Performance Measurement in the Public Sector: Evaluating Performance Measurement and Reporting in Health

Considerable research attention has focused on the influence and impact of New Public Management (NPM) for management accounting practice. Performance measurement and reporting as a key aspect of management accounting and a central theme within NPM (Hood, 1991, 1995) is the major focus of this chapter. The extent to which ‘explicit formal measurable standards and measures of performance and success’ (Hood, 1995, p. 96), as well as broader public sector performance measurement approaches have delivered sought-after effectiveness, efficiency and accountability gains has been the subject of a number of theoretical discussions and empirical examinations of the quality of measures and performance frameworks in practice (Ittner and Larcker, 1998; Lapsley, 2008; Lee, 2008). Generally, research to date emphasises that the objective of enhanced accountability through improved measures of efficiency and effectiveness has not been delivered in practice (Broadbent and Guthrie, 1998, 2008; Modell, 2004). Considerable opportunities for improvement exist, but these must be based on evaluations of current practice in public sector performance measurement.

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