Prefectures have played a leading role in the introduction of evaluation systems into local governments in Japan. At present, almost all local governments have a variety of evaluation systems, most of which adopt performance measurement to implement Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle in the management. However, there seems to be a number of problems in their way of handling data in the process of setting performance measures and their targets, and benchmarking. This article shows the results from the survey of performance measurement systems in all the prefectures of Japan, which follows the previous survey in 2008. This article classifies the typical problems of performance measurement and also explores the way of acquiring the quality of measurement and benchmarking.

  The purpose of this article is to look back on the history of 20 years of performance evaluation system in Japanese local government from a viewpoint of the research and practice, and try to forecast the future of the evaluation system. First, the reasons why the utilization on the evaluation system mainly focused on internal resource-management were explained from environment surrounding the local government around the year 2000 when local government evaluation gained power. Second, the problems of the evaluation system that such factors caused, the prescription for solving them and their limits were discussed. Final part indicates discussions on the recent trend of the evaluation system and the implications for the future vision of the evaluation system.

  Since around mid-1990s, Japanese local governments, for example Mie prefecture, Iwate prefecture, Akita prefecture and Hokkaido prefecture, have tried to use policy evaluation, project analysis. In addition to evaluation and analysis, many local governments used the management review, management-by-objective type organizational activity measurement, performance measurement. The methods and skills of evaluations and measurements are called the ‘administrative evaluation’ system. In the 2014, central government (Cabinet Office) has used the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) cycle and KPI (key performance indicator) system for grants-in aid and subsidies for local governments. Many types of evaluations and measurements have converged on the PDCA and KPI. This convergence is unaccountable problem in the Japanese evaluation theory.

  This paper discusses management and governance system of networked public services, and its performance measurement and management system. In particular, the paper aims to review the literature on this issue mainly in western countries in order to overview the discussion.

  There has been cases where networks are formulated between government agencies or between government and private organizations such as corporation or non-profit organization, in order to better respond to complicated policy issues and/or various policy needs. By formulating networks, certain merits could be obtained such as more flexible reactions for non-routine, dynamic and diverse policy agenda. At the same time, however, more complicated and often difficult management and governance are needed than public service provided by a single organization. For example, multiple system, and multi-layer approaches are becoming important for network management and governance. In addition, different approaches should be simultaneously introduced in the networks such as corporation/collaboration/sharing and delegation/discretion. Furthermore, mutual trust among network participants, and coordination of various interests, including conflict management are also important for better network management and governance.

  For the future, more research, both theoretical and empirical ones, are expected to be conducted in Japan on this matter, and they could contribute to practical solution of problems related to network performance as well as discussion under global environment, and then to overcome “PPP failures”.