Politicians' use of performance information: survey research in Dutch municipalities on local politician's sources of performance information

After a theoretical overview of factors which could influence aldermen’s use of information, this paper presents some findings of survey research on 262 aldermen of 140 Dutch municipalities with 20,000 or more inhabitants. The findings of the survey indicate that many respondents considered the output-orientedness of planning and control documents to be far from perfect. Moreover, many aldermen hardly appreciated the output-oriented information on developments and performances that was available in their organizations. The sources of performance information of which most aldermen – who are elected politicians -made by far the most use were informal, verbal consultations and formal meetings with official top managers. They made much less use of, for example, formal, written information in budgets, annual reports, and management reports. A statistical analysis of the variables in the survey showed that certain characteristics may influence aldermen’s opinions on and use of various sources of performance information. However, the analysis did not always indicate significant differences between information preferences of subgroups of aldermen