A global trend in budgeting and public expenditure management is to
move the locus of concern from a focus on control of budgetary inputs
(emphasizing fiscal discipline) toward a focus on responsibility for service
outcomes (the desirable results that emerge from governmental operations,
emphasizing resource allocation) or results-oriented management and
evaluation. While local governments may have fewer technical skills in
statistical monitoring and sophisticated evaluation of results, they can make
up for that by greater proximity to the citizenry being served: by paying attention to public response and integrating public input into the monitoring
process, a results or outcome orientation emerges.18 However, Schick (1998)
forcefully points out that control of inputs is critical and must be assured
before governments move to the more risky task of control of outcomes or
results in the budget process. Local services are, however, somewhat more
susceptible to the results focus than are central services.