'ALL targets set by Central Government...'
ALL targets set by Central Government were be submitted to a YouGov poll and which do not get a marjoprity vote in support (i.e. after deducting don't know and don't care) were automatically dropped unless confirmed by an unwhipped vote in the House of Commons inside three months.
Similar process for performance targets set by local government,,
written 16th April 2009 | | abusive?
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Responses
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William notes: This is interesting. I guess it's a suggestion about bringing democracy into metrics for public services. An alternative would be not necessarily to make them democratic, but to ensure they were customer-side measures rather than supply-side measures. That wd involve an iterative process of design based on mapping customer journeys. Yes, that would be a lot better! Why YouGov rather than any other commercial operation?
written 16th April 2009 | abusive? -
Richard notes: Surely it is a good idea for performance to be measured in the public sector? While this may not always be measured in widgets produced, or sales made, it must be a good idea to be able to distinguish good practice from bad to increase how helpful public services are to the public.
written 18th April 2009 | abusive? -
Anna J-P notes: Performance measurement (a good thing) is not the same as performance-against-target. Targets are often set arbitrarily and created in the absence of understanding of the experience of a process by the user. An organisation can easily meet all of its targets (all of which, individually, seem like a good idea), but provide a miserable customer experience, as the workers are focussed on target achievement rather than customer service.
I know I am preaching to the converted here, but the performance regime should be designed to measure service as required by the end user. E.g. measure total time to fully resolve police incidents and advise callers of outcome, rather than one target to be on the phone for an average of X minutes (takes insufficient details - requires calling back by someone else), one target to arrive within Y days (why "Y" days? Is that what the customer wants and needs?), one target to complete paperwork within Z weeks, etc, etc, and no target or measure that reflects the overall customer experience! (And then they wonder why customer satisfaction is poor...)
written 3rd September 2009 | abusive?