Measuring Efficiency in Local Governments' Planning and Regulatory Function

Public sector reform has now become an established dimension of policymaking in many developed countries, including Australia.Although the ongoing program of public sector reform is Australia has focused mainly on the Commonwealth government and some state governments, especially Victoria, it is now being applied to local government.Key aspects of this process have been administrative reforms (compulsory competitive tendering and contracting-out), structural reforms (local council consolidations), legislative reforms (fiscal transparency and accountability), and workplace reform (labour market deregulation).Another part has been the collection of new ideas associated with what has come to be known as the 'New Public Management'.Central ingredients in this movement have been the notion of explicit standards and measures of performance in the public sector, the greater emphasis on outputs rather than inputs, the shift to greater competition in the public sector, an emphasis on private-sector styles of management practice (ie.'letting managers manage'), and a stress on greater discipline and parsimony in resource use (Hood, 1991).Finally, there is a greater awareness on the behalf of the Commonwealth