Effectiveness of Performance Contracting on Service Delivery in Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

The Government of Kenya introduced Performance Contracting (PC) in the public service to improve service delivery. This study investigated the effectiveness of PC in service delivery in the public universities in Kenya. It evaluated the level of involvement of university staff and students in PC, the effectiveness of PC in improving customer satisfaction and accountability, as well as feedback and conflict resolution. It was based on the assumption that respondents were aware of PC policies. It used descriptive survey design and targeted 132,021 subjects, comprising 84,290 students, 15,937 academic staff, 31,789 non-teaching staff and 5 directors of PC in five public universities. A normal sample size of 384 respondents was appropriate, but 500 were used to compensate for attrition. Purposive sampling was used to select directors and simple random sampling to select academic staff, non-academic staff and students. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used in data collection. Piloting was done in three public universities which had similar characteristics with the sampled universities. Reliability was tested using split half technique and Cronbach formula was used to compute reliability, resulting in 0.81, 0.78, 0.73 and 0.79 for academic staff, non-academic staff, directors and students, respectively. Data analysis was done using SPSS. A response rate of 93% was achieved. Majority of the staff were involved in PC and a positive correlation between level of staff involvement in PC and improvement in service delivery (0.699, α=0.05) resulted. A positive correlation between: effectiveness of PC and customer satisfaction (0.807), as well as feedback process (0.90) resulted. Public universities should regularly sensitize staff and students on PC and service delivery, reward staff that perform well in PC and involve students in development of service delivery charters. The Government should strengthen public universities in carrying out PC to progressively improve service delivery.