The New Zealand Performance Improvement Framework: Strategic Conversation, Organizational Learning or Compliance Tool?

The New Zealand Government’s Performance Improvement Framework was developed and initially launched in 2009. The framework has been upgraded four times since the pilot reviews completed in 2009 – to include development of... [ view full abstract ]

The New Zealand Government’s Performance Improvement Framework was developed and initially launched in 2009. The framework has been upgraded four times since the pilot reviews completed in 2009 – to include development of a ‘Four-year Excellence Horizon’ in 2011, upgrades to the framework Elements of Financial and Resource Management in 2013, updates to seven framework Elements to support the Better Public Services reform programme, and in 2015 to bring customers and the delivery of value to New Zealanders to the centre. To date, every Public Service department and most major Crown entitles have had PIF Reviews, and many have had PIF Follow-up Reviews .

The ‘PIF’ has become a key artefact in the performance management tool kit of the New Zealand government in terms of monitoring the performance of the public sector and its organisations. The PIF is described by the agency responsible for its operation, the State Services Commission as a ‘uniform, yet flexible, framework to support continuous performance improvement across the State Services’.

In 2016, an evaluation of the PIF was undertaken by a team at the School of Government, Victoria University. This involved a multi-method approach - historical and contextual background, a qualitative study based on the experiences of the PIF in three agencies, and a public sector-wide quantitative survey.

This article utilises the interview data from the three case studies to explore a key research question – what are the tensions inherent in the PIF approach to performance management and organisational improvement and to what extent and how are these balanced?

The individual agency PIF reports have aspects that appear to strongly stress the benchmarking, compliance and accountability aspects of performance management, however, our in-depth case studies demonstrate that something else is going on.

As this is an early output of the evaluation, the method of this paper is to construct an analytical framework based on the literature on the purposes and uses of performance management information(Moynihan and Pandey, 2010), organisational learning and development. Using our case studies as empirical data, our analysis will explore the idea that a more nuanced balancing act is at play: between strategic conversations aimed at stretching the organisation to think about the organisation they want and need to be within the 4 year time horizon and acknowledging the agency’s current achievements; between the State Sector Performance overview needs of the central agencies (SSC, The Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet) and the organisational learning and development needs of the individual agency; between broad compliance with central agencies’ expectations and sector-specific capabilities.

Our framework will enable us to situate the New Zealand PIF within the performance regime(Moynihan et al., 2011) literature, examine the public management context(Rhodes et al., 2012) and establish the key tensions of the PIF approach with a view to developing further lines of inquiry to explore once the full evaluation is completed.