From performance measurement to learning: a new source of government overload?
| Author | Jenny M Lewis,Peter Triantafillou |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852312455993 |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
78(4) 597–614
! The Author(s) 2012
From performance measurement
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852312455993
of government overload?
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Jenny M Lewis
Roskilde University, Denmark
Peter Triantafillou
Roskilde University, Denmark
Abstract
Over the last few decades accountability has accommodated an increasing number
of different political, legal and administrative goals. This article focuses on the admin-
istrative aspect of accountability and explores the potential perils of a shift from per-
formance measurement to learning. While this is inherently positive in its intentions,
we argue that it might constitute a new source of government overload. We propose
four explanations for why this may be so. First, a learning approach is more likely
to supplement than replace performance management. Second, more rather than less
data will be needed to comply with accountability requirements, because of the first
point. Third, the costs of compliance are likely to increase because learning requires
more participation and dialogue. Fourth, accountability as learning may generate
a ‘change for the sake of change’ mentality, creating further government overload.
We conclude with some comments on limiting the undesirable consequences of such
a move.
Points for practitioners
Public administrators need to identify and weigh the (human, political and economic)
benefits and costs of accountability regimes. While output-focused performance meas-
urement regimes increase transparency and improve value for money in many cases,
there are also undesirable side-effects. Accountability regimes attuned to learning
appear conducive to quality improvement, but may also become new sources of gov-
ernment overload. This article examines the potential problems of such a move, and
considers how these possible perils might be limited by managers and practitioners.
Public managers must ask themselves just how much accountability is actually necessary.
Corresponding author:
Jenny M Lewis, Department of Society and Globalization, Roskilde University, Box 260, 4000-DK Roskilde,
Denmark
Email: jennyl@ruc.dk
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International Review of Administrative Sciences 78(4)
More specifically, they may want to delimit the scope of the accountability regimes
employed, undertake a cost–benefit evaluation of these, and consult those subjected
to such regimes, in order to ensure a suitable design.
Keywords
accountability, learning, new public management, overload, performance measurement
Introduction
Accountability, we are told, is crucial for the legitimacy of the public sector in
liberal democracies (Thomas, 2000: 348). Governments must account for their
actions to the populace that elected them, and public bureaucracies must account
for the public monies invested in the implementation of government policies. A
quick scan of the recent literature on accountability reveals a bewildering array of
definitions of accountability. Much of this definitional diversity, and some would
say confusion, seems to have to do with the fact that accountability today has to
serve numerous different purposes or normative expectations. Several academics
identify three normative perspectives on accountability – democratic, constitu-
tional and learning (Aucoin and Heintzman, 2000; Bovens et al., 2008). While
the first implies holding policymakers accountable to the people that have elected
them, the constitutional perspective is concerned with preventing and uncovering
abuse, and the learning perspective is centred on ensuring the effectiveness and
quality of public services. As Bovens et al. (2008) have noted, these three perspec-
tives of accountability have conflicting objectives.
Historically, accountability has had the dual role of accommodating legal con-
trol and political scrutiny. Many states (both monarchical and democratic) have
for a long time had some kind of legal control over the use of public spending
(Lipson, 1964). Political accountability in liberal democracies (through parliamen-
tary debates, inquiries and popular elections) ensures that governments are held
accountable to their citizens.
In addition to legal control and democratic scrutiny, there is an administrative
aspect of accountability. New Public Management (NPM) has had a major impact
here, ensuring that politicians and civil servants must provide accounts to convince
taxpayers that their money is used effectively and that the specific goals set by
politicians are met (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). This kind of accountability has
led to an explosion of performance measures allegedly gauging the outcome or at
least the output (as compared to input) of public services (Power, 1997). Much has
been said about the unintended and undesirable effects produced by these perform-
ance measurement regimes. One suggestion to rectify these problems is to replace
such an output-focused form of administrative accountability with a process-
focused form that is directed at increasing learning.
The emergence of this different type of administrative accountability has been
supported by those who argue that it should be less attuned to control and
Lewis and Triantafillou
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punishment of bad behaviour and more towards learning and rewarding good
behaviour. Another reason for this support is the problematization of representative
forms of governing. Today, we are told, we are experiencing a democratic deficit that
may be remedied by more inclusive and participatory forms of governing (Fung,
2004; Sørensen and Torfing, 2009). This, in turn, calls for more process-oriented
forms of accountability. In addition, the public sector is simply confronted with a
generalized, developmental rationality whereby both individual public servants and
their organizations are supposed to constantly improve the quality of their services
(e.g. through continuous quality improvement or CQI). Others have argued that
performance management is often implemented without the wider organizational
change that would facilitate the use of performance data, thereby limiting its benefits
(Moynihan, 2008). In brief, public organizations are increasingly supposed to
account for the ways in which they ensure a continuous improvement in the quality
of public services. A key aspect of this is that those who are measured must have far
more involvement in these processes. The emphasis moves from outputs (a product
approach) to dialogue and collaboration (a process approach) (see Mulgan, 1997).
Much recent literature on accountability seeks to evaluate just how well norms
and mechanisms of accountability are being fulfilled in contemporary liberal
democracies. In crude terms, we find two quite contradictory conclusions – often
reached by the same author. On the one hand, we find the argument that we face an
accountability deficit. In societies characterized by new forms of governing – net-
work governance in particular, with its dispersed and horizontal accountabilities
across multiple levels (Rhodes, 1997), or monitory democracy (Keane, 2009) in
which representative forms of democracy are losing credibility in favour of more
participatory and network-based forms of democracy – we see increasing problems
with providing accountability. These arguments about deficit stem from those
worried over the legislative and democratic aspects of accountability. For example,
Matthew Flinders (2001) has argued that the Westminster model of ministerial
responsibility is under stress and suffers from too little accountability:
Parliamentary accountability is in decline in the sense that the executive is gaining
influence at the expense of parliament. Also judicial accountability is suffering
because judges and legal mechanisms are having increasing difficulties in holding
politicians to account because of the dispersed nature of responsibilities in an era of
governance rather than government (Day and Klein, 1987).
On the other hand, we just as often find the assertion that current forms of
accountability lead to a government overload. NPM’s increased emphasis on value
for money and results-based management generated a virtual explosion of perform-
ance measurement (Carter et al., 1992). In the British case, increased attention to
administrative accountability in the form of performance measurement regimes
often prove counter-productive, creating all kinds of unintended policy conse-
quences and hindering cross-sectoral cooperation and innovation (Flinders, 2001).
In this article our purpose is to examine how accountability as learning, despite
its laudable intentions, might increase government overload. Thus, in contrast to
the overtly positive perception of accountability as learning – either as a way to
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International Review of Administrative Sciences 78(4)
minimize the democratic deficit or as a way of ensuring continuous improvement
(Bovens et al., 2008; Reeves, 2004; Schillemans, 2008, Scott, 2003) – we identify and
analyse the potential negative consequences. In order to do so, we leave questions
of political and judicial accountability to one side and limit ourselves to adminis-
trative accountability.
We do not set out to try and prove that overload is apparent wherever learning
systems have been implemented. Indeed, there are as yet relatively few instances of
such accountability systems, and fewer still that have been in place long enough for
a concrete...
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