Measuring performance and effectiveness for Mäori ... - Te Puni Kokiri

PART 1 : INTRODUCTION
1.1 PURPOSE
This review is intended to furnish key themes
and findings that will assist practitioners
involved in measuring and reporting on the
performance of any government services that
are provided to Mäori. It offers illustrative
examples in relation to employment services,
but is intended to be widely applicable across
the government sector.
1.2 NATURE OF THE LITERATURE
The review covers the international and
domestic literature on measuring and reporting
on the effectiveness of government services
for Mäori. The literature reviewed falls into
three main categories: international academic
literature, domestic academic literature, and
practitioner literature (e.g. ‘official guidance’
on performance measurement issued by central
agencies and the Office of the Controller and
Auditor-General).
1.3 KEY DISTINCTIONS
Performance measurement refers to the
process of measuring progress towards goals
or outcome targets that are expected from
a service or the activities of an agency. This
entails assessing the cost-effectiveness with
which ‘inputs’ (e.g. monetary and human
resources) are turned into ‘outputs’ (e.g. goods
and services provided to customers), and the
effectiveness with which ‘outputs’ produce
the desired impacts or outcomes. Performance
measurement should concentrate on impacts
and outcomes that are achievable and
reasonably within the delivery agency’s control.
Table One on page 7 provides live examples of
these kinds of performance measures.
Population-level outcomes, such as changes
in the national employment rate, are useful
indicators of societal wellbeing, but are
usually beyond the reach of performance
measurement (see Figure One, below). For
example, it is reasonable to assume that Work
and Income’s activities have some effect on
the national employment rate, but impossible
to measure or quantify that effect given the
myriad of other influences on that indicator.
Thus, the 2008 spike in unemployment
was influenced more by global economic
conditions than a change in the quality of
any particular government service. Table
One below provides a few examples of input,
output and impact quality better practice
measures for Mäori from agencies' recent
accountability documents.
Having made this distinction explicit, it is
important to acknowledge that a significant
amount of the domestic literature reviewed
deals with the theory of measuring Mäori
wellbeing, with many of the outcomes
discussed being at a population level. This
domestic literature is included in the review
because many of its themes and lessons
are also applicable to agency performance
measurement.
1.4 METHODOLOGY
This report represents a summary of five
different strands of literature review,
undertaken simultaneously. This resulted in the
following internal working papers, the findings
of which have been brought together and
summarised in this report:
• An international literature review (Gill and
Russell, 2011);
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I N T R O D U C T I O N