Topics: performance management, IT systems

You might have heard of CompStat. It was an approach used by the New York City police department to tackle crime through performance management. The approach is supported by a GIS based information system that help police and the Mayor identify crime hot spots and to track performance - but really it was about regular accountability meetings for senior managers to discuss that performance and identify solutions to tackle underperformance and praise good performance. (Occasionally the approach was criticised for having too much "accountabilty" and not enough recognition).

The City of Baltimore took CompStat one step further and came up with Citistat. This looks at local government performance as well as police performance (in most US cities, the police force is directly accountable to the head of local government). They have a lot of interesting information about their approach on the Baltimore CitiStat website (including new information on how neighbourhoods and even smaller communities can take advantage of some of the tools and approaches for improving quality of life). A couple of years ago, Baltimore's mayor, Martin O'Malley came to visit the City of Westminster as part of a Peer Review team.

The London Borough of Barnet uses the approach, too where it's called FirstStat - though I don't know much about it.

Now councils North of the Border are giving it a try.

From the Scottish Executive:

The Executive set up pilots of the Citistat performance management system in two NHS Boards, Tayside and Ayrshire & Arran, and two local authorities, City of Edinburgh and Aberdeen City. The pilots ran from September 2005 for six months. Findings from the evaluation of the pilots include:

• The model can be adapted to Scotland's public sector and can respond to local circumstances
• The process improves the quality of information and makes it easier to understand and scrutinise that information
• Improved quality of information and regular meetings to scrutinise performance allows active follow up, overseen by senior management, and better results

You can download the report here, which includes case studies from all four organisations.

Story via eGov Monitor
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As far as I know, few performance management systems feature in bestselling murder mysteries. But in Patricia Cornwell's novel Southern Cross a CompStat style PM IT system is an important part of the plot.

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