Citizen Awareness of Government Performance Measures

One aspect of the performance reporting cycle that I don't see discussed much is the role of the citizen in holding governments accountable for tax dollars. There are often waves of citizen anger over an isolated project or issue that is a lightning rod for criticism of government waste, but few groups seem to focus on the need for evaluating the performance of governments as a whole. A quick google search of "citizens for government accountability" did not seem to yield much in the way of citizens interested in government performance metrics (but did reveal a lot of anger about other issues!). There are some organizations that I have mentioned in previous posts with an interest in this area, but they are more academic than citizen-focused (I forgot to mention in previous posts the Performance Institute who offers a tremendous array of workshops and forums on government performance).

Ultimately I believe that the success or failure of government performance management in the public sector will be attributable to citizen engagement in the topic. Many people have grown used to easily finding out about crime statistics in a given neighborhood and would certainly notice if the resource was taken away. It will be interesting to see if that will translate to ensuring that their trash was collected, that equipment at the local park is full operational, or that the number of potholes in the streets are going down and not up. A notable paper by the Urban Institute addressed this point back in 2000 but it would be nice to see an update in this area. Most experts will admit that performance measurement has improved a great deal in the last 10 years, but the real question might be whether or not the average citizen cares, and if not, what will the impact on this area of government be in the future?

(as an aside, I'm simultaneously writing this post and watching a special on Federal attempts to clean up the Chesapeake and other waterways. It led me to the EPAStat quarterly report which unfortunately doesn't tell me if the fish or crabs are coming back to the estuary, but does tell me how many Chesapeake Bay Significant Discharge Permits were issued. With uninformative data like this there's no wonder it's hard to engage people in performance management.)