This article analyses the implementation of performance indicators, which are important parts of the New Public Management (NPM) “doctrinal puzzle”, by the regulatory authorities of the industries at risk. Based on long-term fieldwork, it shows how these instruments are defined by the central administration of the Ministry of the Environment and how they circulate throughout the environmental Inspectorate, from the central to the regional and departmental units. By following this longitudinal and sectoral approach, the paper demonstrates how the managerial rationality of the indicators is partly redefined by the inspectors’ professional rationales. In doing so, it suggests that New Public Management should not be viewed as a “ready-made” list of recipes designed by senior officials dominating inspection services. It considers instead how the administration as a whole selects, translates and adapts these neo-managerial tools to opportunistically solve organi zational problems.