Study title

England

Organization

Event/process

The database aims to provide a comprehensive overview of different indicators used by regulators to measure the performance of universities, hospitals and prisons in England at different points of time (1985, 1995, 2005, 2015). It intends to be exhaustive. However, we cannot lay claim to completeness, given the growing extent and scope of indicators which makes 100% completeness a difficult goal to attain. The chosen sectors (higher education/universities, healthcare/hospitals and criminal justice/prisons) constitute three public sectors where performance measurement took hold, and where issues of quality, economy, and democracy have been publicly discussed. All three sectors have been particularly exposed to managerialist thinking over the past three decades and present ideal cases to explore tensions between “government by rules” and “governance by numbers”. The database starts in 1985 as it aims to assess the impact of new public management reforms that began in the 1980s on the development of performance indicators. Indicators were then re-assessed every ten years to capture their development over time (1995, 2005, 2015). One challenge we faced was to identify empirically what counts as an indicator. Indicators are often based on a compilation of different data assessing performance. They often involve multiple sources of data and various ways of data aggregation, which complicates the task of identifying what counts as an indicator (or its sub-component). In addition, some indicators are more easily accessible than others. For the purpose of compiling this database, we identified and selected indicators through two main methods. First, we reviewed different primary sources where indicators are published (official reports, websites, etc.). Second, we complemented our search with a review of secondary sources (academic articles, books, etc.) to check for completeness and gain information about indicators that was otherwise not available. As highlighted above, the database is aimed at being as comprehensive as possible, however, it does not (and cannot) provide a complete overview of all indicators that may have existed at the time.