Performance measurement: When performance can never be finally defined

The development of performance‐based management poses special difficulties for the public service. There is a tendency to focus on measurement, but that ignores the way quality needs to be judged in the public realm. The assessment of performance, when values can conflict, is necessarily a matter of judgement. The assessment of performance will shift as political debate develops. Fully satisfactory measures of performance are unlikely ever to be discovered. There is a need to recognize the imperfections and limitations of measures, and to use them as a means of supporting politically informed judgement.