Performance overview
Staff performance
The performance of individual staff members is monitored and measured through the department’s recently revised Performance Appraisal and Development Scheme (introduced in August 2001), which involves the development of individual performance agreements, incorporating common performance standards at each level, and a process of performance review and assessment. More information about the scheme is provided in the chapter Corporate Governance.
Output performance
Outputs report on their performance – in terms of specific indicators of price, quality, quantity and timeliness – in the Report on Performance.
Departmental performance
Price
The total price of providing the department’s outputs in 2001–02 was $82.9 million. This comprised $78.4 million appropriation and $4.5 million revenue from other sources (interest, sale of goods and services, free resources, special accounts and miscellaneous revenue). More detailed information is provided in the ‘Financial performance’ section in this chapter.
Table 1, Appropriation for Outcome 1, shows detail on the expenditure against the department’s price of outputs appropriation.
Quality
All the department’s activities are expected to achieve satisfactory results in terms of:
- the degree of satisfaction of the Prime Minister and other portfolio Ministers, their offices and the departmental Executive – as expressed through formal and informal feedback – with the quality and timeliness of advice and the achievement of key tasks, and
- an assessment of outputs against the annual divisional work plans and individual performance agreements.
During 2001–02, the department’s overall performance was satisfactory in terms of both quality criteria.
Other department-wide measures
There are certain issues in relation to which the department’s performance is measured across all output groups, rather than separately by output. They are: Cabinet minutes, ministerial correspondence, parliamentary questions on notice, ministerial briefings, and requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). Each of these is discussed in more detail – in terms of timeliness and quantity indicators – below.
Cabinet minutes
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During the period 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2002, 96 per cent of Cabinet meeting minutes met this performance target. A small proportion of minutes required additional time to finalise, due mainly to the large volume of business dealt with during the Budget period.
Ministerial correspondence
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The department processed approximately 121,000 pieces of correspondence – an average of 483 per day – addressed to the Prime Minister or to a Minister Assisting the Prime Minister.
The largest volumes of correspondence related to: the Tampa incident (9,280 items), the Governor-General (2,340 items), terrorist attacks and events in Afghanistan (1,449 items) and asylum seekers (1,438 items).
Approximately 90 per cent – being 108,537 items – of correspondence was processed within the department’s timeliness targets.
Some 1,772 briefings (in the form of minutes) were provided to the Prime Minister, Parliamentary Secretary and Ministers Assisting the Prime Minister, on a range of topics covering all four output groups and the various corporate support and information services functions of the department.
The volume of ministerial correspondence received in the last 10 years is shown below in figure 5. The figure shows that the volume of correspondence has been gradually increasing during the last four years.
Parliamentary questions on notice
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The department had 33 questions on hand at 1 July 2001 (not 30 questions, as stated incorrectly in last year’s annual report).
The department received 64 parliamentary questions on notice during 2001–02: 47 from the House of Representatives and 17 from the Senate.
We lodged responses to 35 questions during the year: 24 House of Representatives questions and 11 Senate questions.
Four questions asked in 2001–02 – one from the House of Representatives and three from the Senate – were referred to Ministers in other portfolios. Due to the November 2001 election, 37 questions lapsed: 24 from the House of Representatives and 13 from the Senate. There were 21 questions on hand at 30 June 2002.
The average time taken to lodge responses to questions asked in 2001–02 was 55 days for the House of Representatives, representing a 9 per cent improvement on the department’s 2000–01 performance.
The target of 30 days for responding to Senate questions on notice was again not met. The average time taken to answer questions asked in the Senate in 2001–02 was 45 days which, compared to 51 days in 2000–01, represented approximately 12 per cent improvement. It should be noted, also, that only one of the eight questions asked and answered in the Senate in the 2001–02 financial year was not answered within 60 days, whereas five questions exceeded that deadline in 2000–01.
Freedom of Information requests
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The department received 27 FOI requests during 2001–02. The department had five FOI requests on hand at 1 July 2001. Twenty-six FOI requests were finalised during the year and six FOI requests were on hand at 30 June 2002.
[1] The department notes that the Senate Procedure Committee recently recommended that the time limit for responding to Senate questions on notice be extended to 60 days. [back to text]
| Contents | Secretary's Review | Portfolio and Departmental Overview
|
| Report on Performance
| Corporate Governance |
| Coolum
CHOGM | Appendixes | Financial Statements |
| Glossary | Subject Index
|
(c) Commonwealth of Australia 2002
