Accountability, Efficiency, Improvement and Change in UK Local Public Services: The Role of Benchmarking and External Performance Assessment

知识交流将促进政策制定者和从业人员网络的发展，他们将与社会科学研究人员合作，分析和应对公共服务业绩评估方面的挑战。过去十年对公共服务绩效评估的一系列研究确定了迄今尚未开发的国家间政策学习的潜力(Nutley等人)。2011年)。我们的知识交流活动将旨在促进英国、加拿大和澳大利亚之间的政策学习。它将使用在先前研究过程中形成的理论框架--特别是作为评估框架基础的制度理论和改进理论的概念(Downe等人)。合作与竞争的替代方法(Fenna 2010)，以及英国“自愿”比较基准的经验(Grace 2010)--适用于当前的挑战，包括公共开支的削减以及如何评估创新以及持续变革和改进的能力。拟议方案将应用这些概念来协助政策制定者和实践者分析和应对英国和国际上当前的挑战。它将提供五套相互关联的活动：1.国际活动-我们将召开三次国际会议，分别在英国、加拿大和澳大利亚举行一次。这些会议将汇聚来自英国以及经合组织类型的联邦制国家和欧盟的政策制定者和实践者，以相互学习。这些活动将：-提高高层对知识交流的认识。-鼓励国家之间的政策转移和辩论。-在更广泛的国际学习和比较方案中产生反馈。-帮助设计英国研讨会。-帮助确定和激励关键利益攸关方参与未来的活动。-向政策简报会通报最佳做法。每次活动结束后，申请者将撰写一份总结，总结新出现的主要问题和经验教训，并反馈给个人和他们的组织，以帮助鼓励知识交流。2.研讨会-我们将利用我们从以前的研究中建立的优秀网络，与英国每个国家的一小群政策制定者/实践者合作，共同设计研讨会和参与者名单--三个在英格兰，一个在苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰。每个研讨会将有15至20人参加，包括高级政策制定者、公共服务从业者和学者。这些研讨会将提供机会，便于分析现有的业绩评估办法和政策制定者和从业人员目前面临的挑战。与会议一样，申请者将撰写研讨会总结，分发给所有与会者。3.网络--会议和研讨会将建立一个由政策制定者、从业人员和研究人员组成的网络，他们将被邀请为新出现的业绩评估框架的有效性设计提供信息并共同编写后续研究报告。4.政策简报--这将审查专门为政策和从业人员受众编写的国际业绩评估，并通过网络、专业协会和其他媒体广泛分发。它将利用现有的研究知识，并将从会议和研讨会中吸取经验教训，以突出世界各地的最佳做法。5.传播交流讲习班--这些讲习班将利用政策简报的早期版本，其中一个研究小组将在专业机构、地方政府和消费者团体先前存在的活动上发表演讲。我们将在四个国家举办十次研讨会(英格兰五次，苏格兰和威尔士各两次，北爱尔兰一次)。

The knowledge exchange will facilitate the development of a network of policy makers and practitioners who will work with social science researchers to analyse and respond to the challenges of performance assessment in public services. A series of studies of performance assessment in public services over the last decade have identified the hitherto largely untapped potential for policy learning between countries (Nutley et al. 2011). Our knowledge exchange activities will aim to facilitate policy learning between the UK, Canada and Australia. It will use theoretical frameworks developed in the course of previous research - in particular, regime theory and the concept of theories of improvement which underpin assessment frameworks (Downe et al. 2010), the alternative co-operative versus competitive approaches (Fenna 2010), and the UK experience of 'voluntary' comparative benchmarking (Grace 2010) - to apply to current challenges including reductions in public expenditure and the issue of how to assess innovation and the capacity for continuous change and improvement. The proposed programme will apply these concepts to assist policy makers and practitioners in analysing and addressing current challenges in the UK and internationally. It will offer five inter related sets of activities: 1. International events - we will convene three international conferences, one each in the UK, Canada and Australia. The conferences will bring together policy makers and practitioners from the UK as well as OECD-type federal countries and the EU to learn from each other. The events will: - Raise awareness of the knowledge exchange at senior levels. - Encourage policy transfer and debate between countries. - Generate feedback into the wider programme of international learning and comparison. - Help design the UK seminars. - Help to identify and motivate key stakeholders to be involved in future events. - Inform the policy briefing on best practice. After each event the applicants will write a summary of the main emerging issues and lessons learnt which will be fed back both to individual participants and to their organisations, to help encourage knowledge exchange. 2. Seminars - we will use our excellent networks built from previous research, to work with a small group of policy makers/practitioners in each country of the UK to co-produce the design of the seminars and the participant list - three in England and one each in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each seminar will involve 15 to 20 participants including senior policy makers, public services practitioners and academics. The seminars will provide opportunities for facilitated analyses of existing approaches to performance assessment and the challenges currently facing policy makers and practitioners. As with the conferences, the applicants will write up a summary of the seminars for distribution to all participants. 3. Network - the conferences and seminars will create a network of policy makers, practitioners and researchers who will be invited to inform the design and co-produce subsequent research on the effectiveness of emerging performance assessment frameworks. 4. Policy Briefing - this will provide a review of international performance assessment written specifically for a policy and practitioner audience and distributed widely via the web, professional associations and other media. It will draw on existing research knowledge and will draw together lessons from the conferences and seminars to highlight best practice from across the world. 5. Dissemination exchange workshops - these will draw upon early versions of the policy briefing involving one of the research team delivering presentations at pre-existing events of professional, local government, and consumer bodies. We will deliver ten workshops across the four countries (five in England, two each in Scotland and Wales and one in Northern Ireland).