‘Frontier methods’ offer a powerful but accessible approach for measuring the efficiency of public sector organisations

How can the efficiency of public sector organisations best be measured? Jesse Stroobants and Geert Bouckaert write that while the efficiency of an organisation is typically measured using performance indicators, there are some notable problems with this approach, such as the tendency for different indicators to produce conflicting conclusions on organisational performance. As an alternative, they outline so called ‘frontier methods’, which use direct comparisons between different organisations to create a benchmark or standard for performance. They argue that the frontier approach not only alleviates some of the problems associated with performance indicators, but is also broadly accessible for those employed in public administration.