Page 2715 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 June 2011
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accountability indicators, and the Greens’ overall view is that we can improve the current indicators so that we get a more accurate and substantive picture of what directorates are delivering.
I hope that the directorate will be working with other agencies to challenge the existing indicators and constructively work to improve the quality of the indicators, and this issue came up during the estimates hearing. These indicators are currently very limited and often refer to little more than the provision of a quarterly update, for example. This does little to assist the Assembly and community in evaluating the conduct of a department, and I have no doubt that departments could provide much more meaningful feedback on their performance.
The next point to make is that there appears to be progress on the issue of triple bottom line analysis and reporting. Indeed, just last week, the Assembly resolved the TBL analysis—that is, it will be applied much more extensively across government policies and programs. The Greens are, of course, very pleased with this and hope that it will be rolled into a comprehensive assessment and evaluation framework that includes a poverty impact analysis as well as a climate change impact analysis to ensure that the Assembly can properly evaluate what is being implemented and ultimately provide better outcomes for the community.
The next output I would like to address is coordinated communications and community engagement. Again, this is an area where there is significant potential for the new model to improve community participation and ensure that the views of the people are heard and responded to accordingly. One issue I think should be focused upon is to improve what is a very good initiative—the Measuring Our Progress website. Across the world, jurisdictions are looking for better ways to assess wellbeing and prosperity so that we do not rely on fewer economic measures to evaluate the quality of life of those who live in our communities.
Last week I spoke about a very similar OECD initiative called the better life initiative, which measures wellbeing and progress and which covers much of this ground. We should be expanding on this initiative so that it can be integrated with other accountability indicators to build a comprehensive picture of prosperity within the community and how community programs are impacting upon that. Some links will be clear and some will be much more difficult, and it will take many years to see the changes. So the earlier we capitalise on what is being done and encourage people to participate in a project and coordinate their responses and government outputs, the better the results will ultimately be.
A further key role of the Chief Minister and Cabinet Directorate is to lead and coordinate our participation in COAG and other jurisdictional forums. It is a source of constant frustration to us that so often COAG processes are used as the excuse for not acting in the ACT. We readily accept that there are times when it is best to have a coordinated and harmonised approach and, equally, that it is not necessarily the ACT’s fault that the process is so slow. Our frustration is that all too often we hide behind COAG processes when there is an option for reform available to us, options that we could easily act upon and where we could be leaders on the particular issue. Equally, we need to ensure that we have the capacity to participate in regional
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