The Retake of Common Assessment Framework: The Impact on Portuguese Municipalities’ users
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In 1980, the international public sector focused on the
theme of quality and Portugal followed the tendency,
assuming a paradigm change: from bureaucratic and
centralized administration to a service administration,
decentralized and oriented to total quality.
Among various approaches, the Common Assessment
Framework (CAF) stands out, as an European model
that assesses organizational performance, with
reference to the Principles of Excellence and focused on
continuous improvement. In addition to being free, it is
specific for the public sector and was implemented in
Portuguese local authorities
In 1980, the public sector focused on the theme of quality and Portugal followed the
tendency, assuming a paradigm change: from bureaucratic and centralized administration
to a service administration, decentralized and oriented to total quality. Among various
approaches, the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) stands out. It is a European model
that assesses organizational performance, with reference to the Principles of Excellence
and focused on continuous improvement. In addition to being free, it is specific for the
public sector and was implemented in Portuguese local authorities. It is important to
reinstate CAF in order to analyse the results obtained by Portuguese municipalities (15,
among 308) and find out how these results and subsequent impacts interact and determine
quality enhancement of such organizations. Accordingly, our research question is: What is
CAF's contribution to the perception of quality improvement in Portuguese municipalities?
The main general objectives are based on the verification of the following: the effectiveness
of CAF implementation; the level of integration of the CAF model (nine criteria of the
model and eight Principles of Excellence); the results achieved and the perceived impacts
through the implementation of the CAF; and the contribution of the CAF model in the
perception of the overall quality improvement achieved. The research strategy underlies a
naturalistic paradigm, adopting a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews
with those in charge for quality in the municipalities. Regarding the literature review, a set
of elements obtained through CAF’s implementation in the municipalities emerge, namely:
the achieved results include actions and improvement plans, good practices, quality
assessment and measurement system, citizen and stakeholder’s satisfaction, continuous
improvement; on the other hand, in terms of perceived impacts, the achieved results
emerge: organizations’ quality improvements, change of public culture, TQM tool
facilitator, connections between quality management models as well as practices of bench
learning and benchmarking. Thus, it is intended to retake CAF and collaborate for a new
theoretical approach, investigating the impacts of such implementation in the public
administration, specifically in Portuguese municipalities.
