When everyone here attack the Public Service due to its size and inefficiency, I would like to point you to an interesting article by Pietro Micheli, Steve Mason, Mike Kennerley from the Cranfield School of Management

The 2005 general election campaign in the UK has emphasised the importance placed on public services. There has been considerable debate over the delivery of public services and the performance of the public sector organisations that deliver them. However much of this debate has been based on performance information reported in performance league tables and performance targets against which public sector organisations are assessed. These targets and league tables, which are regularly debated by politicians and the media, are often criticised. Analysis of three recent reports regarding the measurement and reporting of the performance of public service delivery (The Gershon Review [1]; The Office of National Statistics Report “Public Service Productivity: Health”[2] and The Atkinson Review [3]) suggest that published performance information causes problems when debating the performance of public service delivery. Specifically they highlight the following major problems:

• The focus of performance measures and targets is primarily on efficiency rather than outputs and quality of public services;


• The methodologies of calculating performance measures are often flawed and this limitation is mostly ignored when performance is reported;


• Most performance information is delivered to the public through the filter of the media – very few members of the public review the performance information directly.

These points raise concerns about the way in which public sector performance is measured and communicated which should be taken into consideration when debating the performance of service delivery. (read the rest here)

In the future at Århus Kommune—the Municipality of the city of Århus, Denmark—managers at all levels of elderly care centers will be able to create an overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) and fulfill management objectives with less manual work involved. Using this approach, it is possible to adapt and target efforts continually because all members of the staff have adopted a much better management method using a balanced scorecard.

“Without doubt, the focus among local authorities nowadays is being placed upon target management and the ability to follow up the targets. In the health and care sector in the Municipality of Århus, the Town Council has established a range of objectives that we must strive toward,” states Carsten Nykjær, the departmental manager of the city government’s third department of the Municipality of Århus.

If it works for the private sector in such huge companies like the spanish ENDESA and many others, why shouldn’t it work on the public sector as well?

I’ll be waiting for your kind comments (in english or portuguese)...