How do targets and benchmarks affect accountability in public services?

In the context of public administration, the shift toward New Public Management has transformed accountability from a primarily procedural focus to one centered on performance and policy output. Within this framework, targets and benchmarks serve as exogenous indicators used to assess the performance of public services in the absence of traditional market signals like profit levels.1

These tools affect accountability in several ways:

• Quasi-Market Accountability: By establishing performance metrics, public services are judged similarly to private-sector entities, often relying on proxies for consumer satisfaction. This approach aims to make services more accountable to citizens by providing greater choice and incentive structures.12
• Operational Focus: Benchmarks encourage learning and emulation by comparing public actions against ideal forms or other service providers. This can drive efficiency and quality improvements through competitive pressure.32
• Procedural Requirements: Paradoxically, the reliance on targets and benchmarks has increased the burden of monitoring, auditing, and reporting, thereby expanding rather than diminishing procedural requirements.1
• Governance Risks: These tools can create institutional tension. "Naming and shaming" via benchmarks may incite short-term change but can lead to long-term resistance. Furthermore, setting benchmarks is often problematic due to the difficulty of ensuring that policy instruments are truly comparable across different contexts.3