Adopting performance measurement practices in the fight against poverty can to lead to more poverty reduction but performance research cautions against too much optimism.
With its announcement to develop a national poverty reduction strategy the Trudeau government follows in the footsteps of most provinces and territories and many municipalities. Minister Duclos’ mandate letter expresses the belief that to achieve the desired result, the strategy “would set targets to reduce poverty and measure and publicly report on progress”. The recital of this popular management mantra prompted me to check out what academics say on why and how performance measurement could lead to more poverty reduction.
Your average one minute YouTube video offering a 101 on the subject highlights that performance success requires three essentials: goals, measurement and management. In other words, there is something concrete you want to achieve, you have information that tells you how you are advancing and, you use that information to plan, execute and evaluate the things you do to reach your goal. This applies to you, your employer, your government or any other congregation of persons you are involved with.
There is evidence that performance management practices can improve public outcomes. In education for instance, research shows that New York State “schools that do a better job at performance management indeed have better outcomes in standardized test scores” [i] and that the presence of a target leads to larger improvements in exam results in English school districts. [ii]
Yet, performance measurement and management practices are challenging to implement well in the context of complex multi-actor goals such as poverty reduction. Here’s why:
1. The benefits of performance measurement and management are difficult to measure and emerge well after the costs [iii]
Performance practices such as goals, measurement and reporting can lead to more efficient and effective actions to reduce poverty. However, while the ultimate goal is poverty reduction, the levers of control for achieving this are in the hands of many public and private agencies.
The benefits of performance management are difficult to measure and attribute. In an earlier blog post I already indicated that just monitoring the poverty rate is not enough as policy efforts are only one of several factors moving that rate. However, performance practices require much more differentiated information than what you can (and want to) find in a government’s annual poverty reduction progress update.
For instance, poverty gets reduced when a foodbank and the municipalities’ social service providers start collaborating so that food bank clients become better and more quickly aware of services that contribute to relieving current hardship and avoiding it in the future. Such collaboration between a non-profit and public agency can evolve from performance management practices but require that someone:
- Knows how key persons and agencies could contribute to reaching the goal;
- Has reliable, timely and regular information on that contribution;
- Has the means and processes in place to motivate these persons and agencies to put in continuous effort.
In contrast to the benefits, the costs of performance management are up front and continuous. Some costs such as dedicated ministerial staff responsible for managing the poverty reduction process, data systems and promised budget allocations are relatively easy to trace. Other influential expenses, such as the time and resources spent by everyone else involved, are more difficult to observe. Nonetheless, if the bang for their buck takes too long to materialize the motivation to perform may dwindle.
2. Less is known about the costs and benefits of performance measurement and management for complex multi-actor goals like poverty reduction
Robust evidence on the benefits of performance practices in the public sector tends to come from agencies that have a relatively high degree of control over the desired outcome. Think of the public school system and student achievements, city police departments and crime, public health care providers and wait lists.
Less is known about the costs and benefits of performance management when the practices are applied to a goal requiring the efforts of many agencies, including multiple levels of government and private agencies.
The foodbank and social services provider example illustrates well the distant, fragile and complex link between a national policy goal to reduce poverty and one action contributing to its achievement. A lot of things have to go right for that linkage to happen and, gathering robust evidence of everyone’s contributions is near impossible.
Minister Duclos’ mandate letter reiterates the importance of goals and measurement but stays silent on the management part. The federal government is only one of many players to get that causal chain of events between goals, measurement and management moving. It is powerful because it can leverage its tax revenues to the cause of poverty reduction. However, when it comes to how the money is spent and whether it is spent well, the federal government manages the federal programs while provinces, territories, municipalities and non-government organizations manage the rest.
3. Accountability to the public is insufficient to stimulate performance and may even be a hindrance
“Performance is always performance for someone, and accountability for performance is always accountability to someone.” [iv]
Just like the provinces, the federal government intends to publicly report on progress. Such reporting typically involves an annual progress report which offers updated numbers on the performance indicators such as poverty rates and a description of the past and planned actions on poverty reduction (to be) taken by the government.
The publicness of the report suggests that it is the general public that is supposed to hold all agencies in poverty reduction accountable for their performance. To do this, the general public has two levels of control: public opinion and the ballot box. Public reporting puts a large responsibility in the hands of a vast and heterogeneous group with diverse and often conflicting priorities, limited resources and capacities to assess and interpret the information.
Moreover, politicians do not get rewarded for average performance but they get punished for the big mistakes. [v] Making mistakes as you are learning by doing is thus risky while delivering a symbolic accountability to the general public is attractive.
The ideal practice, according to performance management theory, involves regular person-to-person contact creating feedback loops between what is measured and how that relates to what is done (bi-weekly, monthly). In such meetings, top representatives of an agency (department, ministry, NGO) need to discuss the agency’s contribution to the collective efforts with someone else who, in turn, holds them accountable, assists and otherwise motivates. [vi] [vii]
Accountability to the public may be part of a poverty reduction strategy process but it is unlikely to stimulate substantive day-to-day efforts needed to achieve sustainable poverty reduction. It requires different accountability mechanisms for different stakeholders, which need all be given high priority but need not be public.
Working on sustainable poverty reduction is challenging. If it was not, we would have figured it out already. The alignment of poverty reduction as a strategic priority on federal, provincial, territorial and municipal agendas is promising, as is the shared belief that targets, measurement and public reporting on progress can play a role therein. Yet, the above discussed challenges caution that the promise of enhanced performance on poverty reduction also requires sustained and, ideally, coordinated action.
Geranda Notten is Professor in Comparative Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
Acknowledgements: A special thanks to Ouvedi Rama Naiken whose research project on performance management contributed to writing this blog.
[i] Sun, R., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (2012). Are performance management practices associated with better public outcomes? Empirical evidence from New York public schools. The American Review of Public Administration, 1-15, p. 1.
[ii] Boyne, G. A., & Chen, A. A. (2007). Performance targets and public service improvement. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 17(3), 455-477.
[iii] Bouckaert, G., & Peters, B. G. (2002). Performance measurement and management: The Achilles’ heel in administrative modernization. Public performance & management review, 25(4), 359-362, p. 359.
[iv] Ibid, p. 361.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Behn, R. D. (2010). Collaborating for performance: Or can there exist such a thing as CollaborationStat?. International Public Management Journal, 13(4), 429-470.
[vii] Behn, R. D. (2008). The seven big errors of PerformanceStat. Rappoport institute for greater Boston Policy brief.
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