## Citizen‘s Charter

Modernization of Public Administration Department (Odbor modernizace veřejné správy)
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### Workshop II Standards and Targets

A joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union, principally financed by the EU
Elke Löffler and Salvador Parrado
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#### Second step: Define suitable performance indicators

- The choice of indicators depends on definition of quality
  - Infringement of minimum standards?
  - Meeting objectives/purposes?
  - Meeting customer expectations?
  - Creating symptoms of customer emotional identification with ‘brand’?
- Proxies for quality: rate of innovation, level of adaptiveness, ability to learn

#### A typology of quality indicators

- Input indicators: e.g. number of employees, money spent, number of hospital beds, number of public buses …
- Output indicators: e.g. number of pupils taught, number of discharged patients …
- Outcome indicators: e.g. increased grades achieved in schools, reductions in unemployment …

#### Third step: Define standards of quality

- ‘Hoped-for standards’ (political targets)?
- ‘Minimum’ standards (‘promises’ by the organisation)?
- Assured or guaranteed standards (legal targets)?
  - Redress?
- Budget implications?

#### Remember – a target (e.g. a standard for quality) specifies …

- the quantified level of a performance indicator
- to be achieved within a given time period

#### Group Exercise 1:.Defining quality indicators and targets

- Think of the definition of quality you used in the previous session
- Choose a priority service delivered by your agency
- Define 2-3 indicators and targets for the quality of this service, keeping in mind your definition of quality
- Check in a small group whether your indicators meets the SMART test

#### The SMART test for targets

- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-related

#### Group exercise 2: Who should decide the standard of quality in your organisation?

- The top manager of your agency?
- Your marketing department?
- Your middle manager?
- The external consultants/advisors?
- The minister/mayor?
- The front-line staff in service sector organisations?
- NGOs?
- The service users?
- … Someone not mentioned here?

#### Quality measurement is a multi-stakeholder issue

| Quality is privately experienced | Quality is socially experienced
--- | --- | ---
Quality is simple to evaluate | Users know about quality | Politicians know about quality (+ 3rd sector?)
Quality is complex to evaluate | Professionals know about quality (together with users) | No one group knows about quality - politicians must decide

Source: Walsh, K (1991) Competitive Tendering for Local Authority Services - Initial Experiences. London: Department of the Environment.

#### What are we looking for in successful ‘organisational performance’?

- Clarity about purposes of performance management- control, direction, learning
- PIs related to objectives, unless …
- Targets related to each objective
- Balanced portfolios of PIs - separate PIs for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes, equity and quality
- Agreed PIs, not imposed PIs (unless …)
- PIs set and reported for priority issues first
- Comparisons made over time and between departments/agencies, with transferable lessons identified and implemented
- A clear and systematic performance management system, with responsibilities of staff clearly set out
- “Short, sharp, snappy” system!

#### Unintended consequences of PM

- Measure fixation (ignoring the real objective)
- Tunnel vision (ignoring non-measurable objectives)
- Sub-optimization (achieving your own objectives rather than those of the organisation)
- Myopia (pursuing short-term or narrow objectives)
- Misrepresentation (deliberate ‘glossification’)
- Misinterpretation (‘lions controlled by donkeys’)
- Gaming (keeping down the rate of improvement to make future performance look better)
- Ossification (ignoring new needs and opportunities)

Adapted from Peter Smith (1995)

#### Some ‘Silver Rules’ of Performance Measurement

- Be clear about purposes
- Relate PIs to objectives, unless …
- Use targets – but only AFTER setting the underlying objectives
- PI portfolios must be balanced
- Set separate PIs for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes, equity and quality
- Self-assessment is normally better (but requires audit)
- Agree, don’t impose (unless …)
- Assess priorities first – ‘proportionality’
- Make comparisons over time and between departments/agencies
- Organise for performance management
- “Short, sharp, snappy”

#### Summary

The measurement of service quality cannot be left to managers - different stakeholders must be involved (depending on the situation)

- Of course, you cannot measure every dimension of quality and you should not try to do so
- But if you do not try to measure some important dimensions of quality, you will probably not achieve them