Selecting indicators for strategic performance management

There is a growing emphasis on the use of indicators for performance measurement and management in the transport sector. In the UK all local authorities are now required to set out five year programmes with commitments on progress on a range of mandatory and voluntary indicators linked to a series of key policy outcomes. Increasingly the financial settlements that they receive from central government will be related to their performance against these targets. Different types of information are needed to fulfil different roles in the decision-making process. Research in the UK has indicated that there are too many indicators and yet too little clarity about what is being collected and reported on, at what level and why. This paper reports on a study examining the use of indicators in 16 local and regional authorities in the UK. Results from a questionnaire and a series of follow-up interviews are combined with the findings of a desk-top review of performance management in the public sector to propose a more logical and connected process for developing a suite of indicators that both supports strategy development and monitoring. The results suggest that the current indicator sets are not broad enough to ensure that the strategies proposed are consistent with sustainable transport goals. The lack of a comprehensive framework also increases the risk of negative impacts from monitoring programmes such as measure fixation and myopia. The more comprehensive approach proposed seeks to bring together the aspirations of strategy with the realities of measurement.