The Challenges of Thai Local Government Performance Measurement

Abstract

Performance measurement of local governments is a tool for administrative oversight and control of local agencies used by central government worldwide including the Local Administrative Promotion, the Ministry of Interior, Thailand.  However, such a tool to measure and oversee local agencies is practically complex and challenging, Particularly if the implementers want to gain the most benefit from it.  The current approach to local government performance measurement requires important aspects that perfectly relate the measurement to local people and to the community.  Hence, evaluators should pay equal attention to roles of the citizens that receive significant impact from local governments as to the evaluation tools created by the oversight agency. Especially, measuring the “impact” on the stakeholders in new local government operations, which are characterized by task integration among different local agencies, is highly complex.  This new approach will increase the challenges for the evaluators and for evaluation at the local level, as it involves different local government units in the performance measurement.