Measuring fire service performance: a comparative study

Abstract

PurposeThe new public management (NPM) agenda is transforming the public sector in many countries. However, there have been criticisms of NPM, particularly over its emphasis on quantification, results orientation and the measurement of performance to the possible detriment of service delivery. The purpose of this paper is to examine an important public service – the fire service – in differing contexts: the “mature” NPM setting of the UK, and a “late adopter” of NPM – Portugal.Design/methodology/approachThis study is conducted by a combined methods approach. The principal focus of this study is on publicly available databases of performance indicators. The data are supported by additional material from operational officers in fire services, and from oversight bodies, obtained by interviews and by survey in Portugal.FindingsThis comparative study reaffirms the potential for NPM solutions to public service management. In particular, there is a case for carefully targeted key performance indicators in Portuguese fire services.Originality/valueThis paper makes an original contribution to ideas of NPM in action by focussing on performance measurement in different contexts. The comparative aspect of this paper is crucial as a means of assessing the portability of NPM ideas in different national settings.

Institutional Logics in Police Performance Indicator Development: A Comparative Case Study of Spain and Finland

“…Public sector accounting and PM have been widely studied, and, despite EU regulation (harmonization) and the NPM trend, differences among European countries have been found (Boyne, 2003;Carmona and Grönlund, 2003;Carvalho, Fernandes, Lambert and Lapsley, 2006;Marques, Ribeiro and Scapens, 2011;Olson, Guthrie and Humphrey, 1998). The various stakeholders of public organizations have multiple aims and interests, which create multiple institutional pressures for selecting and using KPIs.…”

“…proactive or reactive) and not all crimes are the same. Further, Carvalho et al (2006) noted differences in the design, selection and use of KPIs in the UK and Portugal fire services, some of which might be attributed to differences in national culture or the prominent institutional logics among these northern and southern European countries.…”

“…In particular, KPIs and institutional logics may differ among northern and southern European countries (Carvalho et al, 2006). Therefore, in this paper we take 'polar opposites' and analyse police work in Finland (a Nordic country with about 5 million inhabitants) and in Spain (a Southern European country with about 46 million inhabitants).…”

Use of performance information by local politicians: a field study in the Portuguese context

“…Just as was concluded by Askim (2007) in the Norwegian context, we believe that Portugal is not a particularly friendly terrain regarding performance man agement practices considering the features of the politicaladministrative system. Prior studies on the adoption of managerial and accounting innovations in the Portuguese context confirm the limited adoption and use of innovative practices like the use of cost information (Carvalho et al, 2012), the use of performance indicators on the fire sector (Carvalho et al, 2006), and the implementation of the Plan Activity and the Report Activity (Araújo and Branco, 2009). Findings provided by Araújo and Branco (2009) reveal that the adoption of the Plan Activity and the Report Activity is seen merely as a formality or routines and do not imply a real transformation of the culture of bureaucracies.…”

“…In this paper we find that politicians have a greater orientation towards the 'implicit' and the 'operationsconscious' styles rather than to the 'outputconstrained' and the 'outcomecon scious' styles. The institutional bureaucracies that feature the Portuguese administrative system, the 'transition period' in introducing NPM reforms (Araújo, 2002;Araújo and Branco, 2009;Carvalho et al, 2006Carvalho et al, , 2011Carvalho et al, , 2012Gomes and Mendes, 2013) and the context of high fiscal crisis faced in the last four years (Gomes et al, 2015) can help to understand the use of performance information by Portuguese local elected politicians.…”