Publications on Public Management, Services

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 to help Americans start and build small businesses. Recently, the SBA commissioned the Urban Institute to look at four of the agency's loan and investment programs to assess their past performance and consider how the agency can set benchmarks for future performance management. The studies addressed three key research questions of particular interest to SBA and its constituents: 1) Does SBA assistance help the firms that receive it? 2) To what extent does SBA assistance serve its market? 3) Do SBA programs duplicate or overlap with other public sector programs?

The extent of our nation's preparedness to address large-scale disasters will likely receive renewed attention around the anniversaries of Hurricane Katrina and the attacks of 9/11. This commentary recommends that disaster planning address not only the immediate and short-term responses to disaster, but also the longer-term social service needs of disaster victims, such as mental health services and case management. The Urban Institute's study of the American Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program provides a sense of the need for such services and their value to those affected by disaster. Integrating longer-term recovery services into disaster planning can help ensure their availability in the wake of future disasters.

Nonprofit organizations are a crucial link in our nation’s emergency preparedness and disaster response efforts, but their role is not always well integrated into disaster planning. After both Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, nonprofits provided immediate and longer-term assistance to help people cope with devastating life changes and the emotional aftermath, but the importance of long-term services is not well understood or even acknowledged by victims and policymakers alike. This brief highlights the lessons learned from the Urban Institute’s assessment of the American Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program, which provided grants to community-based organizations to provide longer-term case management, mental health services, and other services to facilitate recovery to eligible individuals.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have once again expanded the services provided under Medicare. New coverage of ultrasound monitoring of cardiac output today, new treatments for congestive heart failure yesterday, and, undoubtedly, some new cancer treatment tomorrow. New technology might even help reduce Medicare costs, though past history argues against that rosy result for most improvements. Getting more usually means paying more.

Accountability is core to high-performance government, efficient service delivery, and taxpayers’ confidence in local government. In turn, performance measurement is key to accountability. Performance measurement is the subject of How Effective Are Your Community Services? This book highlights the practical steps necessary to select measures of service quality and use them efficiently. It enables you to assess whether you’re doing the right things and how well you’re doing them.