Research On Index Design Of Local Government Performance In The Residents’ Minimum Living Security

Disparities between rich and poor have become a prominent issue of public governance. The government’s minimum living security is one of the effective ways to solve this problem. A reasonable and scientific evaluation on local government’s performance in residents’ minimum living security is an important means and necessary step to guarantee the effective implementation of the minimum living security system, promote local government’s efficiency on this work and improve the government’s service quality.At present, some local governments have begun a preliminary attempt and exploration on performance evaluation about the minimum living security system, but a comprehensive and systematic performance evaluation index system of local government has not been built yet. Local governments at all levels are currently evaluating the minimum living security mainly focusing on the minimal livelihood funds. For example, in 2007, Hebei Province issued "Interim Measures to Evaluate the Preformance in Minimal Livelihood Funds for Urban Residents in Hebei Province "; domestic scholars have done few researches on performance evaluation of the minimum living guarantee which is a special project for the public sector, and existing assessments mostly concentrate on the policy level, with few emphasize the government’s performance. In addition, the current study also adopts objective assessment to evaluate performance.Embarking on the basic theory of public sector’s performance evaluation, basing on ideas of the dual objective assessment and benchmarking, combining with the Balanced Scorecard method of financial results, management, development dimensional evaluation system, this paper designs an evaluation system which includes four-level indicators, 20 specific indicators, 33 indicators measure, and it also gives the index assignment and calculation methods. Meanwhile, this paper demonstrates the reasonableness of the assessment system from the evaluation of ideas, assessment methods, evaluation indicators, and demonstrates its advance and scientificity from the comparison with the current evaluation system and the existing theoretical evaluation system. This paper also verifies the operability of the evaluation system through simulating an assessment on the specific case occurred in J S City Province, hoping to bring positive value for the minimum living security work from a practical level and a certain level of methodological tools.This paper is divided into five parts:The first part is an introduction. It includes three parts. The first part is Topic Basis which explains the importance of the assessment on local government‘s minimum living guarantee performance, current situation of assessment system and the exsting problem in practical and theoretical aspects. The second part is Review of Research, explaining foreign research status on the performance evaluation of social assistance system and the national minimum living security system. The third part describes the purpose of this research, study route, research methods and its significance.The second part presents the theoretical basis of evaluation system of local government’s performance in residents’ minimum living security. Through the new public management theory, local government’s performance evaluation connotation, characteristics, structural elements and index design principles are all described. And performance evaluation indicators building tool, target management tools, benchmarking tools, and Balanced Scorecard scorecard methods mentioned in this paper were all introduced here.The third part is of the construction of the performance evaluation system for local government about the residents’ minimum living security. It includes idea of "target-benchmark" performance evaluation basing on management by objectives and benchmarking management, four assessment dimensions of finance, effects, management and development basing on the Balanced Scorecard, as well as specific evaluation indicators, empowering methods and calculation methods.The fourth part is the demonstration part. It is divided into two charpters- the fourth chapter and the fifth charpter. The fourth charpter gives a demonstration to reasonability of the evaluation system from the appraisal thinking, assessment methods, evaluation indicators, and demonstrates its advance and scientificity from the comparison with the current evaluation system and the existing theoretical evaluation system. The fifth charpter simulates an application of the evaluation system to the specific case in J S City Province, and through this example demonstrates the scientificity and operability of the evaluation system and evaluation methods.The fifth part is the conclusion, which mainly describes the innovation of this paper and its deficiencies.