Public Performance And Management Reviews
It is rightly said that the modern man cannot possibly evade death and tax. Tax is the primary, and in most cases the only, source of income for a government. The government uses this money to run the state machinery, protect the country from external threat and to improve the social as well as physical infrastructure of the country. Given the fact that resource, primarily financial resource, is always at short supply, allocation and efficient usage of capital is the key to a rapid and sustained development in a country. The key to an effective resource allocation strategy is hinged on an accurate qualitative and quantitative analysis of public performance, and hence, accurate assessment of performance of federal as well as state government bodies is critical to the growth of the country.
Measuring and quantifying the performance levels, efficiency and return on investment has been one of the most intriguing aspects of resource allocation. Fortunately, a for-profit organization or a business organization has clear parameters that determine the efficiency level of that organization. The ubiquitous balance sheet, for example, is the best known among all these parameters. Top line, bottom line, profitability ratios, growth ratios- all these numbers and ratios give us a clear idea about the degree of efficiency, or lack of it, at which a business organization is functioning. Higher efficiency and improved productivity of a business organization is then rewarded by high share prices in the bourses, or better market shares.
However, measuring public performance is a tricky issue and needs special attention from scholars, public administrators and responsible citizens. The defining guideline of a public organization is contribution to the society and improving the living standards for the citizens of that country. By its very meaning, these activities have abstract as well as measurable deliverables. The fire safety department or the Armed forces are the classic example- reviewing and monitoring the performance levels of these organizations require much more than just number crunching. This ambiguity of the deliverables makes performance measurement of non-profit organizations all the more difficult. While measuring public performance, the reviewer should take into account both the measurable as well as the abstract milestones reached.
A public performance and management review is one of the most important cross checks that ensure the improvement in the functioning of the government and effectiveness of the policies that are being implemented. Measuring public performance helps government watchdogs identify inefficient usage of capital, identifies sources of corruption and recommend areas for improvement. This is a cross functional domain, and involves various faculties like economics, political science, statistics and social science. The public performance and management review process encourages scholarly activities aimed at addressing a broad and vivid range of factors that influence the performance statistics regarding public organizations and agencies as well as nonprofit firms and agencies. The primary objectives that the review of public performance and management aspires to achieve are to facilitate quantitative analysis of public performance, performance measurement of non-profit organizations and betterment of policy making guidelines.
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