Balanced Scorecard for the public administration: issues from a case study

The performance measurement, and as a consequence the performance measurement systems (PMS), is becoming an important issue for managers, regardless the sector (private or public) they belong to. Among all the PMS developed over the years, recently a growing number of public administrations are adopting the one called Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The objective of this study is twofold. First, to develop a BSC model designed and delimited for the public administration. Second, to show how BSC can be implemented successfully for a medium sized Municipality. To this purpose, by adopting a three phased research methodology (that is, literature analysis, Delphi technique and case study-based research), we proposed a measurement instrument including all the appropriate indicators, both financial and non-financial ones. A case study of a medium sized Italian Municipality shows how this performance measurement tool can be effectively implemented. Specifically, results show the successful application of BSC for a Municipality, thus the model developed and its indicators could be useful as a reference for a public administration.