Tech solution to measure performance


Christopher Thomas
Manager
ESRI Government
Industry Solutions
ESRI, USA


Support for performance measurement and accountability to make government work more efficiently and effectively has been building within the public sector and the concept is now accepted as a standard management practice. Often public officials measure levels of service to effectively respond to the public's demand for evidence that government is delivering at acceptable levels.



By adding to ongoing data collection efforts that connect data about city services into more manageable selections, agencies can ensure that critical services are being evaluated and they can correlate the data directly to strategic plan goals. An effective performance measurement process must be able to analyse operations, highlight accomplishments, make improvements or justify current practices. Robust performance measurement practices tied to a technology solution can be a manager's lifeline to city or county departments, between jurisdictions and to local residents.

ALL THINGS GEOGRAPHIC
The majority of all decisions made in government can be associated with a geographic location. In fact, most experts agree that 90 percent of the raw data collected by government has a geographic relationship embedded in it. For instance, most work orders have a street location associated with it; a business and its associated revenues can be linked to a mailing address; programmes related to housing, youth services, and focussed targeted programmss (elderly) are dependent on an understanding of a demographic trend that can be connected to a census (geographic) tract.

With the realisation that most things have a spatial relationship comes the idea that geography and the data and applications associated with it can be performance indicators. A geographic approach to performance measurement offers a fresh way to develop situational awareness while noting milestones toward goals.

This geographic approach implies that management should rethink how to analyse progress and set standards for success. Ultimately, it suggests that managers should change from a spreadsheet method to a mapping approach.

RETHINKING PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
Many areas within the government sector have been identified as targets for performance measurement. They include: facilities management, fire and emergency management, highway and road maintenance, housing, human resources, information technology, library services, parks and recreation, police services, purchasing, refuse and recycling and risk management.



Thinking about code enforcement performance measurements might raise questions about how many code violation complaints are received and how quick the response is. Similarly, management might want to see a measurement of code enforcement officers' productivity, such as the number of complaints they are handling per day.

With a geographic perspective, questions can be rephrased or rethought to develop new measurement questions and mitigation approaches. For example: Where are the complaints coming from? Can we rebalance the load or design the code enforcement territories to meet an expected response? Can we target specific neighbourhoods based on increases in code violations? What is the relationship between code violations and crime rates in the same area? What are the demographics of the neighbourhoods? Do code violations fall within specific neighbourhoods that qualify for extra funding? What is the cost per code enforcement district? Where is the most time spent? Could officers be routed more efficiently to maximise productivity and reduce costs?

GEOGRAPHY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
A good performance management system yields the necessary data for assessing service needs and performance and helps elected officials in their oversight responsibilities. It also helps them make objective resource-allocation decisions and formulate policy.



Performance of a specific service can be tracked over time to demonstrate improvement, or it can be benchmarked against levels of service provided in similar communities. The implementation and integration of a successful geographic system (GIS) has helped administrators close the gap on deficiencies and develop performance plans that are result-driven and linked to their agency's goals. Fundamental to the capabilities of a GIS is its ability to measure, track and manage workflows.

Successful implementations come from organisations that match the technology to the organisation's business goals and objectives. They understand where GIS can fit into the jurisdiction and apply spatial logic directly to workflows.



When an organisation implements an enterprise GIS and begins collecting an array of data about activities including projects, schedules, costs, personnel and customer service, measuring performance becomes a simple exercise. Geographic information can be geocoded and integrated with existing spatial data for analysis and display. Analysts can run geographic density analyses on incidents or complaint data and when displayed on a map, managers can easily identify hot spots for attention including trash collection, road repairs or code enforcement. Mapping the number of missed trash pickup complaints for a specific area might suggest a problem with a supervisor, while mapping potholes can help determine which roads to slate for resurfacing. In addition, focussing on crossdepartment analysis can provide a comprehensive view of the entire agency.

MAPPING MUNICIPAL ACCOUNTABILITY
An early adopter of enterprise GIS technology, the city government of Baltimore, Maryland, developed a policy-driven performance measurement system in which participants have interactive dialogues with decision makers.

After being elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999, Martin O'Malley implemented a comprehensive municipal management and accountability programme called CitiStat. Faced with shrinking revenues and growing expenses, the mayor realised that the old way of doing business was not working. Through CitiStat, O'Malley sought to break through the bureaucratic paralysis and create a new process of managing government. The methodology involves reviewing agency financial and operational issues and performance every two weeks. CitiStat meetings are mandatory and provide a two-way forum for discussion of issues and problem resolution. In the CitiStat room, decision makers can resolve an issue in minutes and avoid months of memos.

Along with the implementation of CitiStat, city officials authorised the creation of an enterprise GIS group within the mayor's office of information technology. Key to CitiStat meetings is the mayor's ability to view an assortment of spatial data in one image and observe relationships between seemingly disparate datasets.

The single, common geography of the city pointed toward the need for a centrally managed and shared GIS to ensure that redundancies would not occur across agencies. The CitiTrack system including Baltimore's new 311 "One Call Center" has been a significant addition to the CitiStat accountability tool. CitiTrack manages the intake, routing and resolution of service requests. City residents can report a nonemergency problem or complaints by either calling 311 or entering it online at the Baltimore website.

The calls are routed to one of 300 possible city service types and are assigned a tracking number. The simplicity and benefits of the CitiStat programme have attracted worldwide interest because it fosters accountability. Having recently been elected governor of Maryland, O'Malley announced in April the establishment of StateStat, a system of performance measurement for state agencies.

Another derivative, BayStat, is a Maryland regional system for accountability. Situational wareness/ real-time governance The latest trend in managing for results is the adoption of an executive dashboard. An executive dashboard is simply an Internet-based interface that sits on an individual desktop providing real-time situational awareness of activities. The executive dashboard provides an opportunity to adjust daily, weekly or monthly workloads as data becomes available. This interface provides for an interactive way to meet or exceed performance goals.

With a geographic approach, a GIS can provide a platform from which all data can be brought together to form an executive dashboard. Use of spatially referenced data gives managers the ability to integrate legacy data into a single interface.

For example, in a real-time setting, a manager can see the complaints coming in on a Tuesday morning about trash pick up after a holiday. He can see where the trash pick up complaints are coming from, make adjustments and monitor the rate the complaints that are being mitigated.

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