Performance management in Europe: An idea whose time has come and gone?

Abstract

New Public Management reforms in Europe, as elsewhere, heavily rely on performance indicators and targets. All corners of the public sector, from local to European and from policy formulation to management practice, have been affected. This focus on measurement fits well in a long tradition of measurement and state building. Yet, in recent years, disenchantment with performance management grows. More often than not, target regimes produce dysfunctional consequences. While the performance of performance target regimes is wanting, performance management is being reinvented. Rather than a system of accountability, performance management should prompt learning and dialogue. Performance management as a learning system may well be the next idea whose time has come.