Performance Data Breaks
Performance Data Breaks
Breaking the Mould and Burying the Evidence
This chapter focuses on the data that documents government performance over time, showing that despite the rhetorical emphasis placed on the desirability of evidence-based policy and management, the continued destruction of consistent data-series over time often makes it impossible or at least very laborious for anyone to possess evidence about whether government is doing better or worse over a period of more than a few years. The chapter examines why that should be so, setting out four ways of explaining this evidence-destroying data ‘churn’ (ranging from deliberate cover-ups to more mundane organizational dynamics), and exploring the consequences of such churn. The study of data breaks and data volatility is argued to be valuable for the light it can throw on changing priorities, preoccupations, and ways of working over a generation, and the chapter develops a unique ‘data volatility index’ to enable the phenomenon to be tracked and analysed.
Keywords: evidence-based policy, data churn, data breaks, organizational dynamics, data volatility, performance
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