It is important to keep track of the savings you make and the impact of changes on service quality and citizen outcomes. Public sector organisations across the UK have started to utilise Results Based Accountability/Outcomes Based Accountability, which provides a framework for a balanced set of measures. There are several significant aspects to consider in measuring and monitoring progress:
- Agree at an early stage what success will look like, and how you can measure progress and the final outcome.
- Financial data on cost savings should be robust. This may mean having to measure things slightly differently. In particular, it is often helpful to be able to measure unit costs, to see the cost of each transaction, but more importantly to measure end-to-end costs, to work out exactly how much it costs to deliver a service to the end user.
- Measures of performance should be given equal weight. When we reviewed the Making the Connections programme, we found that many organisations claiming efficiency savings could not prove that they had managed to sustain or improve the level and quality of services for lower cost.
- Even where making outright cuts, as opposed to efficiency savings, performance measures are important. You should measure, and understand whether your approaches have had undesired consequences, and what, if any remedial action is required.
Measuring social impact - London Business School
It is important to be transparent and open: avoid any blame culture and look at the facts. Is what you've done having the desired effect?
Return to main page
Move to next page
Back to previous page