The Manager's Musings

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The lost art of oversight

THIS ISSUE'S MUSINGS BEGAN PERCOLATING at the National Academy of Public Administration's (NAPA) third annual "performance" conference. All day I had been listening to speakers describe the difficulty at every level of government in determining whether an agency was achieving mission results. I reflected on my own firm's public management consulting clients: a state agency that lacked sufficient oversight of the 20 local mental health authorities and hundreds of nonprofit providers that comprise the statewide mental health system; a county that needed an assessment instrument and process to oversee its diverse, 52-nonprofit-organization network of …