Benchmarking Local Government Services: Applying an Issue-Based Approach

• Author: Saman Shafiq,Evgenia Kapousouz,Michael D. Siciliano,Jeffrey M. Gawel
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X221113367
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Field Notes

Benchmarking Local

Government Services: Applying

an Issue-Based Approach

Saman Shaf‌iq

1

, Evgenia Kapousouz

1

,

Michael D. Siciliano

1

, and Jeffrey M. Gawel

1

Abstract

Conventional benchmarking methods that rely on pre-existing measures may not be best suited for

many of the challenges confronting local ser vice delivery. This paper introduces an issue-based

benchmarking method and describes the six-stage cycle implemented by a benchmarking collabora-

tive in the Chicagoland region. Each stage of the process is discussed to highlight the approaches and

tools used to identify the most salient issues and relevant performance measures. In the f‌inal sec-

tion, we ref‌lect on the changes we made to the process and overall lessons learned that we believe

will help others attempting to engage in similar benchmarking efforts.

Keywords

local governance, government service delivery, benchmarking

Introduction

Benchmarking is an important instrument for

local government reform capable of helping

local off‌icials advance service delivery per-

formance (Folz 2004; Ammons 2014).

While def‌initions of what exactly constitutes

benchmarking vary (Francis and Holloway

2007), an often-quoted def‌inition for benchmark-

ing comes from Camp (1989): “Benchmarking

is the search for the best industry practices

which will lead to exceptional performance

through the implementation of these practices”

(10). Thus, benchmarking is centered on the

identif‌ication of the best practices employed

by other jurisdictions and the comparison of

one’s service-performance statistics with those

of an appropriate counterpart (Ammons, Coe

and Lombardo 2001). While there is abundant

literature surrounding benchmarking and what

makes it successful (Cox and Thompson

1998; Bowerman et al. 2002; Hinton, Francis

and Holloway 2000), there is no single “one

size f‌its all”strategy to benchmarking. It is

highly context-specif‌ic, especially when under-

taken in an environment subject to political

pressures (Bowerman, Ball and Francis 2001;

Northcott and Llewellyn 2005).

In 2017, a team from the University of

Illinois Chicago (UIC), Department of Public

Administration began a benchmarking process

with the newly formed “Northern Illinois

1

University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Saman Shaf‌iq, Department of Public Administration,

University of Illinois Chicago, 412 S. Peoria Street,

CUPPA Hall (MC 350), Chicago, IL 60607, USA.

Email: sshaf‌i7@uic.edu

Field Notes

State and Local Government Review

2022, Vol. 54(3) 267-279

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0160323X221113367

journals.sagepub.com/home/slg