Performance management and metric manipulation in the public sector

This research executive summary explores the circumstances that might influence managers in the public services, particularly within the national health service (NHS), to manipulate the target and performance measures (often known as metric manipulation) that are used to assess performance; and if they do what level of deception they might use.

The research findings suggest ways that governance of performance management systems can be improved, by removing factors that might encourage metric manipulation and by enhancing the factors that encourage good practice.