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The Limits of Performance Assessments of Public Bodies: External Constraints in English Local Government

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  • Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero

    (Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, England)

  • Dirk Haubrich

    (Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ, England)

  • Iain McLean

    (Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, England)

Abstract

Policy makers have an interest in evaluating what government and taxpayers get for their money. In the United Kingdom, central government has developed elaborate oversight mechanisms involving a plethora of indicators, targets, and inspections to assess public sector performance across a wide range of services. The underlying assumption is that auditees are ultimately responsible for the performance on which they are measured. This rationale might neglect the fact that they face external constraints not influenced easily by their decisions. The research presented here scrutinises one such evaluation approach, the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of local government in England, for the significance of such factors. Using panel-data analysis involving the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 and data from the first three CPA rounds in 2002–04, the research finds that deprivation in education, crime, and living environment had a significant negative effect on local authorities' overall CPA scores, while discretionary expenditure had a positive but not significant effect. However, the effects differ widely across the five types of authorities that exist. The model also reveals that there is no statistically significant evidence to suggest that authorities controlled by a single party perform better than those without, and that, although Conservative councils have higher CPA scores in simple bivariate analysis than those controlled by other parties or with no overall control, these differences disappear in multivariate analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero & Dirk Haubrich & Iain McLean, 2008. "The Limits of Performance Assessments of Public Bodies: External Constraints in English Local Government," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 26(4), pages 767-787, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:26:y:2008:i:4:p:767-787
    DOI: 10.1068/c0661
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Iain McLean & Dirk Haubrich & Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, 2007. "The Perils and Pitfalls of Performance Measurement: The CPA Regime for Local Authorities in England," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 111-118, April.
    2. Iversen, Torben & Soskice, David, 2006. "Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 165-181, May.
    3. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661926, December.
    4. McMaster, Robert, 1995. "Competitive Tendering in UK Health and Local Authorities: What Happens to the Quality of Services?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 42(4), pages 409-427, November.
    5. Stefan Szymanski, 1996. "The impact of compulsory competitive tendering on refuse collection services," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, August.
    6. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Richard Austin & Guy Garrod & Nicola Thompson, 2016. "Assessing the performance of the national park authorities: a case study of Northumberland National Park, England," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5), pages 325-332, July.

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