Caldas, Paulo

Dollery, Brian

Marques, Rui Cunha

2022

This paper focuses on "measuring what matters" in local government and presents a new evaluation model called Municipality Sustainability Index (MSI) based on the integration of a municipality's financial performance with community sustainability and governance. Using Multi-criteria Decision Analysis methodology (MCDA), we develop an additive evaluation model which aggregates 25 indicators across four dimensions of performance to assess local government sustainability. A decision-making group (DMG) composed of representatives drawn from a network of stakeholders involved in local government- provided information on the requirements needed for a precise evaluation of the performance of any municipality along with prescriptive guidelines for a better local government decision-making. The MSI is used as a tool for local government evaluation and municipal strategic management. In order to illustrate the operation of the model, we applied it to Lisbon and to the sub-region of Leziria do Tejo in Portugal in order to assess performance, financial sustainability and governance. The Portuguese MSI model thus constitutes integrated instrument for local government evaluation.

Policy Studies, 43(4), p. 738-758

1470-1006

0144-2872

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/29613

en

Routledge

Measuring what matters in local government: a Municipality Sustainability Index

Journal Article

Publication