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This is one of the findings of a new report researched and authored by world leading expert on strategic performance management Bernard Marr from the Advanced Performance Institute and co-sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and Actuate.

Temptation to juggle figures

Crucially, the report finds that organisations that apply the principles of strategic performance management well outperform those that don’t and it clearly highlights that public sector organisations have an obsession with measuring performance, but fail to manage it.

The findings, from over 1,000 respondents from the UK, US, Canada and Australia, confirm that merely having a set of performance objectives and performance measures in place does not lead to better performance.

In fact, it often leads to a decrease in performance with perverse and dysfunctional behaviours such as sub-optimisation, target fixation, and the temptation to juggle figures.

These findings are important in a world where the use of performance measurement and performance management has mushroomed among government and public sector organisations.

The results of this study should inspire and create a renewed sense of urgency in this critical market sector to tackle performance management methodically and comprehensively

Principles for effective performance management 

The study, entitled Strategic Performance Management in Government and Public Sector Organisations attracted respondents from across the globe representing central and local government bodies, as well as national health organisations, police forces, fire and rescue service organisations, courts and education institutions.

The study was conducted at the end of 2007 and early 2008 and opens by providing a unique insight into how public service organisations interpret and direct performance management.

It expands to highlight 10 principles for effective performance management, which pressured public service organisations would do well to abide by if they want to bring everyday operations back in line with top-level strategy.

The study’s author, Bernard Marr, points out that performance management has never been more critical in the public sector than it is today as governments across the world take this extremely seriously and many have introduced legislations and frameworks for this specific purpose in the organisations that report to them.

Yet he stresses that it is the way that performance management is handled and directed that makes the biggest difference between top-performing and failing public sector organisations.

Implementations too mechanic

Marr believes that those who indulge in the practice merely to keep external moderators off their backs are missing out on a great opportunity to intelligently and accurately assess and refine their operations, creating employee support along the way.

“We hope that this research, and specifically the 10 principles or best practices we have defined and tested, will be used as a blueprint to improve the performance management practices in government and public sector organisations around the world, as they strive to address some of the most pressing challenges they have ever known,” he says.

The report found that while government and public sector organisations have made huge progress with performance management, the implementations are often too mechanistic and numbers focused which prevents improvements in performance.

It also reveals skills gaps in performance management analytics, with organisations drowning in data but thirsting for information.

There appears to be a lack of a clearly mapped strategy, which is like expecting to row a boat forward but without ever telling the people who row the boat which direction to aim for.

Sixty-eight per cent of organisations have juggled performance data to improve presentation.

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