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Assessing the Performance of Local Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Philip Andrew Stevens
Philip Andrew Stevens*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
*
e-mail: p.stevens@niesr.ac.uk
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Abstract

We consider the measurement of performance in the public sector in general, focussing on local government and the provision of library services by English local authorities in particular. We will consider two methodologies that assess the performance of local authorities in terms of the efficiency with which they provide services and consider methods that allow us to account for exogenous influences on performance, such as the socio-economic profile of the population served by the authority. We find that although both methods' results appear similar, the implications for potential cost savings vary widely. Omitting to account for background factors leads to an overstatement of the level of inefficiency and hence the scope for reducing expenditure.

Keywords

local governmentefficiencySFADEAD20H40L32
Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 193 , July 2005 , pp. 90 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

This paper originates in work undertaken at the Institute on local authority cost effectiveness on behalf of the DETR, DTLR and ODPM. I would like thank Mary O'Mahony, Hiroko Plant, Michela Vecchi, Martin Weale, Willem de Boer and participants at the NIESR conference on ‘Productivity and Performance in the Provision of Public Services’ at the British Academy for help and comments. All mistakes remain the author's own.

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