By Vivienne Russell
The public sector is bottom of the performance management league table, according to research published this week.
The public sector is bottom of the performance management league table, according to research published this week.The study, sponsored by software company Oracle, assessed how well public and private sector organisations across Europe and North America bring together their data and management processes to form a consolidated view of their business.
The public sector was revealed to be worst, and still operated in ‘information silos’.
Ian White, head of public sector at Oracle UK, said it was not surprising that the public sector performed so poorly given the complexity of its objectives.
‘The public sector is very good at thinking about performance management but not very good at implementing it,’ White told Public Finance. ‘There is no apparent penalty for failure. People do not get fired for not meeting their targets. There’s no incentive to put an emphasis on performance management.’
White said performance management was becoming more important in the current climate where there was an emphasis on ‘having to do more for less’. ‘The arguments for introducing performance management are stronger now,’ he said.
Tom Gash, fellow of the Institute for Government think-tank, agreed. ‘Government performance management has certainly improved in recent years. But more needs to be done,’ he said.
‘Government needs to be more transparent, to reduce the time spent on target negotiations, and to ensure that those on the front line have sufficient freedom to innovate.’
