Public sector performance measurement and reporting

The Victorian Auditor-General has recently published a report which documents the lamentable nature of public service performance reporting, not just in Victoria but across all Australian jurisdictions.

In summary, he finds that

"The departments we examined are not effectively applying the government's performance measurement and reporting system."

and

"the Budget Papers and annual reports that are meant to explain performance are impenetrable documents because:

• the numerous output measures reported rarely provide sufficient information to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of output delivery

• weaknesses in defining objectives and linking them to outputs mean they are not sufficient to measure and report on outcomes

• the absence of meaningful commentary on output metrics means these documents are of minimal value in explaining performance.

There has also been slow progress in developing corporate and long-term plans to provide government with the type of intelligence needed to address medium- and long-term threats to sustainable service delivery."

He was critical of the oversight role of the Department of Treasury and Finance, noting that it:

"has a key role to play in overcoming these barriers. It has been partly effective in its oversight role but needs to improve. It has communicated government's requirements but should provide better guidance and play a key role in helping departments confront and overcome the barriers to change."

In respect of comparison with other jurisdictions:

"Our review of performance measurement and reporting in other Australian states and territories, and overseas, did not find any jurisdiction that had applied the better practices that Victoria wants to achieve.

Instead we found examples of jurisdictions that had applied aspects of better practice or were developing systems that had potential to effectively measure and report on performance. For example:

• Western Australia's approach is more focused on outcomes and this together with a greater commentary on the rationale and trends in measures are relative strengths. But it does not have the same depth of output performance information as Victoria, nor provide sufficient information to understand efficiency trends and explain how performance indicators adequately measure outcomes.

• The New Zealand Ministry of Health’s 2013 annual report uses a framework where high-level outcomes are assessed using a range of measures that are reported with detailed commentary. While not fully linking outputs to clearly articulated outcomes, the framework has more information on outcomes and describes and comments on health spending and productivity trends. It also provides useful commentary on past trends for a range of relevant risk factors.

• The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing provides numerous key performance indicators and deliverables under 14 outcomes, together with extensive commentary. However, most of what it reports relates to outputs without adequately linking these to outcomes.

• South Australia is developing more comprehensive health performance reporting and this is still a work in progress.

• The UK is piloting the use of Patient Reported Outcomes Measures measuring patient health gains covering four common elective procedures and comparing the health gains with the cost of treatment."

Reference
Victorian Auditor-General (2014), Public Sector Performance Measurement and Reporting, Report 201415:10, October.