ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

The Sisyphus Files – Repeated Issues in Performance Audits

Barrett and Greene

Episode 1: Data Quality. 

State and local auditors find themselves repeating many of the same findings over and over again, as they tackle different agencies and different issues. This article focuses on one significant issue that seems to crop up over and over again: shortcomings in data quality.

Evidence Commission After 5 Years: A Progress Report

Data Foundation

In reviewing progress on implementation of the Evidence Commission’s recommendations over the past five years, there are five clear effects to date on the evidence and data communities. The report urges action in four additional areas.

Data Sharing: A Playbook for State and Local Agencies

Benefits Data Trust

This Playbook is designed to help agencies and sectors use data sharing to illuminate who is not accessing benefits, better connect under-enrolled populations to vital assistance, and make the system more efficient for administering agencies and participants alike. 

Should the Federal Government Have More Oversight of State and Local Budgets?

RouteFifty

A new Volcker Alliance report points out that the federal government directs more than $1 Trillion a year in grants and tax incentives to states and localities. The report argues the federal government should tighten their financing standards, including oversight of the $4 Trillion municipal bond market.

Resource of the Week:  Teaching Resources on Randomized Evaluations

J-PAL North America

This free, on-line course is comprised of seven modules that cover the expanse of Evaluation. It is presented via YouTube lectures and accompanying PowerPoint slides. J-PAL has offered this program in the past via a five-day in-person program. (last updated in 2020)

What’s Next for Evidence-Based Policy Making? 

Barrett and Greene (Elizabeth Linos)

As researchers and practitioners continue to collaborate to produce evidence on the most critical public sector challenges, it’s time to ask: What happens next? How do we go from documenting “best practice” to adoption of evidence? If we want evidence-based policymaking to meet its promise, we have to move beyond one-off demonstration projects to transformational use of evidence at scale.

 Addressing Complex and Cross-Boundary Challenges in Government: The Value of Strategy Mapping

IBM Center for The Business of Government

This report describes strategy management-at-scale, an approach to enable planning that addresses the major challenges facing governments at all levels. It is a boundary-crossing process designed to create direction, alignment, and commitment across agencies and among independent organizations at the scale of the challenge or issue to be addressed. One of the most promising techniques for facilitating strategy management-at-scale is strategy mapping, which this report details.

Trust in Public Performance Information

Public Administration Review 

The authors theorize that information characteristics, such as accessibility of raw data and the reputation of the sources of information, influence citizens’ trust in public performance information. Surveys in Austria and Germany validate their hypotheses.

Info Session on Strategic Performance Management Certificate (Tues., Jan. 10 – 6:30 p.m. Eastern)

National Center for Public Performance

Learn more about earning a certificate on performance management, strategic planning, data reporting, evidence-based decision making and more, via an 8-week on-line course. To register, email: ncppsuffolk@gmail.com. 

Resource of the Week:  Most Popular Publications, 2022

U.S. Administration for Children & Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

This Twitter thread lists and links to OPRE’s ten most downloaded publications in 2022.

Evidence Brief #3: Collecting and Using Data

Urban Institute

Effective public management and high-quality evidence require good data. Data are turned into evidence through data analyses and well-designed research. Quality data turned into evidence can help government agencies, officials, and others decide where to focus their efforts, find ways to improve, increase adoption of good practices, and build public understanding of and trust in government 

Exploring the Shift from Output Measures to Outcome Measures of Service Delivery

Public Performance & Management Review

This article identifies organizational, individual, and support factors that could increase the probability that local officials in the Apulia Region of Italy when measuring performance, will move beyond the basic measures of output to the more advanced measures of outcome.

Broadband: USDA Should Set Performance Goals and Improve Fraud Risk Management

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Since 2019, the Department of Agriculture’s “ReConnect” program has awarded millions of dollars in grants and loans to broadband providers for expanding service in rural area. But USDA hasn’t set specific goals for what it wants this program to achieve or for how it will measure how well the program is working.

Resource of the Week:  Using AI to Navigate Data in Outcome-Based Contracts

UK Government Outcomes Lab

This tool allows you to navigate and explore data extracted from nearly 2000 academic and grey literature publications related to outcomes-based contracting.

Strengthening Service Delivery Through Performance-Based Fiscal Transfers

World Bank

Urban Performance Grants are fiscal transfers from a higher level of government (for example, the central government or — in the case of federal countries — state and provincial governments) to cities and other local governments conditioned on achieving performance in predetermined areas.

 Tracking Federal IT Performance Goals

Government Executive

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has dinged the Office of Management and Budget’s implementation of the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 for not including specific, separate Cross-Agency Priority goals for information technology.

Performance Tracker 2022

Institute for Government

The UK’s Institute for Government’s annual Performance Tracker reviews the state of nine public services – general practice, hospitals, adult social care, children’s social care, neighbourhood services, schools, police, criminal courts and prisons – and their comparative and inter-connected problems.

Impact of Performance Management on Social Equity

Public Administration Review (paywalled)

 This study is based on a case study of New York City’s school system and credibly identifies the causal effects of performance signals on equity outcomes. The article also discusses how the incentives provided by growth measures can curb strategic behaviors. The findings provide measured optimism that the current generation of performance regimes can be designed to account for issues of equity.

Resource of the Week:  Better Evaluation.org

The BetterEvaluation knowledge platform was launched in 2012. In 2022, BetterEvaluation became the knowledge platform of the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI), a global coalition of organizations and experts working together to support country governments to strengthen monitoring, evaluation, and the use of evidence in their countries. 

Measuring Service Members’ Transition to Civilian Life

U.S. Government Accountability Office

The Transition Assistance Program helps servicemembers choose a career, pursue higher education or entrepreneurship, or find a job after military service. However, performance data show that those who need maximum support don’t participate. Better understanding root causes would help Defense officials improve the program.

OPM Pushes Agencies to Improve PMA Workforce Priority Metrics

Meritalk

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is asking agencies to take a number of actions to better track progress on the first priority in the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), which aims to strengthen and empower the Federal workforce.

Chief Data Officer Council: Progress in Strengthening Federal Evidence-Based Policymaking

U.S. Government Accountability Office

The CDO Council has taken a range of actions to address its statutory responsibilities and improve how the federal government collects and uses data. Individual agencies have taken actions to build on the Council’s efforts, and to improve their ability to use different types of evidence. 

How One State Is Excelling at Process Improvement

RouteFifty

Nebraska’s Center of Operational Excellence, which launched in 2015, champions continuous improvement efforts that have reduced costs and had a positive impact by applying Lean Six Sigma methods.

Data and Behavior with the People Lab

Data-Smart City Solutions (Podcast 18:17)

Harvard academics Stephan Goldsmith and Elizabeth Linos discuss Linos’ path from practitioner to academic, the role of geographic data in service improvement, and how behavioral science can help governments do more with less.

Mini-RCTs: A Tool for Program Managers to Help Identify What Works

Urban Institute

This brief encourages public service agencies and their managers to consider the opportunities and usefulness of undertaking Mini-Randomized Control Trials to provide them with higher-quality information for improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of their services, while recognizing their limitations. 

Resource of the Week:  Performance Management for Public Health Departments

InsightFormation, by Bill Barberger

InsightFormation weaves together key concepts derived from strategy management and current research into public health, policy, and social impact, providing you with a comprehensive framework to effectively plan, track, and implement actions that will result in improved outcomes of your priority issues.