Introduction to Symposium: Performance and accountability in complex settings - Metrics, methods, and politics

This symposium, which is based on papers presented at the 10th Transatlantic Dialogue in June of 2014, seeks to address questions such as: What measurement methods seem to be appropriate in this complex setting? What is the role of metrics and measurement in ensuring accountability in hybrid settings? How does providing services in hybrid environments affect the development of metrics in the public sector? The articles included here provide some possible answers to these questions; but as any piece of good research, they also point to new questions and issues

Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program

This article describes the evolution of a performance measurement system in a government job training program. In this program, a federal agency establishes performance measures and standards for substate agencies. The performance measurement system's evolution is at least partly explained as a process of trial and error characterized by a feedback loop: The federal agency establishes performance measures, the local managers learn how to game them, the federal agency learns about gaming and reformulates the performance measures, possibly leading to new gaming, and so on. The dynamics suggest that implementing a performance measurement system in government is not a one-time challenge but benefits from careful monitoring and perhaps frequent revision