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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: performance excellence

Orion Hospital Trust, a public sector body, is considering a scorecard. Its main purpose is to deliver patient care within a fixed government grant. Which adaptation of the standard Kaplan and Norton scorecard is most appropriate?

The scorecard should be adapted so that the mission or service outcome sits at the top, with the financial perspective acting as a constraint on delivering patient care within the grant. Patient or user measures remain central. Profit maximisation does not apply, and neither dropping customers nor ignoring finance suits a funded public body.

  1. AKeep the financial perspective at the top as the ultimate objective, since all organisations exist to maximise profit
  2. BPlace the mission or service outcome at the top and treat the financial perspective as a constraint or enabler alongside customer (patient) measuresCorrect
  3. CDrop the customer perspective because patients do not pay directly for services
  4. DUse only non-financial measures because funding is fixed

Explanation

For public sector and not-for-profit bodies the mission, such as patient outcomes, is the primary objective, and finance acts as a constraint to deliver within the grant. Keeping profit at the top is inappropriate. Dropping the customer perspective is wrong because service users are central, and ignoring financial measures neglects the budget constraint.

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