Madam, – We seem to have a first-rate ability to produce budgets, frameworks, plans, reports, strategies (with and without pillars) and so on, but a poor ability to implement them.
Data on the outcomes of our national initiatives is usually confusing, poorly presented, and subject to the opinion or agenda of the presenter. The “moving goalpost” syndrome means that the public doesn’t get to see actual performance against plan, either in our overall economic performance or in individual initiatives. How can accountability follow?
In business, the performance of companies and people is usually measured in KPIs (key performance metrics). Performance against KPIs is how those lucky enough to be working get paid. Could I suggest that the Government, or, even better, The Irish Times, publishes an online a “dashboard” of national KPIs, measured against a specific start date, with the planned versus actual performance being compared in an easy-to-understand graphical format. This would combine various measurements such as unemployment, national debt, budget deficit, GDP, GNP, capital spend and operational spend per budgets into a comprehensible format.
What you can’t measure, you can’t manage! How we reward our top people for performance is another day’s work, but measuring it would be a good start. – Yours, etc,