Concepts of Performance – Public Capital. As a criterion of performance, Public Capital represents the trust and confidence in a public entity held by.

Concepts of Performance – Public Capital

As a criterion of performance, Public Capital represents the trust and confidence in a public entity held by Ministers, major stakeholders and the general public.

As Moore (1995) has suggested, that trust and confidence is “rooted in the desires and perceptions of individuals” which are concerned with not just the efficiency and effectiveness of public resource use but also the extent to which that use is perceived to occur with justice and fairness.

Concepts of Performance

While public capital is, in part, based on the rational analysis of evidence of agency performance provided in external accountability documents, it is also based on more subjectively framed information.

A significant element of the New Zealand State Service Commissioner’s annual review of the performance of departmental Chief Executives is also, in effect, based on an assessment of the trust and confidence that other agencies and external stakeholders have in their departments.

Concepts of Performance

Getting Things Done through Other Organisations

Metcalf (1993) argues that, unlike in the private sector, management in the public sector is not just about getting things done through other people but rather getting things done through other organisations.

This takes on a particular significance in the current economic environment and attempts to promote increased citizen involvement in and responsibility for the delivery of services.

To create “the big society”.

What is the Role of Public Servants

In the traditional administration or ‘engineering model’ – public officials are seen as technicians who implement public policies defined by their political masters.

What is the Role of Public Servants

The ‘entrepreneur model’ – public officials define rather than accept goals; and public administration is about “self promotion, power politics, risk taking and broken field running” (Driver 1982, p. 403).

Officials are governed by a more complex set of relationships with the various elements of their “authorising and co-producing environment” (Moore, 1995).

‘Engineers’ or ‘Entrepreneurs’?

In practice the activities of public sector organisations are governed by a complex set of relationships between officials and the various elements of their ‘authorising and co-producing environment’.

Those relationships include not only those between officials and their immediate manager, or chief executives and their ministers, but also relationships between officials and officials in other government agencies, between officials and advisors to ministers, with central (oversight) agencies, interest groups, professional associations, community groups and the media.

Determining the Public Interest

While “elected politicians have a legitimate role in determining the public interest, under the conventional norms of representative democracy … non-elected officials do not”.

(Rhodes and Wanna, 2009, p. 408)

Determining the Public Interest

On the other hand, in what he refers to as the everyday paradox Prebble (2010) states that “it is inevitable and commonplace that officials are swept up into parliamentary [i.e. political] contest” (p. 48).

Similarly recognising the inevitability of entrepreneurial practice, Driver (1982) proposes, “there is only one way to resolve the public manager’s dilemma and that is to elevate the ethical status of the entrepreneurial strategy. We must make the unavoidable more acceptable” (p. 405).

Public Value

Moore (1995) suggests public value encompasses:

• an increase in the quantity or quality of public goods and services;

• a reduction in the costs (in terms of either money or public authority) used to produce those goods or services;

• an improvement in the ability of a public agency to identify and respond to citizens’ aspirations;

• an improvement in the fairness with which a public agency operates; and

• an increase in an agency’s capacity to respond and innovate in the future.

Public Value

Public value is also embodied within the value creation process itself. Thus Benington (2009) argues that beyond the market sphere public value includes:•value added to “the public realm by stimulating and supporting democratic dialogue and active public participation and citizen engagement”; and•“by contributing to social capital, social cohesion, social relationships, social meaning and cultural identity, and individual and community well-being” (p. 237)

Sensegiving – by Public Officials

The value that various stakeholders assign to public policies and actions will be a function of how they understand or make sense of those policies and actions.

Sensegiving represents: “The process of attempting to influence the sensemaking and meaning construction of others towards a preferred re-definition of organisational reality.” (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991, p. 442)

Sensegiving – by External Stakeholders

Pollitt (2006) has suggested that the extent of sensegiving by external stakeholders, and the resultant degree to which managers have discretion and operational autonomy, will be affected by three factors:

•the political salience of an agency’s primary task;

•the perceived complexity of the agency’s primary task; and

•the relative size of the agency’s budget.

Sensegiving

Sensemaking Type Resulting Account and Action

GUIDED SENSEMAKING

Significant leader sensegiving

Significant stakeholder sensegiving

A unitary account that is rich.

An emergent but consistent series of actions

FRAGMENTED SENSEMAKING

Limited leader sensegiving

Significant stakeholder sensegiving

Multiple accounts that are narrow

An emergent and inconsistent series of actions

RESTRICTED SENSEMAKING

Significant leader sensegiving

Limited stakeholder sensegiving

A unitary account that is narrow

One time actions or a planned series of consistent actions

MINIMAL SENSEMAKING

Limited leader sensegiving

Limited stakeholder sensegiving

Nominal accounts

‘One off’ compromise actions

Based on Maitlis (2005)

Public Capital

While Moore (1995) and Talbot (2008), among others, have explained the positive impacts of trust and legitimacy, Yang and Holzer (2006) have observed:

“… distrust can be used as a political discourse to attack government programmes, reduce government funding, and ultimately impair government performance. To restore public trust, public administrators must improve their performance and communicate it to citizens.”

Public Capital

How managers interact with the media, the public, other organisations, and Government Ministers will either enhance or erode understanding and hence the trust and confidence in their agency.

Moore (1995) has suggested that the management of public capital (and more broadly ‘public value’) requires non-elected public servants to assume an active role in the external authorising environment to promote and maintain the trust in, and legitimacy of, their agency.

Public Capital

As Coates and Passmore (2008) explain:

“Public value assumes that public managers will try to both shape public opinion and have their views shaped in turn. This is much more of a continuous conversation than an exercise in market research and should be viewed as a serious effort to restore trust in the public realm.”

Research Findings

Interviewees from case study agencies described four purposes of their interaction with other (government and non-government) agencies, community groups and the media:

•responding to external pressures;

•gaining feedback;

•creating trust and legitimacy; and

•defining and co-producing public goods and services.

Measurement

I guess it’s also easy to define success through the number of times that we meet with other agencies or the fora that we attend; and unquestionably we are talking more than we ever have and working together as parts of the whole.

But it still doesn’t tell us whether we’re actually better off through doing that or whether we are just having a collection of meetings that actually don’t get us anywhere. (WI national 6)

Measurement

There’s a bunch of stuff in there about collaboration I think. I’m not sure if it’s in the Output Plan, it’s certainly in my performance agreement. (WI national 7)

We are required to identify projects that we are currently working on collectively, jointly, and organise regional manager meetings to move those programmes and initiatives forward. (WI regional 3)

Measurement

… you can get some pretty negative feedback about people trying to take over things and that kind of stuff. … If people do a really good job you get really good feedback and you see great things happening. (WI national 7)

Measurement

We don’t sample the community in any empirical way. We go and get feedback from … our stakeholders, I’m not talking about the community, [but] judges and Police and other organisations. So … we try and gauge that in not a scientific way but, I guess, it’s feedback. (CPS regional 1)

Measurement

We have regular discussions with both the Judiciary and the chair of the Parole Board, which is more of a qualitative assessment of whether or not we are giving them what they want, what they need. We also run a complaints measure as well; so we capture the complaints that judges make and in the statement of intent we have a measure for how many complaints we’re going to have a year. (CPS national 1)

Measurement

We just don’t formalise it in many ways. When it comes to the public awareness side, engagement side, we do quite a lot of polling. We do national polling - focus groups. We use companies for that.

It started off as reputation after Cave Creek. It’s morphed into impact - what difference are we actually making with people’s awareness of conservation issues. Are people satisfied with the programmes we’re delivering in the field - so what’s their satisfaction. We’re doing a lot of visitor satisfaction. (DOC 3)

Measurement

Core performance as measured through a set of performance measures and output plans - we think is important for running the business, and it is, but there’s a bigger measure that is not captured, which is the public’s feel. And if the public don’t have confidence in us, and they didn’t because we were too much occupying negative media space … - I think the media is important. (CYF national 2)

Measurement

Cups of coffee are very important

(MWA 2)

Kiwis Count is a comprehensive survey which measures New Zealanders’ satisfaction with 42frequently used public services.

Kiwis Count

Kiwis Count

Kiwis Count – Local Government

Kiwis Count – Local Government

The Performance Improvement Framework

The Performance Improvement Framework

Engagement with Minister(s)

Sector Contribution

Collaboration and Partnerships with Stakeholders

Experiences of the Public

Conclusions

Public service officials routinely interact with their authorising and co-producing environment:

•in response to external pressures;

•to gain feedback from elements of that environment;

•to establish and maintain trust and legitimacy (public capital); and

•to define and co-produce public goods and services.

Conclusions

Public opinion does shape what public service agencies do, particularly those whose core functions are politically salient.

(Which, democratically, should be reassuring; although public officials may not always view it that way.)

Conclusions

Stakeholder feedback is sought by both formal and informal mechanisms and is, plausibly, most constructively gained by those agencies that are externally focused on building and maintaining relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.

Conclusions

Interviewees generally recognised the importance of the trust and confidence with which stakeholders viewed them.

Conclusions

Most of the case study organisations were actively engaged with other providers in working towards common objectives. However, coordination on, and the success of, larger scale initiates is dependent on (a hostage to) higher level political support.

Conclusions

While officials’ interaction with elements of their authorising and co-producing environment is regarded as an important element of managing in a public sector context, it is not commonly recognised in official performance measurement and management models (perhaps, in part, because of the measurement difficulties).

Public Capital

For your organisation:•Who are the members of your authorising and co-producing environment?•How does your organisation interact with them?