Digging Deeper into New Public Management

Decentralization, accountability relations and performance management in education

Péter Radóeducational policy analyst

senior consultantExpanzió Consultingprado@expanzio.hu

Major themes

• Decentralization

• Accountability relations and their systemic conditions

• Accountability failures

• Answers to accountability failures (new public management and new public service)

• Performance management in education

• NPM and NPS compatible performance management systems

Types of education management systems

Centralized

Decentralized

Separated Integrated

Decentralization

• The locus of decision-making: devolution of decision-making competencies to lower (regional, local, school) levels of management

• The actors of decision-making: involvement of non-administrative actors into decision-making (roles: regulation, decision-making, consultation)

(Decentralization versus deconcentration)

Two approaches to decentralization

• The public administration approach: the distribution of decision-making competencies among the levels and actors of management of education (e.g.: director of schools = lowest level administration agent) – based on PA decentralization strategy

• The service delivery approach: the division of labor between public administration agents and educational service delivery institutions with professional, organizational and financial autonomy. (e.g.: director of schools = the manager of school-based decision-making) – based on comprehensive education sector strategy

An analytical frameworkLevels of

management

(roles: purpose of intervention)

The strands of decentralization

Management Financing Curriculum Quality evaluation

Professional services

National (Strategic steering)Regional(Integrated regional development)

Local(Ownership, accountability relations)School(Autonomy, quality management)

Roles FunctionsDecision-making

competencies

Required capacities

The content of accountability relationships

Clients

(principals)

Accountable actors

(agents)

Delegating

Financing

Performing

Informing

Enforcing

Local accountability relations

The changing pattern

of governance

⇒ conditions at the

national level

⇒ conditions in

schools Local self-governance

Central governance of education

SchoolsCitizens/Clients

Direct impactIndirect impact

Governance of education through local accountability connections

Governing connected management cycles

School management cycle

Inputs Processes Outputs

Managing local school network

Local and regional self-government

Governance of education

Central government agencies

Defining expectations, granting power, deploying procedural mandates

Verifying performance

Strategic steering and policy-makingConditions and instruments:• Financial incentives• Effective policy-coordination• Professional self-regulation (e.g. assessment policy)• Standards, benchmarks and procedural rules• Professional, legal and fiscal accountability• Strategic communication• Empowerment of actors, capacity building• Information system, knowledge basis, evaluation capacities• Multilevel planning system, planning capacities• Institutionalized stakeholder involvement• Diversified network of support agencies• Mandatory self-evaluation and quality management in schools

Quality managementin schools

• Self-evaluation – the analysis of the results• Planning - analysis is transformed to improvement plan• Improvement plan should be integrated into the daily work of

the school organization• Resources should be allocated (responsible person, time,

deadlines, contributing persons)

Failures of voice• Lack of responsiveness of governance (e.g. too little

budget is devoted to the services for the disadvantaged)• Lack of open decision-making procedures (weak

stakeholder consultation)• Lack of accessible information on governance (lack of

transparency, citizens can’t make their judgments, low trust)

• Lack of accessible information on locally delivered services (e.g. public reports on external evaluation, students’ achievement data aggregated at school level)

• Weak self-organization of citizens (aggregation and articulation failure, the better-off is the more affluent)

• Clientelism, corruption

Failures of compact (ownership)

• No clear mandate and delegation of tasks (ambiguous goals, lack of service specifications and standards)

• Overregulation → the lack of effective regulation (e.g. centrally issued syllabi)

• In education often service targets are not numerical, service provision is not logistical (↔ waste management)

• Lack of monitoring and control (e.g. lack of financial and legal audit, lack of external evaluation, lack of professional capacities in local administration)

• Lack of coherent compact (the ambiguous division of labor between national and local governance, contradictory expectations)

• Clientelism, corruption, providers capturing local governments

Failures of management

• Lack of clear objectives • Lack of full human resource mana-

gement authority of directors• Teachers and doctors are not

accountable professional (the missio-ner ethos of these professions)

• Lack of incentives• Lack of performance evaluation

(organizations monitor only inputs and processes)

Areas of a human resource management regime

Employment (hire and fire, promotion)

Determining the content of the job („job description”)

Performance evaluation

Compensation (salary and incentives)

Capacity building

Failures of the short route

Market relationship is based on choice and backed by purchasing power → serious weaknesses for of public services:

• Responds to costumer needs only, does not respond to the needs of all citizens (can’t ensure equitable distribution)

• Does not satisfy collective objectives• Choice may lead to inequalities (e.g. selection in education)• Does not work out if the costumer has no relevant

information about the performance of the provider ↔ doctors, teachers

• Client power might be written over by unbalanced power relationship between the client and the providers (doctors, teachers)

• In contrast to voice client power is mainly individual → weaker, if incentives on the providers side are weak ↔ low motivation and weak capacities of frontliners

Answers to accountability failures 1.

The failures of the long route: NPM:

• Strengthening the short route by introducing choice and consumer power in the public services

• Managerial reshaping of national and local governments: pursuit of procedural efficiency, the division and dispersal of functions (local governments: catalyst agencies = creating mechanisms and structures to influence the actions of private and non-profit organizations)

Instruments: Competition (privatization, contracting out), simulating market relations (free choice of schools), more demand side financing (vouchers), market incentives (performance contracting, performance budgeting (performance-related pay), consumer service, strategic planning, performance measurement, deregulation, standards, reducing and modernizing public employment.

Answers to accountability failures 2.The failures of the short route (+ critical view of NPM): NPS:• Strengthening accountability relationships of the long route,

instead of greater efficiency calls for greater responsiveness• Public interest is paramount, it is the result of open dialogue

(role of national and local governments: brokering ideas, views and interests among citizens and group of citizens)

• Building (national and local) „open governments” • Distinction between business techniques and business valuesInstruments: Building coalitions of public, private and non-profit

organizations to serve mutually agreed goals, making (national and local) governments more responsive, enabling citizens to participate in decision-making, ensuring access to information, easily accessible government services, quality evaluation of public services (avoiding the negative side-effects of performance measurement based on proxies)

The systemic conditions of school level change

Performance

management

in education

S e t t i n g

g o a l s

Qu a l i t y

E v a l u a t i o n

I n t e r v e n t i o n

„Content regulation”

(Central and

organizational goals)

Actual goals for development

(Central, regional,

local)

Measurement of the

achievement of students

(Standardized

testing and

examinations)

School evaluation

(Self-evaluation, inspection and

national thematic reviews)

Integrated information

system (EMIS)

(+ additional

research)

Information management (feed back) (National indicator system, benchmarking, regular public

reporting)

Standards (for processes and for required minimum

outcomes)

National, regional and local management of education

Quality management and development

Schools

School improvement

Two types of accountability systems in education

Learning outcomes based performance management systems

(USA - „No Child Left Behind”)

Quality evaluation based performance management systems

(Most European Systems)

Performance standards

Assessment of students’ achievement

Feeding back achievement data

Setting objectives for improving achievements (benchmarking)

Consequences connected to achievement („high stakes”)

Performance and quality standards

School evaluation and assessment of students’ achievement

Feeding back evaluation and assessment data (reporting)

Identifying underperforming schools

Developmental intervention

A few conclusions

• The first condition of implementing NPM approach based changes in education is making the schools able to respond to diverse external expectations (among others those of the clients) → school autonomy

• The context largely depends on the context of policy-making. (USA: political procedures → contracting out, continental Europe: public administrational procedures → greater roles of public institutions)

• Without major structural reforms (e.g. decentralization, well functioning accountability relations) the relevance of NPM is extremely limited → South Eastern Europe

• NPM does not answers all question, NPM and NPS not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches (the context should be carefully considered)

For more see:Péter Radó: Governing Decentralized

Education SystemsSystemic Change in South Eastern Europe

http://education.oander.hu/