Professor Åge Johnsen: Performance Information and Public Policy

Professor Åge Johnsen delivered a lecture on 5 November 2008, on the topic of 'Performance Information and Public Policy'.

Event details

Lecture title: Performance Information and Public Policy: Why do Bad Results get all Attention?

Date: 5 November 2008, 6.30pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Business School and Economics, Bristo Square, Edinburgh

Lecture abstract

We do not know a great deal about the way performance information is used in public policy in modern democracies. Nonetheless, there lies a great potential for decision makers to use performance information to assess and enhance efficiency and effectiveness, provide transparency and accountability as well as to provide feedback to stakeholders in the political system about the need for policy innovation.

The tools that generate performance information include the use of performance indicators (PIs), performance audits and evaluations. Accounting and management scholars are often inclined to see performance measurement as a strategic instrument for top-management only. In that view, the main function of performance management is to use the PIs tightly coupled to objectives in order to control an otherwise stubborn or inefficient bureaucracy. Performance information, for instance in the form of balanced scorecards or target regimes, is in that case used for implementing formal strategies including objectives based on best practices. Simultaneously, dysfunctional effects are legion, it is often assumed. This mechanistic, top-down view on performance management may, however, be too normative and simplistic.

This lecture is a discussion of the use of performance information in public policy and utilises the case of the educational policy for primary schools in Norway under the former centre-right coalition government (Bondevik II) 2001-05 as an illustration. The policy of measuring educational outcomes, participating in international measurements such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), ranking schools and the publication of the results, were (and to some degree still are) contested issues in the government’s educational policy. A central notion in the lecture is that just like policies, well-functioning performance management may not be apparent success stories but rather - and on the contrary - paradoxical and seemingly problematical. A key question is therefore whether and how the performance information is used. The case of performance information in the Norwegian educational policy elucidates some aspects of this issue.

It is often stated, and probably rightly so, that many politicians (and maybe top civil servants too) use performance information little. Hence, much performance management for public policy could seemingly be futile. Performance information could rather be seen as ritualistic decoupling, rhetoric and window dressing. The Norwegian case, however, does not support this view. The performance information is used, but mainly when the performance information concerns bad results, and the performance information is often used by other actors than formal policy makers.

The lecture will highlight two issues. First, often relevant information is available but commonly central actors do not want to use the information. This implies that politics and interests are important for understanding performance management in public policy. Second, when performance information is used it is information on bad performance which gets most of the attention and this in spite of the ‘learning from best practice’ rhetoric in much of the performance management and benchmarking literature. This lecture discusses why bad results get most of the attention and how this may positively affect public policy and performance management.