Contrasting New Public Management (NPM) Versus Post-NPM Through Financial Performance

Abstract

Financial reports under New Public Management (NPM) programs can provide an incomplete picture of government finances. Post-NPM reforms could help overcome this weakness through the use of aggregate financial measures. This article focuses on the effects of the agencification process analyzing the differences between individual and aggregate measures of government financial performance in the Spanish local government. In general, the results show there is greater compliance with post-NPM postulates, although this does not mean that NPM and post-NPM management models cannot coexist. The use of aggregate performance measures could help bring about this improvement Article at UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO on January 4, 2015 aas.sagepub.com Downloaded from Zafra-Gómez et al. 711in controlling public agencies and, therefore, make public sector entities more efficient.

Assessing Financial Condition of Municipal Sports Agencies: A Data Benchmarking Approach

“…We used indicators previously applied in other studies that measured financial performance [22,27,30,31,33]. Likewise, we added the indicator of Current Expenditures per capita due to its strong relevance for management and control by the public administration [40].…”

“…The indicators can be seen in (Table 1). We measured flexibility through the Net Saving Index per capita [22,31,33]. Using this indicator makes it possible to know if the entity is funding current expenditures by incomes obtained through capital operations or via debt, or on the contrary, has additional incomes to finance part of the new investment.…”

“…Finally, we selected the Non-Financial Budgetary Result Index as the indicator related to sustainability because this is used in the most recent literature on the financial condition [22,31,33]. The results show the Euros spent for each Euro received, and a value below 1 will affect nonfinancial surplus.…”

External constraints on Spanish municipal sports agencies’ finances

“…Mainly based on the New Public Management, the local governments in the European Union have been involved in reforms represented by different ideological lines since the 1990s (Hood, 1991;Zafra-Gómez et al, 2012). Among these reforms, the increase of the control and evaluation of results, the adaptation of management techniques from the private sector, or the decentralization of many of the provided services, are remarkable examples (Lapsley and Pallot, 2000).…”

“…The financial condition can be measured through a series of indicators related to cash solvency and budgetary solvency, divided in turn into the concepts of flexibility, vulnerability, and sustainability (CICA, 2007;Grennberg and Hillier, 1995). This system was used in several recent municipal level studies (Pérez-López et al, 2014;Zafra-Gómez et al, 2012. Cash solvency refers to the ability to generate sufficient liquidity to meet short-term obligations.…”