Unlocking Public Value: A New Model for Achieving High Performance in Public Service Organizations - Hardcover

Martin Cole; Greg Parston

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471959456 ISBN 13: 9780471959458

Publisher: Wiley, 2006

Synopsis

A new approach to understanding and improving performance and public value

This book presents the Public Service Value Model-an innovative, rigorous approach to defining public outcomes and quantifying results-to help readers understand and improve public service delivery. Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, this guide will arm public service managers-whether in government, nonprofit, or even for-profit organizations-with a practical framework that can be used to define outcomes and manage trade-offs in public service delivery.

Martin Cole (Hartford, CT) is Group Chief Executive of Accenture's Government Operating Group. Greg Parston (London, UK) is Executive Director of the Accenture Institute for Public Service Value.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Unlocking Public Value

"Unlocking Public Value addresses one of the most challenging questions for governments: how to measure transformation in order to improve outcomes and deliver value to citizens."
—Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Corporation

"All public services, the Metropolitan Police Service included, are faced with the increasing need to achieve more with the same or less resources at a time of escalating demand and rising customer expectations. This book provides some fascinating insights into public value, how to measure it and, at the same time, may assist in making informed judgments about future spending decisions."
—Sir Ian Blair, QPM, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, UK

"Government performance excellence needs instruments that help public sector managers to focus on when and how to create and measure public value. The Public Service Value Model is a sound and outstanding step forward in the field of strategic management in the public sector."
—Julio Gomez-Pomar, Former Secretary of State for Public Administration, Spain

"Public value is the most exciting and widely discussed concept in contemporary public service policy. It offers a common language to connect public services. This book will help you to put clothes onto your particular emperor."
—Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council, UK

"While pressure on public budgets increases at the same time expectations of performance rise, this is an excellent and example-rich guide to tracking performance and measuring real outcomes rather than just activity or outputs. It shows how creative experimentation can show the best methods of satisfying taxpayers who want to experience the real effects of the investment of their dollars."
—Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman of Anglo American plc and former Chairman of Shell

"Three cheers for Cole and Parston! In this important work, they have moved well beyond the simple idea of 'customer-oriented government,' preoccupied only with the quality of services, to a 'citizen-focused government' focused on assisting citizens to define and achieve important social outcomes in cost-effective ways. The practical tools they have developed will help citizens, taxpayers, clients and public managers align and achieve a shared concept of public value."
—Professor Mark Moore, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and author of Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government

"This model for measuring performance in public services demonstrates cutting-edge research. In addition, it provides public managers with a hands-on tool for measuring, evaluating and improving public performance. An excellent study!"
—Andrea Römmele, Professor of Communication Management, International University, Bruchsal, Germany

From the Inside Flap:

The value delivered to shareholders is the private sector's ultimate measure of a company's success. However, in the public sector, where citizen stakeholders replace shareholders, there is no single or simple "bottom line" for measuring success.

Clearly, common performance criteria must exist before verifiable performance enhancement can be achieved.

Unlocking Public Value takes that all-important first step, providing public managers with a framework for evaluating and improving the performance of themselves, their employees and the organizations they serve. This breakthrough book introduces the Accenture Public Service Value Model, a new methodology that gives public policy strategists, financial managers and operational managers?not to mention students, politicians and other interested parties?the knowledge and hands-on tools they need to:

• Accurately identify and measure outcomes, i.e., the social impacts, benefits or consequences of an organization's efforts
• Filter existing metrics, determine those that tie directly or indirectly to outcomes and assign weights to each
• Use the Public Service Value Model to assess performance and to graphically depict changes in that performance over time
• Arm public managers with the information they need to make better, more informed decisions about what can be done to meet public needs
• Link value creation to projects and activities, measurably improving the delivery of public services
• Identify how specific changes an organization makes can deliver increased public value, better use scarce resources?and drive results
• Create managerial processes, which accommodate and reward experimentation, and enable successful innovative organizations to thrive

Unlocking Public Value is packed with detailed, real-life examples and case studies of the proven value of Public Service Value analyses. From a German retirement pension insurance carrier and a U.S. Medicaid agency to European intelligence and labor agencies, it illustrates how performance information from Public Service Value analyses has been successfully used to inform strategic decisions, enhance public service results and dramatically improve performance.

The realities of today's lean operating environment demand strong public service management. Unlocking Public Value introduces an authoritative methodology for proactively relating results to costs, tracking that relationship over time?and uncovering and unleashing value in public organizations of every type.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0471959456
• ISBN 13: 9780471959458
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188