Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
government when authority for decision making and managing expenditure is
devolved to non-elected PPPs. 67
Improving outcomes for local communities
A core tenet of place shaping is a strong focus on improving economic, environmentalandsocialwellbeing.Newwaysofmanagingtheperformanceoflocal
governments in delivering these outcomes have also been introduced as part of
place-based planning processes. 68 The core logic of performance management is
that organisations and managers are given targets derived from objectives, such as
promoting community wellbeing, and ‘instruments of authority or incentive’ are
used to encourage staff to achieve or exceed these targets. 69
However, while performance management systems need to connect to penalties
and incentives to ensure targets affect behaviour, they must also be designed in
a way that does not crowd out public interest motivations by promoting ‘gaming
and cheating behaviours’. 70 This requires constant care and attention, including
establishing clear links between measures, penalties and incentives as well as regular
adjustments to ensure targets reflect community wellbeing. 71
Aligning local government performance and community expectations
Citizen expectations of performance influence their satisfaction with and choice
of services as well as their political voice, including who they will vote for.
Expectations can be defined as ‘judgements of what individuals or groups think
will or should happen under particular circumstances’. 72 These include expectations
that decision-making processes will attempt to maximise expected utility, and
citizen views of reasonable or desirable levels of service performance. Community
expectations and judgements of local government service delivery are influenced
by factors such as:
• whether there are other agencies available to provide a service, or whether
council is the only option
• the demographics of the community
• the geography of the area
• the community’s willingness to pay higher rates to get more services from the
local council
• the presence of a strong local business lobby
67 Flinders 2005, 224–31.
68 Office of Local Government n.d.
69 Pollitt 2013, 347.
70 Pollitt 2013, 358.
71 Ryan and Drew 2019.
72 James 2011, 1420–1.
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