Productivity measurement and enterprise bargaining in the public sector - the local government perspective

The introduction of efficiency improvements and enterprise bargaining into local authorities has been severely hampered by a failure to agree on a method of measuring service productivity. This paper develops an outcomes measure of productivity which, it argues, meets both externally imposed costefficiency requirements and clients’ needs for service effectiveness in terms of quality and equity in delivery. Applications of this measure to library and stautory planning services are provided.