Government ministers and their flacks do much these days to ''control the public narrative''. They set the daily news agenda, sieve the information that enters the public domain, and, more than occasionally, suppress politically unpalatable facts. They spin.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Fortunately, those wonderful documents, budget papers, defy these practices. With some exceptions (which I'll get to), the budget is a bluntly honest revelation of the real workings of government. I'm not talking about the bit that attracts the most attention: whether Government Ltd is running at a profit or a loss. After all, the forecast surplus/deficit, in isolation, doesn't say anything about the government's performance.
The beautiful bits of the budget - the honest bits - are the portfolios' key performance indicators. They set out:
- What the government plans to do in the coming year.
- How it will measure whether it succeeds or fails.
- How well it went in the year that's almost finished.
This week's ACT budget papers are full of these details of how the government fared. There was good news: for example, the Health Directorate performed 3300 more breast screens than first planned. And there was bad: the Economic Development Directorate oversaw the release of only 3015 new homes, when its target was 5500. Perhaps of most concern, the Justice and Community Safety Directorate said just 36 per cent of ACT court cases were heard within the agreed timetable, far below the target rate of 80 per cent.
These stats may seem mundane, but they're what government is all about: delivering services to citizens. And, for the most part, ACT budget papers are very straightforward: they set clear targets and report on the extent to which they were met.
The same can't always be said of the federal budget. Four years ago, the new Labor government asked former Democrats senator Andrew Murray to review the budget papers. Murray took aim at the vague ''outcomes'' that the federal bureaucracy used to describe its work. ''In the worst cases, you have to wonder at the attitude that encourages useless and generalised outcome descriptions, and then ties large appropriations to them, consequently allowing for such wide ministerial and bureaucratic discretion that accountability loses any meaning,'' he wrote.
To be fair, some Commonwealth work will always be hard to gauge. How do you ''measure'' diplomacy? One of the Foreign Affairs Department's performance indicators reads: ''The department's advocacy, negotiation and liaison on Australia's foreign, trade and economic, and international security interests contributes positively to bilateral, regional and multilateral outcomes that help ensure the security and prosperity of Australia and Australians.'' The department never says it fails to achieve this target, but could anyone actually tell if it did?
Since the Murray review, some agencies have greatly improved the way they measure their work. The Finance Department, which manages government IT among other things, used to report on vague targets such as ''preparedness'', ''satisfaction'' and other phrases that could mean anything. It's now far more precise: for example, it aims to ensure 70 per cent of this year's IT apprentices stay in the public service, and to increase use of the australia.gov.au website by 10 per cent. It's become accountable.
However, budget dinosaurs still roam in Canberra, and none are more backwards than our intelligence agencies. Last month's federal budget allocated ASIO about $690 million - 10 times its allocation in 2001-02. ASIO doesn't publish its ''deliverables'', but one way it measures its performance is through a survey of its customers. Of course, the survey results aren't published either, but that hardly matters: the ''customers'' are mostly other spy or police services. They're unlikely to criticise government spending on security.
Our overseas spy agency, ASIS, is worse: it received $315 million this budget to deliver ''secret intelligence'' and ''other services''. And that's as much detail as we get. There are many other Western nations, including our ally, the United States, that would never brook such obscurity. Perhaps it's time we stopped copping it, too.
Markus Mannheim edits The Public Sector Informant. Send your tips to aps6@canberratimes.com.au