Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rule 2014 section 16EA(f)
The performance measures meet this requirement when they provide a basis for an assessment of the entity's performance over time.
Performance measures are required for each reporting period covered by the plan (that is, a minimum of 4-years). Entities often demonstrate this coverage through specified targets, where reasonably practicable to set a target, for each of the reporting periods covered by the plan.
The performance measures developed and published by an entity must provide a basis for an assessment of the entity’s performance over time.
Many of the objectives of government are ones that will only be achieved over the medium to long term. Therefore, the ability to measure performance over time provides an entity and stakeholders with a more informed view of the entity’s progress in achieving its purposes. This enables an entity to make more informed decisions about the success or otherwise of existing activities. It also enables an entity to demonstrate that it is delivering short, medium and/or long-term impacts that are essential milestones in the achievement of an entity's purposes and in the delivery of government priorities over time.
To achieve this, entity performance should be measured in a consistent manner over a period of time, particularly as many activities undertaken by entities have objectives or outcomes that have longer term horizons. Generally, trends in performance measured on a consistent basis over time will be more informative than standalone or discontinuous measurement of performance.
However, it is recognised that an entity’s performance measures can be expected to change from time to time particularly as entities progressively improve their approach to measuring their performance.
Similarly, an entity’s performance measures can be expected to change as programs or activities move from the implementation stage to ongoing activities.
For example, at the initial stages of implementation of a program or activity, quantitative measures that measure outputs may be the most appropriate measures of performance. Once a program or activity is ongoing, it will generally be appropriate for performance measures to be developed that measure effectiveness or impact made and, or where appropriate, measures that assess efficiency.
Better practice principles:
- Entity performance should be measured in a consistent manner over a period of time, given many activities have long-term objectives or outcomes.
- An entity’s performance measures can be expected to change as entities progressively improve their performance measures and as programs or activities move from the implementation stage to ongoing activities.
- Where changes are made to performance measures, an entity’s corporate plan and corresponding annual performance statements should detail the changes and the rationale for the changes.
Refer to the Better practice examples in RMG-132 Corporate plans for Commonwealth entities for various ways in which to report changes to performance measures. The examples include reporting changes and the rationale for the changes either directly under the performance measure or in a separate table.
