aes18 International Evaluation Conference

David Morton (Department of Finance), Brad Cook (Department of Finance)

The Australia Parliament - through the Joint Committee on Public Accounts (JCPAA) -  has encouraged the Department of Finance (Finance) and others to support capacity-building to further implement the enhanced Commonwealth performance framework. Evaluators have a key role. They will need to be clear about what they have offer, and how they can help deliver better performance information to government, the Parliament and public more broadly. They will need to be willing to adapt what evaluators do and know today, and participate in developing the flexible approaches needed in the future. The performance frameworks calls for approaches that deliver performance information that simultaneously supports  accountability to the taxpaying public and everyday operational decisions.  We encourage the Australian evaluation community to reflect on  what it has to offer and how it can work with others to shape the evolution the of the performance framework. 

The performance framework commenced on 1 July 2015. It succeeds if it enables the Australian Parliament and public to understand the benefits of Commonwealth activity. The framework encourages entities and companies to move past over-reliance on input and output-based performance measures. There is a clear role for evaluators to contribute to this important adjustment. Opportunities lie in helping a larger cross-section of the Commonwealth public sector understand and use the evaluators' toolbox - for example, program theory and qualitative analysis - to improve the quality of published performance information available to stakeholders. The evaluation community has the opportunity to be at the centre of key expertise, and to make a critical contribution to building the capability of 'performance professionals' across the public sector.