Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard

A performance measurement system for State Government Agencies that derives benefits through the combination of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) methodology and knowledge management (KM) practices. In the recent time we can observe many success stories of Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard, and how they are complementing each other by fabulous results.

The Balanced Scorecard was designed for the private sector in mind. In many governmental organizations, early pioneers struggled with the adaptation of the concept to their constituencies. Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard are gaining popularity as Government Agencies are no strangers to performance measurement, and understand the difficulties inherent in measuring the impact of government policy on various stakeholders; it is understandable that any new or innovative approach to measurement will garner cautious attention. The trick however, learned by many who have attempted to introduce the balanced scorecard approach in government, is to exploit its two main benefits:

Accountability: It assists your organization to prove that it is doing what it said it would do, and achieving what it said it would achieve

Improvement: It assists your organization to improve, by gaining an ever deeper understanding of the linkages between the outcomes it is achieving, the outcomes it desires and the drivers of those outcomes. Change a driver on your scorecard, and you change the outcomes.

Some more information about Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard: when the Government Performance and Results Act was first implemented, many felt that government management was somehow "different," that the same rules that applied to the private sector could not apply to the public, or at least not in the same way. After all, government agencies don’t have a bottom line or profit margin. But recent efforts, as many studies show again and again, attest that is not true. The bottom line for most government agencies is their mission: what they want to achieve.  But they cannot achieve this mission by managing in a vacuum, any more than can the private sector. More specifically, the roles of customer, stakeholder, and employee in an organization’s day-to-day operations are vital to its success—and must be incorporated into that success. Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard are going hand in hand in today’s highly competitively world around us.

Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard defining who exactly the customer is and it can be a challenge for government agencies, especially for federal agencies with more than one mission. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard has both enforcement and a service mission—and consequently different customer bases. And even those agencies that have but a single mission, such as regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, must take into account not only those with whom they deal on a day-to-day basis in their enforcement activities, such as major manufacturers, but also the citizen who is being protected by those enforcement activities. And the organization that provides a service or benefit, like the Social Security Administration, must distinguish between what the customer may want and what U.S. citizens may be willing to spend: that is, to balance their fiscal responsibilities to the taxpayer with their responsibilities to beneficiaries.

Government Agencies and the Balanced Scorecard goals of the policy:

·         continuously evaluate public functions;

·         emphasize the responsibility of civic society;

·         strengthen the role of the Government as political leader;

·         reform the structure of the ministries;

·         improve the quality and availability of public services;

·         continue to develop personnel and employer policies;