Analysing Deprivation and Local Authority Performance: The Implications for CPA

This article uses regression analysis to explore the statistical relationship between deprivation and the performance indicators used for the first round of Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPAs) for English local authorities. The statistical significance of the results is described and analysed in light of the Audit Commission's decision to exclude deprivation from the CPA framework. For over one third of the PIs tested, deprivation had a statistically significant adverse effect on performance. The author shows that external environmental constraints on local authority performance must be recognized for accurate and equitable performance assessments.     

中国地方政府债务管理制度与能力测评——基于世界银行DeMPA模型

基于世界银行地方政府DeMPA模型,予以修正后的测评代表省份的地方政府债务管理制度设计和执行绩效。结果显示：我国地方政府债务总体管理制度和能力达到或超过国际合格标准;制度性指标（法律框架、管理结构等）评分各省基本趋同;实践性指标（债务报告、数据记录等）东部和中部省份略优于西部省份,国际接轨多的省份略优于其他省份;普遍表现薄弱的指标集中在债务管理中期战略、债务数据管理、国库现金管理和政府隐性债务方面。     

Assessing systemic risks and predicting systemic events

The paper develops a framework for assessing systemic risks and for predicting systemic events, i.e. periods of extreme financial instability with potential real costs. It contributes to the literature on the prediction of financial crises mainly in two ways: first, it uses a Financial Stress Index for identifying the starting date of systemic financial crises. Second, it uses discrete choice models that combine both domestic and global indicators of macro-financial vulnerabilities to predict systemic financial crises. The performance of the models is evaluated in a framework that takes into account policy maker’s preferences between missing crises and issuing false alarms. Our analysis shows that combining indicators of domestic and global macro-financial vulnerabilities substantially improves the models’ ability to forecast systemic financial crises. Our framework also displays a good out-of-sample performance in predicting the ongoing Global Financial Crisis.     

Enabling control and the problem of incomplete performance indicators

To which extent do managers care about the design characteristics of performance indicators and other control systems? The paper examines this question with the help of the framework of enabling and coercive control. Drawing upon data from a longitudinal field study in a manufacturing organisation, we study operational managers’ attitudes towards the incompleteness of performance indicators. Managers are likely to perceive performance indicators as enabling if the latter facilitate their actions without unduly constraining them. This is true even for incomplete performance indicators as long as managers can handle these indicators in a flexible way, treating them as means rather than ends when carrying out their work. Our case also shows, however, how a flexible use of indicators becomes more difficult to sustain once top management signals an increased importance of the indicators. Incompleteness then becomes a more pressing concern for managers. We illuminate the various forms of top management sense-giving through which such tightening of control is achieved and we show how they translate into managers’ perception of the control system as being a coercive rather than enabling one. Taken together, the findings of the present paper add to our understanding of enabling and coercive forms of control and also extend previous studies that have addressed the problem of incomplete accounting information.     

External Regulation and Best Value in Local Government

Best Value has been presented by central government as a means of promoting local diversity and innovation. However, it contains a large superstructure for regulating the behaviour and performance of local authorities, through performance indicators, audit, and inspection. The characteristics of these regulatory instruments are analysed and their potential strengths and weaknesses are assessed. The instruments overlap not only with local authorities' own internal management processes, but also with each other. Therefore it is concluded that the costs of regulation may outweigh the benefits.     

NON-PROFIT PERFORMANCE INDICATORS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

This paper examines the scope for validly using non-profit performance indicators in the public sector and identifies several decision-relevant roles for such indicators in the process of policy optimisation. It argues that many of the desirable qualitative characteristics of financial accounting data identified in the FASB's conceptual framework project are both relevant, and in need of strengthening, when the profit concept is extended to a more general performance concept which also includes benefits to consumers of the output of the public sector. The need for such strengthening is examined in both nationalised industries and the non-trading public sector.     

Occupation,driving experience,and risk and accident perception

The contemporary understanding of public sector risk management entails a broadening of the traditional bureaucratic approach to risk beyond the boundaries of purely financial risks. However, evidence suggests that in reality public sector risk management does not always match the rhetoric. This paper focuses on the apparent inadequacy of any risk framework in the current Prudential Borrowing Framework (PBF) guidance in relation to that which was developed under Public Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Our analysis shows that the PBF and its associated indicators for local authorities adopt a narrow financial approach and fail to account for the full range of potential risks associated with capital projects. The PBF does not provide a framework for local authorities to consider long‐term risk and fails to encourage understanding of the generic nature of risk. The introduction of the PBF appears to represent a retrograde step from PPP/PFI as regards risk and risk management.     

Competitive Tendering and Best Value in Local Government

The Government has introduced legislation to replace compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) with a new regime of Best Value (BV) in local government. Although CCT is to be abolished, competitive tendering is retained as part of the BV framework. The specific role of competitive tendering in BV has not been identified—what are the circumstances that determine whether councils should provide services themselves or seek external suppliers? The authors develop a theoretical framework that may help central and local policy-makers to answer this question. The framework emphasises the joint importance of organizational performance and contracting costs. Practical issues that arise in the application of the framework are also identified.     

The usefulness of performance reporting in local government: comparing Italy and Spain

This article presents a comparative analysis of the perceived usefulness of performance information by managers in local authorities in Italy and Spain. Italy and Spain have similar cultural and administrative characteristics and in both countries there are external requirements (from central government) to adopt performance indicators. The adoption of performance indicators was found to be almost symbolic in both states.     

LOCAL AUTHORITY E-GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS IN ENGLAND: A CASE STUDY

This paper uses a case study of an e-government partnership of ten local authorities to consider how governance structures, financial arrangements and performance management systems may promote or inhibit successful collaborative working. The case is considered within the contexts of continuing new public management reforms including the balance between formal performance measurement indicators imposed by higher authorities and the scope for dialogue in the development of performance management systems. The case supports a view that collaborative working can benefit from a governance structure supporting a consistency of objectives of the partners operating within similar political and regulatory environments. Externally imposed performance indicators are significant to the partner authorities but their influence does not exclude the possibility of more dialogue-driven performance management systems being developed within the partnership. Sustainability of the partnership is never assured and tensions develop as a result of developing priorities of individual authorities, the possibility of local government reorganisation and changing national policy initiatives.     

Performing 'Performance'—A Comedy in Five Acts

The public service in the United Kingdom is awash with performance data. From the ubiquitous league tables for schools, local authorities and police services, through key performance indicators for civil service agencies right up to Government-level Public Service Agreements, the number of published performance data sets probably now reaches five figures annually. The author discusses some of the aspects of being what are probably the most 'performance-reported' public services in the world.     

Subjective Performance Indicators and Discretionary Bonus Pools

Key indicators of managerial performance are frequently subjective, that is, they are difficult to specify and/or verify for contracting purposes. When a principal must rely on subjective information to create incentives for a group of agents, discretionary bonus pools are shown to be optimal mechanisms. Despite their optimality, however, discretionary bonus pools entail an additional agency cost relative to the benchmark of optimal contracts based on objective and verifiable information. Our analysis identifies circumstances under which this additional agency cost is small, for example, the subjective information signals are precise, or the number of agents participating in the bonus pool increases. When incentive schemes can be based on both objective and subjective performance indicators, the relative weights to be placed on alternative signals are shown to differ from the ones predicted by models with objective signals only. We also demonstrate that correlation in measurement errors has a different impact on the structure of optimal incentive schemes when the performance indicators are merely subjective.     

Dealing with risk–risk interdependencies and trade-offs in relation to development and use of new technologies

The paper deals with the recognized need to systematically explore trade-offs in modern among single risks in modern risk management systems. These risk trade-offs have often been downplayed as ‘side effects’ or ‘unintended consequences’ and, even more often, poorly examined, quantified, and managed. The paper proposes how to deal with the real or possible trade-offs and within a framework which covers also the emerging risks: from early notion and indications up to fully developed and recognized (mature) risks. The trade-offs have been quantified primarily by means of indicators key/safety performance indicators. The framework relies very much on the ideas proposed by IRGC, ISO 31000, Solvency directive and other recognized concepts and takes practical examples from the running EU project iNTeg-Risk.     

Benchmarking in the Dutch Waste-Water Treatment Sector

The Dutch water boards have recently completed a performance measurement and evaluation project for waste-water treatment. This project was intended to strengthen the boards' accountability to their stakeholders and to identify starting points for performance improvement. The Balanced Scorecard was used as a framework to develop a broad set of performance indicators. This article describes the benchmarking project and how the Dutch water boards intend to use the results to improve performance. Finally, the Dutch project is compared with the UK's Best Value project.     

A FRAMEWORK FOR STATE TRANSITIONS ON THE SELF‐ORGANIZING MAP: SOME TEMPORAL FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS

Self‐organizing maps (SOMs) have commonly been used in temporal applications. This paper enhances the SOM paradigm for temporal data by presenting a framework for computing, summarizing and visualizing transition probabilities on the SOM. The framework includes computing matrices of node‐to‐node and node‐to‐cluster transitions and summarizing maximum state transitions. The computations are linked to the SOM grid using transition‐plane visualizations. We demonstrate the usefulness of the framework on two SOM models for temporal financial analysis: financial performance comparison of banks and monitoring indicators of currency crises. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Benchmarking in the Dutch Waste-Water Treatment Sector

The Dutch water boards have recently completed a performance measurement and evaluation project for waste-water treatment. This project was intended to strengthen the boards’ accountability to their stakeholders and to identify starting points for performance improvement. The Balanced Scorecard was used as a framework to develop a broad set of performance indicators. This article describes the benchmarking project and how the Dutch water boards intend to use the results to improve performance. Finally, the Dutch project is compared with the UK’s Best Value project.     

Productivity and Performance Indicators in Enterprise Agreements

The design and implementation of performance measurement systems is a major interest of management accountants. In recent years many organisations have made enterprise agreements with their employees, often specijjing performance indicators on which to base wage increases. This paper explains how performance indicators are used in enterprise agreements and considers alternative definitions of indicators and their limitations. It argues that performance indicators in enterprise agreements should be consistent with wider organisational performance measurement systems, particularly those having a strategic focus.     

Reporting on Service Efforts and Accomplishments on a 'Whole of Government' Basis

The United States' Governmental Accounting Standards Board has fostered the development of reports on "service efforts and accomplishments". The SEAs framework for classifying performance indicators and providing accompanying contextual data and interpretative commentary was adopted in New South Wales, but developed through its application on a "whole of government" basis and the adoption of distinctions between "program outcomes" and "community outcomes". The whole-of-government approach has the potential to provide a more consistent track record of public-sector performance in the face of departmental restructuring or the shifting of programs or subprograms between agencies.     

基于动态因子Copula模型的我国银行系统性风险度量

本文基于2007年至2019年我国14家上市银行的股票收益率,构建偏态t-分布动态因子Copula模型,利用时变荷载因子刻画单家银行与整个系统的相关性,计算联合风险概率作为系统性风险整体水平的度量,基于关联性视角提出了新的单家机构系统脆弱性和系统重要性度量指标——系统脆弱性程度和系统重要性程度。该方法充分考虑了银行个体差异性和系统的内在关联性以及收益率的厚尾性和非对称性,从而能够捕捉到更多的信息且兼具时效性。研究表明:银行机构在风险聚集时期相关程度更大,联合风险概率能够准确识别出系统性风险事件且在我国推行宏观审慎评估体系以后有明显降低;整体而言,大型商业银行系统重要性水平最高,同时风险抗压能力也最强;本文使用的度量方法降低了数据获取成本且更具时效性,有助于为宏观审慎差异化监管工作提供借鉴和参考。     

Early warning systems using dynamic factor models: An application to Asian economies

This study develops an early warning system for financial crises with a focus on small open economies. We contribute to the literature by developing macro-financial dynamic factor models that extract useful information from a rich but unbalanced mixed frequency data set that includes a range of global and domestic economic and financial indicators. The framework is applied to several Asian countries—Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Logit regression models that use the extracted factors and other leading indicators have significant power in predicting systemic events. In-sample and out-of-sample test results indicate that the extracted factors help to improve the predictive power over a model that uses only sufficiently long history indicators. Importantly, models that include the dynamic factors yield consistently better out-of-sample crisis prediction results for key performance measures such as a usefulness index, the noise to signal ratio, and AUROC.