What is it about?
There are many attempts around the world to increase and improve the use of information in government decision making. Most of the evaluations of these initiatives have either concluded that such initiatives are difficult to make effective (although some are too recent to judge). In general, these initiatives have been either been aimed at government managers or have developed in such a way as to be of most use to government managers. Unfortunately, while research into the use of performance information by ministers, parliamentarians and citizens has been very patchy, much of what we do know suggests that evaluations and performance reports and audits are seldom highly valued by politicians or citizens – so it is currently hard to substantiate the claim that performance information contributes to the quality of democratic debate and to the ability of citizens to make choices.
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Why is it important?
This report reviews the literature and research on how information is used in decision making. In addition, it reports on some British and international initiatives to improve the evidence base of public sector decision making. While most of the literature is of a generic nature, it does show a number of exciting opportunities to study the use of information in a local government context. For example, we need to research how managers could be encouraged to use information differently – including methods for embedding information use in organisational routines (‘dynamic capabilities’); learning to live with psychological traits (taking advantage of ‘selective perception’ and ‘group think’); and making ‘theories of change’ an important element in funding applications and ex post evaluations.
Perspectives
To what extent do organisations model their use of information on other organisations? Is this ‘competitive isomorphism’ (potentially increasing the success of the organisation) or ‘institutional isomorphism’ (potentially increasing the risk of failure of the organisation)? That's what this research set out to explore. And what did we find? Well, not a surprise - the latter is more often the case. So, what's to be done about this? Again, not a surprise - let's make use of all the other sense-making facilities that are available to our councillors, our managers, our partners, our service users and our communities - performance indicators, as traditionally interpreted, have just been far too narrow and limited to help decent human beings to make responsible decisions. But it doesn't have to be like this. Sense-making through our emotions, our feelings, our passions and our relationships - we can all do this. Indeed we all DO do this! Let's make it central to our decision making process, not just a shameful guilt-ridden shadow behind the smokescreen of our 'official' decision making process.
Professor Tony Bovaird
University of Birmingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Making Better Use of Information to Drive Improvement in Local Public Services: A Report for the Audit Commission, SSRN Electronic Journal, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.1347349.
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