Local governance performance: objective indicators or citizens satisfaction

Performance management of the local governance in Russia becomes nowadays very important. It happens due to the fact that the quality of public and local services to a large extent determines the quality of the citizens day-to-day life. Nevertheless, the methods of performance management for the local authorities cannot be "directed from the ones above".. These methods must be concerned primarily about satisfying citizens requirements for the urban environment quality. Thus, composite methods for performance management of the local authorities should be developed. They must combine the statistics and citizens surveys results.This article presents an analysis of Russian legislation and the regional practice of the local authorities performance management; a scheme of the performance analysis of different departments of the city administrations to develop some elements for evaluating and monitoring local authorities activities, and for enhancing citizens satisfaction with the quality of the environment. In addition, it e discusses some points of the statistics and surveys results correlation and possible errors of the evaluation..