Connecting Knowledge and Performance in Public Services

The performance of public services is now more closely scrutinized than ever before. Every teacher, doctor, social worker or probation officer knows that behind them stands a restless army of overseers, equipped with a panoply of league tables, star ratings, user opinion surveys, performance indicators and the like with which to judge them. This increased scrutiny and performance measurement has undoubtedly produced improved public services. Yet we still have a limited understanding about how this information can be best used to bring about improvements in performance. What goes on inside the ‘black box' of public organizations to move from information to action, or from ‘knowing' to ‘doing'? This book tackles this important question by reviewing a wide range of performance mechanisms. It explores how information about performance can be translated into improvements in services and, conversely, why this does not always happen in practice.

Kieran Walshe is Professor of Health Policy and Management at Manchester Business School. He is an appointed member of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence and is Research Director of the Department of Health's National Institute for Health Research service delivery and organisation research programme. His books include Regulating Healthcare (2003), Patient Safety (2005) and Healthcare Management (2006).

Gill Harvey is Reader in Health Management at Manchester Business School. She has a professional background in nursing and previously worked for the Royal College of Nursing, where she was the Director of their Quality Improvement Programme. She has published widely on the issues of implementation and facilitating quality improvement in practice.

Pauline Jas is Lecturer in Public Policy in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham. She was previously responsible for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations research programme on charitable donations by the general public and the production of The UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2002.