We have updated our performance reporting framework to improve the clarity of our performance information, align it more closely to Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS), better reflect the Department’s core work, and ensure a clear read across all of our performance documents and reporting cycles.
The new framework describes how we will measure our progress in achieving our mission and purposes through:
- Key activities reflect our core work to deliver on the Department’s strategic priorities, purposes and ultimately our mission. Our key activities cut across a number of our purposes and will be used to demonstrate how we achieve our purposes.
- Intended results describes the impact, difference or result we want to achieve in support of the key activities and purposes.
- Performance measures evaluate our progress towards the intended results.
- Targets describe the results we are aiming for in each performance measure over the next four years of this plan.
- Methodologies and data sources that describe how our performance information is collected analysed and reported.
Accurately measuring the impact of our role as policy advisers and our unique position at the centre of government can be challenging. We work in a complex environment and in partnership with a number of stakeholders to advise and support the delivery of Government priorities. As such, our key activities were developed to reflect our enabling role in the delivery of Government priorities as well as to highlight programs and services delivered by the Department.
To assess achievement against each key activity, we use a mix of output, effectiveness and efficiency measures and qualitative and quantitative methodologies and data sources. This will ensure an appropriate balance in our reporting information and enable an unbiased assessment of our results at the end of the performance cycle. Our measures are defined in line with the guidance provided by the Department of Finance:
- Output measures assess the quantity and quality of the goods and services produced by an activity.
- Effectiveness measures assess whether the activities have had the intended impact.
- Efficiency is generally measured as the price of producing a unit of output and expressed as a ratio of inputs to outputs. Measuring efficiency within the Department is difficult given the nature of our work. We have used timeliness as a proxy to measure efficiency as it shows efficiency in our response time over time.
Qualitative assessment, particularly through case study, remains a key methodology to complement the quantitative assessments. As this updated performance reporting framework presents a new way of measuring our performance this year, we will be using the 2021–22 reporting period to develop baseline targets for many of our measures. Where practicable to do so, we have set targets. Where no targets have been set, we will continue to review these measures and seek to establish a baseline target where appropriate to do so.
These updates to our performance reporting framework are part of the Department’s continuous review and improvement of our planning and reporting processes. This framework strengthens our ability to demonstrate consistency across reporting documents and presents a new starting point for assessing our performance over time. We will continue to review and refine our performance measures, targets and methodology over future reporting cycles.
