An Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) sponsored project, 'Leadership Change and Public Services: Reinvigorating Performance or Reinforcing Decline?' in November 2009, examined the link between local government leadership and public service performance. They use Comprehesive Performance Assessment (CPA) results to answer two questions:

• Does performance influence the turnover of political and managerial leaders?
• Do new political and senior managerial leaders make a difference to subsequent organisational performance?

The report concludes that poor organisational performance leads to higher turnover of political and managerial leadership. It also finds that leadership turnover leads to better results if prior performance was weak, but worse results if prior performance was strong. Political leaders of poorly performing councils generally experience a fall in their electoral support at a subsequent election, the report finds, although their poll ratings do not tend to improve when a council is judged to be improving.

Access the Improvement Network's policy hot topics briefing on 'Leadership Change and Public Services' (PDF file, 4 pages, 41 KB).

ESRC’s paper: 'Managing By Numbers: The Way to Make Public Services Better?' examines the use of performance measurement in transforming public services since 1997, and whether performance indicators are reliable and have improved public service quality. They find both positive and negative effects.