What are the outcomes of public services and public policy?

There are two fundamentally important types of outcome of public services and public policy:

• improvements to the quality of life of stakeholders, and, in particular, to citizens; and
• achievement of the key public governance principles which are prioritised by stakeholders

Quality of life outcomes are those changes in the quality of life of stakeholders to which they attach value. For citizens, this typically includes a range of dimensions of their life, as shown in the graphic above, such as good health, a good job, educational achievement, a comfortable home, fun from their leisure activities, close social connections and a pleasant local environment.

Moreover, there are also some quality-of-life outcomes which are important to society collectively, rather than being central to the concerns of individual citizens – these include the global environment and the level of equality in society. Clearly, the local environment is also a collective good, as well as being enjoyed by individuals, and this applies also to some aspects of ‘social connections’ – where these are dense and positive, they contribute to rich social capital, which has benefits for everyone.

In addition, we need to recognise that ‘the ends do not justify the means’, so that achievement of these quality-of-life outcomes is not the only set of results which are needed for good governance – it is also important are also that key public governance principles are also respected. This is discussed in more detail in the Public Governance section.

The Governance International model for improving outcomes helps you to map the different pathways to outcomes which are open to you, so that you can choose the pathway or pathways which are likely to be most cost-effective.
An example of a map of pathways to outcomes is given below.

By mapping these pathways to outcomes, not only are the intervention options made clearer but so is the need for prioritising which of these pathways will be given most attention. This has the critical advantage of highlighting that it is illogical to ‘pick and mix’ interventions which lie on different pathways – a confusion which is very common in public service planning and delivery.

Moreover, the map of pathways to outcomes promotes appropriate performance measurement. All interventions along a pathway need to be monitored to ensure that it is working but the interventions at the lower levels are likely to most easily and quickly assessable. However, it is obviously desirable that over time the achievement of the higher levels on each pathway is also assessed.