Linking comprehensive performance assessment to the balanced scorecard:evidence from Hertfordshire County Council

Over the course of the last twenty years there has been a growing academic interest in performance management, particularly in respect of the evolution of new techniques and their resulting impact. One important theoretical development has been the emergence of multidimensional performance measurement models that are potentially applicable within the public sector. Empirically, academic researchers are increasingly supporting the use of such models as a way of improving public sector management and the effectiveness of service provision (Mayston, 1985; Pollitt, 1986; Bates and Brignall, 1993; and Massey, 1999). This paper seeks to add to the literature by using both theoretical and empirical evidence to argue that CPA, the external inspection tool used by the Audit Commission to evaluate local authority performance management, is a version of the Balanced Scorecard which, when adapted for internal use, may have beneficial effects. After demonstrating the parallels between the CPA framework and Kaplan and Norton's public sector Balanced Scorecard (BSC), we use a case study of the BSC based performance management system in Hertfordshire County Council to demonstrate the empirical linkages between a local scorecard and CPA. We conclude that CPA is based upon the BSC and has the potential to serve as a springboard for the evolution of local authority performance management systems.

The power of the powerless:neighbourhood based self-help networks of the poor in Istanbul

Recent poverty research focuses on the household responses to poverty through structure vs. agency perspectives. The human agency perspective, however, provides us important insights for looking beyond these simplistic tendencies which assume poor people as inherently passive, or envision them as helpless victims. In Turkey, politicians view poverty as a temporary and manageable problem which can be dealt with the provision of more charity or community support. Migrant networks, informal sector work and social assistance are considered to be important mechanisms that would provide resources for the poor. This paper argues that for some of the poor households none of these mechanisms provide sufficient resources. Instead, neighbourhood-based small-group solidarities and self-help networks enable those poor to develop collective capabilities and make ends meet. The paper also reveals that in Turkey, the implementation of social policies for poverty reduction could bring about relationships of patronage and in some cases contribute to existing inequalities.