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CHASING SHADOWS? PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF POLICY ADVICE IN NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
Author(s) -
GREGORY ROBERT,
LONTI ZSUZSANNA
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.00737.x
Subject(s) - advice (programming) , government (linguistics) , politics , function (biology) , quality (philosophy) , performance measurement , public administration , performance management , public policy , administration (probate law) , public relations , business , gauge (firearms) , conceptual framework , political science , sociology , marketing , computer science , law , programming language , history , social science , archaeology , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , philosophy , linguistics
Performance measurement is an integral part of the New Zealand model of public management, as it is for many other modern systems of governmental administration. This article examines data on performance indicators for the policy advice function in five government departments, for the years 1992 to 2005, to determine which types of indicators are used, and to gauge the extent to which they offer meaningful information about the quality of policy advice. As part of its managerialist drive in the early 1990s, the government developed conceptual material designed to improve policy advice and management in departments. In general, our findings indicate that these initiatives did not lead over time to the further development of genuinely meaningful measures of the quality of policy advice, and that the indicators that have been used meet narrow managerial rather than broader political needs.