ICMA and SAS launch performance analytics tools to help governments harness Big Data

ICMA has unveiled ICMA Insights, a new performance management and analytics solution for local governments. Developed by ICMA and its members in partnership with SAS, a leading analytics software developer, ICMA Insights helps communities synthesize data they collect across the services they provide — such as police, fire, trash collection, building permits — to track performance metrics and drive improvements in service delivery.

ICMA Insights also offers communities the ability to compare their performance data to other participating jurisdictions using a core set of well-defined measures. ICMA Insights is being launched at ICMA’s 100th Annual Conference, September 14-17, in Charlotte/Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

“It’s extremely fitting that as we look ahead to the next 100 years of local government leadership, performance management is front and center,” said Bob O’Neill, Executive Director of ICMA. He pointed out that ICMA first addressed performance improvement in local government in 1932 and has been working to advance the state of the art of performance management since that time. “If we can get 2,000 communities in our database, participants can then match their performance against lots of other communities and make evaluations based not only on their own historical performance but against a universe of similar communities.”

Paula Henderson, Vice President, SAS State and Local Government Practice, said, “The tremendous growth of local government data demands the use of analytics to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and mitigate risk. Our collaboration with ICMA puts powerful performance management tools in easy reach of local governments, regardless of size or budget.”

Tiers of service

Five levels of service are offered to cover a range of community and budget sizes. The tier services range from basic summary statistics and integrated reporting to more advanced customizable graphs, scorecards, dashboards and performance forecasting. Multiple local user licenses with additional users based on population are also available.

The service includes training modules; a private online network for peer-to-peer discussion; and ICMA-generated research, case studies, and white papers.

Communities can conveniently report, benchmark and analyze performance using the latest technology employed by Fortune 500 companies but at a fraction of the cost, and results can easily be shared with citizens.