Mr. Whitley describes the challenges of measuring unobserved events such as tax cheating, drug smuggling, or illegal immigration.

Measuring program performance is relatively straightforward in many areas of government, such as social services, visa processing, and air traffic control.  But there are instances where assessing performance and success is much harder.  One particularly difficult area involves law enforcement, where a key goal is to prevent or deter bad outcomes – which can often happen without the knowledge of law enforcement officials.

Federal agencies now use dashboards both for internal organizational management and to disseminate performance measures for transparency and accountability.

ARA funds were accompanied by a new, centralized system of strict financial accountability and performance reporting, with frequent reporting requirements. These new requirements, as well as the rapid implementation timeframe required by ARA, created an enormous implementation challenge for all the participants in our federal-state-local-nonprofit intergovernmental system.

It has often been said that what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done. Performance metrics are the indicators and statistics an organization uses to gauge performance and to measure progress against desired outcomes. Performance metrics mean accountability. Leaders are accountable for the targets that are established, and supervisors, managers, and employees are accountable for meeting the metrics established by their leadership.

A new report by Harry Hatry and Elizabeth Davies, “A Guide to Data-Driven Federal Performance Reviews,” examines federal agencies that are pioneering data-driven performance reviews to improve agency effectiveness and effi­ciency.

These funds were accompanied by a new, centralized system of strict financial accountability and perfor­mance reporting, with frequent reporting requirements. These new requirements, as well as the rapid implementation time­frame required by the Recovery Act, created an enormous implementation challenge for all the participants in our federal-state-local-non­profit intergovernmental system.

Government leaders are deluged with thousands of streams of data about the performance of their agencies and programs. One approach the Obama administration has latched onto to make sense out of the deluge of data is the use of on-line “dashboards” of performance data that track the key performance metrics of various federal agencies and programs.  The administration has touted the benefits of dashboards as a way of organizing and filtering performance data so it makes sense to decision makers so they can understand and act on it.

The reform, popularly named LOLF after an August 1, 2001 constitutional amendment, defined a new architecture for the French state budget, articulated in terms of mission, programs and actions.   Unlike GPRA, it changes the entire budgetary process rather than adding results-oriented features to an otherwise unchanged process. 

We’ve mentioned in previous posts that Pennsylvania does a very good job, relative to other states, of reporting on its stimulus spending. It doesn’t simply tell citizens how many jobs were created, but what the money is accomplishing. But even in Pennsylvania, communicating the impact of stimulus dollars on vast transportation needs is still very tricky.