Synthetic Performance Indicators for Residential Housing Agencies

Many public administrations produce and distribute public services through a number of similar local autonomous organizations, or institutions, operating in different parts of the territory assigned to them under a centralized authority. Examples of this are the public residential housing institutions, the institutions for waste disposal, health care institutions, and education institutions. The problem arises regarding the evaluation of the performance of these local organizations and institutions not in absolute but in relative terms, in order to determine what incentives or sanctions should be meted out to them. This study presents the methodological problems, the data analysis, and the initial results of the method adopted by the Lombardy Region to create a system of performance indicators that will permit an automatic ranking of the Residential Housing Agencies in Lombardy （ALER） according to their performance, based on information from their balance sheets. A performance index was devised by rationally combining the results of three different analyses： position analysis, ranking analysis, and scoring analysis. The results allowed the central administration to： （1） motivate the managers of the local units through a system of performance-based incentives; （2） aggregate poorly performing local units or outsource inefficient functions; and （3） create competition among local units and raise overall performance levels.     

Local Ownership and International Oversight: Police Reform in Post-Yugoslav States

ABSTRACT

This article compares the results of police reform in three post-Yugoslav states that vary in terms of local ownership. Using survey, focus group, and interview data gathered in Kosovo, Serbia, and Macedonia, we find that the public perceives the police force created and trained by international oversight as more capable and legitimate when compared to police forces that grew under local ownership. Insulation from political and societal influence led to a more capable and legitimate police force in Kosovo, while the politicization of the police force under local ownership undermined its capacity and legitimacy in Macedonia and Serbia.     

铁路公安机关转制现状分析

2009年,铁路公安机关体制改革启动,各地方铁路公安机关从铁路运输企业中全部分离,一次性整体纳入国家司法管理体系,由铁道部、公安部双重领导,完成了从"企业警察"到国家警察体系的回归。但四年过去了,此项改革并没有彻底完成,还需要继续深化和推进,因为它既是政府职能转变、政企彻底分离之改革目标的一个组成部分,也是国家整个司法体制改革的重要组成部分。     

关于铁路基层公安机关千展创先争优活动的思考

基层是创先争优活动的核心,是公安工作战斗力的基础,也是形象展示的重要平台和窗口。针对当前铁路基层公安机关创先争优活动存在的主要问题,应秉持创新理念,延伸争创内涵,大胆探索,小心论证,从绩效引导、实战激励、特色凸显、习惯养成入手,把行业公安创先争优活动不断引向深入。     

Social Accountability and Institutional Change: The Case of Citizen Oversight of Police

This article examines the ability of social accountability to spur gradual institutional change at the municipal level, using the case of citizen oversight agencies (COAs) for police agencies. Using the gradual change framework and the social accountability framework to guide the empirical strategy and data collected through an original survey of COAs, the authors test the impact of COAs on institutional outcomes in policing. We find that, in accordance with the gradual change framework, the degree to which a COA reduces racial disparity in policing outcomes depends on its scope of authority and the degree of discretion afforded by existing institutions to police officers. In general, the wider the scope of authority, and the broader the discretion afforded by existing institutions, the greater the likelihood of change in institutional outcomes.     

Collaborative Behavior and the Performance of Government Agencies

ABSTRACT

While collaboration among individuals, work groups, and organizations is central for understanding the performance of public agencies, most studies have focused on collaboration between organizations or sectors. We develop a model that focuses on two types of collaborative behavior: between persons (both horizontal and vertical) and between work units. We empirically test our hypotheses using data on work collaboration and perceptions of public agency performance from the United States federal government. We introduce a method for estimating the impact of different types of collaborative behavior that also accounts for nonlinear effects and a dependent variable that takes ordered values. We find that intra-organizational collaborative behavior has a large impact on organizational performance and that horizontal collaborative behavior between workers has the greatest impact among the specific types.     

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.     

Performance Budgeting: The Perspective of State Agencies

Although performance‐based budgeting requirements are pervasive, what remains a challenge is how to gain the support from all stakeholders in the budget process that are essential to the integration of performance information with budgeting. This study examines the perspective and role of state agencies on performance budgeting. The finding indicates that for agencies to conduct performance‐informed budgeting, the focus needs to be on elevating managerial capacity to use performance information, and improving measurement quality. Moreover, it is crucial to recognize that performance budgeting is a collaborative process in which each participant plays a valuable role.     

Consensus Among Public Managers as Strategy for Standardization of Performance Indicators

ABSTRACT

The usefulness of performance indicators increases when organizations compare their data. However, most discussions have failed to emphasize two lines of action that could improve the relevance of such comparisons: a) agreement among service managers on the indicators to be used in the evaluation; b) homogenization of the indicators to be used by organizations, and of the process used to calculate them. In this context, this paper proposes a methodology based on the participation of and consensus among managers, which helps to standardize the construction and presentation of performance indicators. The aim of this proposal is to improve the comparative evaluation of organizations. Finally, in order to test the proposal, a practical application is carried out on the local culture departments of nine large municipalities in southern Spain.     

公共管理与绩效测评

长期以来,行政部门的工作开展,在很大程度上,由立法和资源分配所推动。行政部门不必非得提供精确的服务,但是履行职责时必须遵守法律, 不得违反投入预算相关条款的规定。直到20世纪 90年代初,新公共管理把行政部门管理的焦点重新引向效果和绩效,开发绩效测评系统,才成为决策机构一项新的需要。     

警用无人驾驶航空器功能及特点分析

警用无人驾驶航空器是智能警务的先导,无人化作战平台的重要组成部分,亦是未来警务模式变革的先行者。作为一种在三维空间拥有六自由度的空中作战平台,警用无人驾驶航空器可以实现感知、投送、转移三大功能,适用于人(命)不能及、体不能及、力不能及的空间环境,并在警务工作中体现出了准确、快速、简单、安全等性能特点。     

Performance Funding in Federal Agencies: A Case Study of a Federal Job Training Program

Our case study highlights important details that enter into developing performance contingent budgeting schemes—details that do not emerge in more general discussions of the subject—and shows how the handling of these details can be crucial to these schemes' success. We study a federal job training program that gives state and local decision makers discretion over the program's operation, but through performance funding holds them accountable for achieving specific objectives. We find that states' modifications to the scheme's construction produced over time highly individualized performance funding schemes that likely varied in their effectiveness.     

刍议行政效能监察

加强行政效能监察,对进一步转变政府职能,改善行政管理,提高行政效能,促进政府机关勤政廉政建设,全面提升政府能力和塑造良好的政府形象,具有重要的现实意义和战略意义。但我国行政效能监察工作尚存在着许多问题,因此,迫切需要建立科学有效的行政效能监察新机制,其具体措施在于:加快政府职能的转变;加强组织领导,健全办事机构;建立完备的监督约束机制和法规体系;设立效能投诉中心;拓宽监督渠道,强化民主监督和积极推进电子政务等。     

Performance Indicators in Academia: An X‐Efficiency Approach?

This article utilises three different perspectives to evaluate the uses of performance indicators in Australian higher education: federalism, neoclassical economics and X-efficiency theory. The introduction of performance indicators by the Commonwealth government is associated with providing the most efficient path for the allocation and distribution of scarce resources in higher education (neoclassical economics), increasing its control over the universities (federalism theory), and applying pressure to them and in turn their academic members to increase their effort levels (X-efficiency theory). X-efficiency theory is proposed as a possible model to support and inform efforts to better understand and improve the operation of performance indicators.