Tuesday 22 March 2011

How to Rate a Mayor?

I've just been following an interesting Twitter conversation thread between local politicians and Leicester Mercury reporters about how the elected Mayor's salary should be set. It struck me that almost any salary figure you pluck out of thin air will seem arbitrary because there aren't many comparable roles and being a politician is just altogether 'different' from other jobs.

What seems right to me is that the Mayor should give value for money and one way of assessing this would be some fundamental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure against.

So class, for your homework I would like you to suggest suitable KPIs for the Mayor of a large diverse city. You have until May 5th to hand in your work. Here are some suggestions:-
  • School results
  • Rates/tax receipts
  • Life expectancy of citizens
  • Average travel time to work