Accountability, Efficiency, Improvement and Change in UK Local Public Services: The Role of Benchmarking and External Performance Assessment

• Start date: 13 February 2012
• End date: 12 February 2013

The aim of this knowledge exchange is foster two-way dialogue and collaboration which:

• helps to improve the assessment of public services so they are more affordable and better meet community needs
• informs the design of subsequent research through the comparison of performance assessment frameworks. 

The programme offers five inter related sets of activities:

1. Three international conferences will be held, one each in the UK, Canada and Australia, where policy makers and practitioners will learn from each other about international practices in performance assessment.
2. We will work with a small group of policy makers/practitioners in each country of the UK to co-produce the design of seminars which will provide opportunities for facilitated analyses of existing approaches to performance assessment.
3. The conferences and seminars will create networks of policy makers, practitioners and researchers who will be invited to inform the design and co-produce subsequent research on the effectiveness of emerging performance assessment frameworks.
4. A policy briefing will be written, which draws together best practice from across the world.
5. We will hold dissemination exchange workshops at pre-existing events of professional, local government, and consumer bodies across the UK, to discuss our initial findings.