Performance reporting delay in local government: a global south view

• Published date: 29 March 2020
• Pages: 477-496
• Date: 29 March 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-06-2019-0177
• Author: Charles Wharton Kaye-Essien
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Performance reporting delay in

local government: a global

south view

Charles Wharton Kaye-Essien

The School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, The American University in Cairo,

New Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Purpose –The object of this paper is to understand how central–local relations and internal technical

characteristics contribute to performance reporting delays at the local level in a Global South context.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper develops and tests four propositions using a combination of

secondary data analyses and semistructured interviews with 30 local government officials.

Findings –The findings indicate that delays in performance reporting are generally high in pre-election years

because leadership commitments at the local level largely shift toward national politics (campaigning for re-

election of the president). Additional reporting delays were found to be the result of low financial capacity to

maintain appropriate data collection and management systems, lack of highly trained monitoring and

evaluation experts at the local level and lack of sanctions for noncompliance.

Research limitations/implications –The fact that some types of Districts (large municipalities and metro

areas with access to large financial resources) were excluded from the analysis induces some bias to the

findings. The choice of 30 out of a total 260 local governments limits the analyses to only 12% of views and

perceptions of local government reporting delay. Additionally sourcing responses from a few monitoring and

evaluation (M&E) personnel out of hundreds of mid- to upper-level employees limited the breath of discussions

that could have resulted from a broader study.

Practical implications –The results of this paper suggest that any attempt at imposing sanctions on late

reporting may not be very successful since national party politics, which lie outside the control of municipalities, is

one of the mainfactors that drivereporting delay. Ratherthan imposing sanctions, governmentshould consider

incentivizing the reporting process.On the other hand,since internally generated funds(IGF) and the M&E team

arefactors that liewithin the controlof the municipality,any attemptto decreasereportingdelay should firstfocus

on improving local revenues and strengthening municipal M&E capacity building.

Originality/value –This paper adds to the existing literature by offering directions for approaching

performance reporting delay in two ways. First, it emphasizes central–local relations as an important political

determinant of performance reporting delay. Second, it explores reporting delay in Ghana’s local governments

and therefore provides useful insights from a Global South perspective.

Keywords Performance reporting, Local government, Ghana, District assemblies, Audit delay

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Local government performance reporting embodies processes of making municipal

service performance and traditional financial information available to the public

(Pollanen, 2014;Montesinos et al., 2013;Brusca and Montesinos, 2016;Brusca et al.,

2017). It is a process regarded within the broader New Public Management discourse as

demonstrative of stewardship, decision-making and public accountability (e.g.

Christensen and Skærbæk, 2007;Pollanen, 2014;Steccolini, 2004). As users of public

resources, public organizations are highly expected to be responsive to those they serve by

providing feedback on their actions and program results. The performance report

provides a “basis for the evaluation of ...[such] actions and results ”(Boyne and Law,

Performance

reporting delay

in local

government

477

I wish to acknowledge the contributions of the three anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments

resulted in this final product. Their help is greatly appreciated.

Research funding The author did not receive any external research funds towards this paper.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0951-3558.htm

Received 9 July 2019

Revised 29 November 2019

19 January 2020

22 February 2020

Accepted 24 February 2020

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 33 No. 4, 2020

pp. 477-496

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-06-2019-0177

2005, p. 179). While media reports and customer service experiences are helpful, they are

often not comprehensive enough to serve as basis for judgment (Pollanen, 2014).

Given its relative importance, the timely publication of the performance report becomes

unequivocally vital for local government performance management. It is not surprising

therefore that factors affecting reporting delay in local government, particularly those related

to financial auditing, have attracted considerable research interests in recent years (Payne

and Jensen, 2002;Cohen and Leventis, 2013;Crain and Bean, 1998;Crain, 1998). For the most

part scholars have assessed the relation between audit delay and factors such as state

regulations (e.g. McLelland and Giroux, 2000), municipal size (e.g. Cohen and Leventis, 2013)

and the presence of incentives (e.g. Johnson, 1998). What is missing so far from the literature

are studies that investigate the influence of central–local relations on performance reporting

[1]. Added to this research gap is the fact that prior studies have addressed reporting delay

mostly from the European and US contexts, with very little reference to the Global South.

Also, most of the literature addresses reporting delay from a financial audit perspective, with

very little reference to nonfinancial performance. Given the fact that (nonfinancial)

performance information is viewed by some (e.g. Ammons and Rivenbark, 2008;

Cunningham and Harris, 2005) as the most effective accountability tool, this paper

attempts to examine reporting delay from a nonfinancial performance perspective using

Ghana’s annual local government reporting system as empirical lens.

The decision to use Ghana as a case was informed by several factors. First, Ghana

currently administers a local performance reporting system that is mostly nonfinancial. The

Annual Progress Report (APR), as it is called, has since its introduction in 2003 been

hampered by problems of late submission (Government of Ghana, 2007,2010,2014). While

the National Development Planning Commission widely blames this problem on the lack of

human, technical and financial capacity, very little has been done by way of critical

investigation to uncover the influence of central–local relation on search delays. This paper is

an attempt to bridge this gap. It adds to the existing literature by offering two novel directions

for understanding performance reporting delay. First, it emphasizes the importance of

looking into central–local relations as an important political determinant of performance

reporting delay. Second, it explores reporting delay in Ghana’s local governments and

therefore provides useful insights from a Global South perspective. Understanding central–

local influences on reporting delay is important primarily because central-government

control is a unique characteristic of local politics in the Global South (Awortwi, 2011). Thus,

the influence of national politics on local administration and accounting is expected to be

highly significant.

The study achieved its objective through a combination of secondary data analyses and

semistructured interviews with 30 local government officials. The findings suggest that any

attempt at sanctioning late reporting may not be very successful since national party politics,

which lie outside the control of municipalities, is one of the main factors that drive reporting

delay. Rather than imposing sanctions, government should consider incentivizing the

reporting process. On the other hand, since internally generated funds (IGF) and

the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team are factors that lie within the control of the

municipality, any attempt to decrease reporting delay should first focus on improving local

revenues and strengthening municipal M&E capacity building.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the next section introduces the reader to

Ghana’s local government context, focusing on the regulations and political structure that

shape performance reporting in the country. Section 3 reviews the general literature on

reporting delay and lays out the hypotheses for the study. Section 4 explains the methods and

data used in the study while Section 5 presents the results. Finally, section 6 discusses the

findings, draws conclusions and provides some recommendations for improving the use of

APRs as a medium of accountability in Ghana.

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