Chapter 2 suggested several reasons for measuring the performance of public agencies, organisations and programmes. This chapter discusses measurement for improvement and planning and the other three discuss its use in monitoring and control, in comparing providers and in support of public accountability. The different uses will, of course, overlap in practice, but for clarity’s sake we discuss each separately in the four chapters here in Part II.

Planning

People sometimes confuse the aims of auditing and planning. Audit is backward looking, assessing current or past performance either for reporting purposes or to learn from what has happened. When we plan we try to look forwards and when we do so, we usually wish to assess what standard of performance is likely if we implement our plans. These plans might involve the design or redesign of a whole service, or improvements to existing services. There are many, many books and web pages devoted to the subject of planning and there is little point attempting to review these here. Some writers advocate a rather bureaucratic approach but others prefer rather more informal, emergent approaches.