There is a big literature on performance targets in the public sector but much less research on targets shared by more than one organisation. Performance targets shared by central government departments offer a tool for core executives to coordinate ministries. Performance management theory suggests this can mitigate departmentalism but collective action theory applied to shared targets suggests problems of free-riding. The UK Public Service Agreements regime offers evidence in this controversy. PSAs were long-term performance objectives with associated targets and were set for both departmental and cross-departmental policy issues. The case of employment policy shows that PSAs helped to coordinate spending plans and policy-making processes across departments and improved top-down policy delivery processes, including through the development of consistent performance assessment systems. However, the employment PSA joint targets’ effects were limited by the separate departmental structures for resourcing and ministers and civil servants’ accountability which fundamentally limited collective action. The PSAs became a stage on a move towards more fundamental organizational mergers intended to incentivise coordination of employment systems. PSAs were deemphasised across the public sector from 2010 following a change in government but many objectives and targets remain. The lessons of PSAs have enduring and broad relevance beyond the case study and suggest shared targets help core executives focus policy attention on shared policy goals, can help monitor some aspects of policies cutting across organisational boundaries, but have much more limited incentive effects.
