We must "establish expectations for the outcomes that the agency will achieve, the consequences that it will create, or the impact that it will have" (p.10). But unlike accountability for finances and accountability for fairness, the authors write that it is impossible to establish these expectations with rules, procedures, and standards. Instead, specifying the quality of performance expected from a public agency necessitates a performance benchmark -- a transparent, objective goal or target. Further, we must have a clear tool that can be used to establish how well the agency has performed to our expectations -- how well it has lived up to the expectations it's been held to. Tools such as rules, procedures, and standards have no function, in this case -- "accountability for performance requires something qualitatively different" (p. 10). Instead, to create a basis for performance accountability, citizens simply need to specify the results it expects from its government.
The authors hold that accountability for performance means, and should mean, that public agencies provide more than the necessary services to its customers -- the citizens. The authors further hold that citizens' expectations for their public agencies should be higher than simply keeping them, as customers, happy. The authors hold that the appropriate and best concept of accountability for performance is performance at a level "higher than a seller-buyer, provider-customer exchange. It ought to mean satisfying the performance expectations of the diversity of people in Kearn's accountability environment" (p. 10). Not only that, but accountability for performance -- as well as accountability...
10).
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