Local governments are well positioned to reap the benefits of performance management. Their decisions about services,informed by performance data, can yield rapid results that are easy to see. However, only a small fraction of the local governments who measure performance actually use the data for resource allocation or services management.
Leadership in cities that have been successful in introducing performance measurement continue to speak of “the difficulties of persuading managers to use performance data in their management strategies” (Sanger 2008).
Given the prevalence of this disparity between measurement and the use of resulting data, it is worth considering the Service Improvement Action Plan (SIAP), which has been effective in helping a substantial number of local governments with limited resources implement performance management to achieve measurable improvements in service outcomes.