Page 100 - Proceeding 2015

FAMP TUDOSE (IORGA) Elena
CCASP SHIFTING TO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN MUNICIPAL PUBLIC UTILITY SERVICES: A
BRIEF RECENT HISTORY OF BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIA

1. MODELS AND CHALLENGES IN INTERNALIZING THE BENCHMARKING INSTRUMENT

Use of benchmarking tools for measuring performance in public service delivery (public services audits)
correlates with an increased strategic planning capability of municipal governments and a more judicious
resource allocation.

Ideally, at the heart of public sector reforms should lie the philosophy of value for (public) money, while
the public managers must have incentives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their
organization; in the private sector, such incentives are obvious and they mostly relate to

competition/competitiveness on the market and ultimately profit (Cowper and Samuels, 1996). At the
same time, the vast majority of public sector services do not operate in a competitive environment (are

either natural monopoles or non-competitive markets) and therefore do not experience any intrinsic
pressure to improve.

Still, as revealed by the current challenges that the public sector reform encounters in most of EU member

states – such as increasing difficulties in financing the public sector, mounting pressures caused by the
globalization of most aspects of social and economic life, a natural response to these has been the
assimilation of new methods for improving the performance – and benchmarking is part of this strategy PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” 30 th – 31 st October 2015 Bucharest

(Dahlberg and Statskontoret, 1996).

As the specific literature notes down, there are several classifications of the benchmarking model, based
on the type of approach, methods involved and outcomes envisaged for the process. One of the most
frequent classifications uses three types of benchmarking:

? Result oriented: leading to overcome performance gaps, improvement and target setting, as well
as creating a basis for performance monitoring;

? Process oriented: setting up best practices for the process (in terms of quality, time and cost)

and identifies organizational enablers like technology, systems and structures facilitating the
process;

? Customer oriented: this type of benchmarking is actually a satisfaction measurement, revealing

gaps in perception of customers and agency management and provides basis for improvement
leading to higher consumer satisfaction.

However, any of the three classic benchmarking models involves the property of the either the process,

the results or the consumer satisfaction outcomes by a distinct agency, voluntarily engaging in this
process for any of the reasons mentioned above. Yet, when analyzing the path of institutionalizing

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