The UK Parliament and performance
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852307075693 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The UK Parliament and performance: challenging or
challenged?
Carole Johnson and Colin Talbot
Abstract
Many governments across OECD countries now produce substantial amounts of
performance information. This movement has increasingly become known vari-
ously as output- or outcome-based budgeting or governance. This article focuses
on the important question of how legislatures are responding to this develop-
ment. Using the case of the UK’s public performance measurement systems —
especially since 1997 and the introduction of Public Service Agreements — it
examines the UK Parliament’s response to this change. It poses the question: to
what extent has Parliament used this new resource to challenge the executive arm
of government or has been challenged itself to adapt its own role and activities to
this new regime? From a detailed analysis of the conduct of parliamentary Select
Committees and a survey of Select Committee members we find that Parliament
itself has been more challenged by performance reporting than challenging of the
executive, despite attempts by Parliament itself to institutionalize performance
scrutiny. The article concludes with a discussion of how far legislative scrutiny, and
even perhaps co-steering, of performance is feasible or desirable.
Points for practitioners
Performance measurement and reporting has become a key tool for governments
in many countries. It is usually assumed that this reporting enhances both
management and the accountability of public services. This article explores how
far the legislature has responded to this policy in Britain and made use of
performance reporting by the executive in the form of Public Service Agreements,
which have been published since 1998. The article concludes, based on research
on documents, reports and a survey of Members of Parliament, that the UK
Carole Johnson and Colin Talbot are both at Manchester Business School, University of
Manchester, UK.
Copyright © 2007 IIAS, SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
Vol 73(1):113–131 [DOI:10.1177/0020852307075693]
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Parliament has so far responded weakly to the availability of this high-level per-
formance reporting. For governments this may imply that greater effort is needed
above simply publishing performance information to encourage active account-
ability. For parliaments it implies that a much greater effort is needed to carry out
effective scrutiny of performance and raises capacity issues.
Keywords: accountability, Parliament, performance reporting, public service
agreements, scrutiny, UK
The publication of PSAs [public service agreements] represents a fundamental
change in the accountability of government to Parliament and the people. (UK Chief
Secretary to the Treasury, 1998: 2)
Parliament performs a unique role in any parliamentary democracy. It provides the
principal means by which the Government is held to account for its activities . . . MPs
and peers now have a much greater and more diverse range of information available
on which to question Government. (Hansard Society, 2001: 1)
Introduction — Parliaments and performance
In most advanced democracies some degree of ‘separation of powers’ operates
between the executive and the legislative arms of government. In some cases this is
strongly institutionalized through constitutional arrangements (e.g. the USA) and in
others more by convention (e.g. the UK). Whatever the precise balance, one of the
core roles of the legislature is to scrutinize the activities of the executive branch. In the
past, scrutiny has focused mainly on proposed legislation, budgets and administrative
processes with the occasional scandal inquiry to liven things up.
Over the past decade or more there has been a surge of performance information
of various types published by the executive branch about its activities and those of
the wider public services across a number of OECD countries (OECD, 2005; Talbot,
2005). These new systems have ranged from legislatively mandated performance
reporting — as in the USA’s ‘Government Performance and Results Act’ (GPRA 1993)
or the Japanese ‘Government Policy Evaluation Act’ (GPEA 2002) — through to more
executively mandated systems — as in the Australian phased policy evaluations from
1988 onwards, or the UK’s Public Service Agreements from 1998 onwards. The types
of information have varied from evaluative programme or policy-based (e.g. Japan
and Australia) to more organizationally based (e.g. UK, USA and more recently
Australia).
According to OECD/World Bank data, 78 percent of OECD states make perform-
ance data available to the public (and hence legislatures); in 20 percent of cases the
legislature ‘continuously monitors’ performance; and also in 20 percent of cases the
legislature uses this data for decision-making (OECD/World Bank, 2006). This move-
ment has become so marked that some analysts (and advocates) have come to refer
to it as ‘outcome-based budgeting’ or even ‘outcome-based governance’ (Molen et
al., 2001). However, a recent review suggests that uses of performance information
by ministers, citizens and, crucially for our purposes, parliamentarians is at best
‘patchy’ (Pollitt, 2006).
114 International Review of Administrative Sciences 73(1)
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