Jenny Wilkinson

Parliamentary Budget Officer

July 2018

Measuring Performance
and Impact
Lessons from the Australian PBO
Presentation to the OECD Network

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Core functions of the Australian PBO

• Costing and budget analysis services to

Parliamentarians
• Post-election report of fiscal cost of election
commitments of all major parties
• Publication of research reports to increase the
understanding of fiscal issues, particularly medium
term pressures

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Why publish performance information?

Legitimacy

Effectiveness Transparency

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Measuring our performance

• Performance includes:
̶ what we produce

̶ how efficiently we operate

̶ how we are perceived

̶ what impact we have

• Performance measures are quantitative and qualitative

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What quantitative data do we collect?

Statistics on
costings
Data on Mentions in
publications media

Statistics on
co-operation Parliamentary
with references
agencies

Measures efficiency Demonstrates Demonstrates Suggestive of

& effectiveness of integrity & trust relevance & influence
operations accessibility

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Performance statistics
Costing and budget analysis requests
2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 (est)

Requests completed in period 664 1,522 869 3,251 1,888 1,533

Median time to completion (business days) n/a 6 12 16 12 12

Information received from agencies 331 397 216 745 508 418

Percentage of information received late 55 48 32 7 2 1

Media citations and twitter statistics Publications

36,000 900
19 19
30,000 Web views 750
(LHS)
24,000 600 14 14
13
18,000 450

12,000 300 7
Media
6,000 citations (RHS) 150

0 0
Q1 Q2 2015-16
Q3 Q4 Q1 Q22016-17
Q3 Q4 Q1 2017-18
Q2 Q3 Q4 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18

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Qualitative measures of performance
• Independent reviews
̶ Focus on operational
efficiency and effectiveness
̶ Examine strategic influence
• Expert panel
̶ Feedback on quality of
publications, relevance and
opportunities to improve
engagement
• Regular stakeholder surveys
̶ Identify high value services
and areas for improvement
̶ Assess perceptions of integrity,
independence and quality of
analysis
• Impact on policy
̶ Budget transparency
̶ Ongoing policy debate
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Overall satisfaction with the PBO

Legitimacy

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Transparency is paramount

Annual
Report
Regular
Media
performance
releases
statistics

Publication
Website
of research
access to all
and
information
Information
and data
papers

Guidance to Evaluations
Parliament

Independent
Reviews

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 PO Box 6010
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Thank you Australia

Phone: +61 2 6277 9500

Email: pbo@pbo.gov.au

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