LIST OF PANELS

National and subnational governments have been dealing with the challenges emerging from implementation of performance management requirements including the relevance of the measures, data quality, cultural change, fiscal risk and federal scrutiny of state responsibilities.  These experiences are providing considerable challenges for practitioners working across levels of government and sectors.  International experience in federal systems confirms that government wide policies need to be flexible and recognise these differences within intergovernmental dimensions.  The aim of this Panel is to analyse the application of performance management systems when governments collaborate for service delivery.  Papers will extend current analysis and debate and incorporate various federal contexts.

Issues with performance management raise concerns about the opportunities and constraints in federal systems for collaboration in the delivery of government initiatives.  Bouckaert and Halligan (2008) argue collaborative governance is an expectation of citizens that is becoming ‘embedded’ in thinking and culture, yet tentative in practice.  Ansell and Gash (2008) argue the term collaborative governance promises a sweet reward that if we govern collaboratively, we may avoid the high costs of adversarial policy making, expand democratic participation, and even restore rationality to public management.  Moynihan, et al. (2011) ask if the dispersed nature of collaborative authority, featuring multiple actors with different goals and interests, shape performance measurement.  Experience in federal systems confirms that government wide policies need to be flexible and recognise these differences within intergovernmental dimensions.  Radin (2006) argues that if performance requirements are not sensitive to the differences in program and policy design, they are likely to promote increased conflict between levels of government. Questions and issues surrounding performance management emphasise a pronounced and developed attention on performance and a new type of thinking about how performance is driving federal systems and how federal systems are driving performance.  Approaches to national policies in federal systems vary across jurisdictions and policy sectors, for example from the permissive federalism in Canada to the highly centralised approach in Australia.  This panel proposes a focus on the contemporary approach of ‘performance federalism’ where performance management systems are present and there are questions about how to use them to strengthen the parts and the total setting.  The aim is to analyse the application of performance management systems when governments collaborate for service delivery.  Papers will extend current analysis and debate and incorporate various federal contexts.