Submission on a Government performance framework and involvement of not-for-profits - 1 May 2015

Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit Inquiry into the Development of Commonwealth Performance Framework

CCA Recommendations

CCA believes the need for a transparent and effective government performance framework is critical to ensuring government programs and services do not simply reinvent failure.   

In some areas of government, concepts such as performance management, performance reporting, and risk management have been deconstructed and reassembled in forms that disguise their original intent.

CCA strongly supports the need for reform, particularly with the ongoing engagement between not-for-profit organisations and Commonwealth government agencies.  The level of counter-productive compliance activity and lack of performance based management is having a very negative impact on the productivity and effectiveness of not-for-profit organisations.  This reduction in effectiveness means the achievement of government policy priorities is limited and community benefit is diminished.

The not-for-profit sector wants to work with government to improve performance management and reporting so taxpayer dollars achieve more for our communities.  There are examples where government has collaborated with the NFP sector and local communities to achieve an integrated performance framework which evolved into 5 year contracts last year.   With appropriate investment in better monitoring, evaluation and reporting, savings can be achieved by first identifying what works and what doesn’t, then drawing on this performance reporting to inform decision-making.

A more robust and transparent government performance reporting framework will result in stronger and more resilient communities across Australia.

More on the inquiry is available here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Accounts_and_Audit/Performance_Framework