New Public Management is the paradigm that has inspired reforms of state modernization worldwide. In 1998, the Chilean government established the use of performance assessment instruments which provide individual incentives, and in 2004, established a senior executives system, which would allow public agencies to take into the headquarters people with appropriate professional skills according to their duties. In a critical view of the utility of these systems, this article shows that the use of performance assessment tools in Chile has not yet generated the impacts proposed in the literature, whereas senior executives system has contributed positively to the efficiency of public spending.