Wider bureaucratic discretion structurally makes performance measurement impossible

Evidence

Measures of performance quality are elusive for reasons analogous to the difficulty in circumscribing street-level bureaucrats’ discretion. If clients or presenting cases should be treated as if they might present unique situations, then it is impossible to reduce responses to sets of appropriate and previously indicated reactions. To put it another way, the more street-level bureaucrats are supposed to act with discretion, and the broader the areas of discretionary treatment, the more difficult it is to develop performance mea- sures. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1215

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the measurement-and-metrics literature on public administration and to the reader’s interest in how institutionalization of informal practice outpaces formal oversight.