The Effect of Performance Contracting on Public Service Delivery of Employees in Huduma Centres in Western Kenya

Abstract

Kenya's government has faced community pressure to enhance service performance. Service delivery has not improved due to privatization, voluntary early retirement, or reorganization. Performance contracting was an option for decreasing service decreases, but only in partnership with Huduma Centres. According to a 2020 Government report, the Centres serviced less than 30,000 customers daily and earned around Kshs 12 billion in revenue. Previous studies on performance contracting were mostly case studies rather than surveys. According to the literature, performance contracting affected service delivery, but Huduma Centres had a dwindling fortune requiring further study. The study's objective was to assess the effect of performance contracting on service delivery. A correlational survey design was used in the study. The target population consisted of 276 workers. The instrument for data collection was the questionnaire, and data was analysed descriptively and using regression analysis. The results revealed that performance contracting increased service delivery by 60.1% or R2=0.601. The study recommends that attention be paid to all the stages in performance contracting to enhance service delivery, and pieces of training and incentives are crucial to performance contracting. The policymakers now know from the study that incentives, goal setting, and performance monitoring are critical to service delivery. Keywords: performance contracting; employee performance; Huduma Centres; service delivery