Assessing the performance of Polish Regional Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management using DEA model

Abstract

The public sector is under growing pressure to increase its efficiency. Expectations from the political authorities, local communities, stakeholders and media towards the public-sector entities are high. Modern management methods must be introduced to meet them. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is an important method used in comparative studies of public sector efficiency. Voivodeship Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management (VFEPWMs) are public entities that financially support actions aimed at environmental protection and water management. Their task is to acquire and redistribute financial resources to support projects related to environmental protection. VFEPWMs face the challenge of increasing the use of available funds and the efficiency of their use. The paper presents the use of DEA method — which is as a modern engineering management tool — to evaluate the VFEPWMs performance. In the DEA performance analysis of VFEPWM, it is assumed that each unit may be characterised by their input resources, effects, environmental variables and transformation processes that transform resources into effects. VFEPWMs have better performance if they transform resources into desirable effects (actions) more efficiently. The results of the conducted analysis allow comparing the performance of particular VFEPWMs, to identify model units and to develop benchmarking graphs. The analysis is performed not only to assess the current level of VFEPWM performance but also to acquire information allowing to remove inefficiency.