How Citizens View Government Performance Reporting

Performance reporting to citizens is an important way to keep government accountable and transparent. This study uses data from a national online survey to examine the sources through which citizens obtain performance information about local government, how much they trust these sources, and their assessments of local government efforts at performance reporting. Results suggest that by far the most common source of information about local government performance is the local news, followed by the informal channel of friends or neighbors. The most trusted sources are nonprofit or civic associations, followed by colleges or universities. Levels of trust of government agencies and officials as sources of performance information were much lower. Ratings of local government efforts at performance reporting were positively associated with the presence of Web-based performance information, releasing an annual report, holding public meetings, and sending households a local government "report card." There was a strong positive association between government efforts at performance reporting and trust of government as a performance information source.