complicated to study.     

Obstacles and Opportunities for Sustaining Performance Management Systems

Measuring performance in public organizations has been a growing trend for several decades. Designing, adopting, and implementing this style of management system have been the topic of much practitioner and academic deliberation. One struggle those determined to adopt performance measurement and management systems have faced, though, is the ability to sustain them over time and actually engrain them into their decision-making frameworks. Countless barriers to long-term success exist for public organizations and this article seeks to identify and categorize them. Using a mixed-method survey design, this research shows which factors are the most important to organizations hoping to build a performance system that can stand the test of time. Capacity, knowledge, and buy-in limitations pose serious threats to these reforms and it takes a concerted effort to cultivate not only support from employees and management to pursue performance management but the technical and conceptual capacity to design the right system for the organization.