The impact and effectiveness of Centrelink’s strategic planning as the vehicle for presenting its corporate strategies can be considered in terms of governance, positioning, planning methodology, planned and emergent strategies, outcomes and outputs and performance reporting.
In relation to organisational governance, the continuous stream of planning documentation and announcements indicated that Centrelink planners continued to demonstrate awareness of and reporting on the organisation’s strategic environment by including greater operational content that would complement the organisation’s performance indicators. There was a concerted effort to achieve better governance linkages between strategy, planning, implementation and performance. The balanced scorecard was introduced as the prime means for gathering and collating data for BPAs and government reporting. Finding the ‘right’ measures to include in this system to reflect the desired levels of relationship, accountability and conformance was a formidable challenge for such a large organisation.
The basic governance approach was broad, top-down policy direction from the board/CEO, with executive-level managers reviewing and confirming goals and objectives and then canvassing all staff for comments and suggestions to enhance and implement the policies. The adoption of a five-year planning horizon seems to have been a direct result of the turbulence associated with becoming a more business-oriented agency combined with the inherent uncertainty of the public environment and an acceptance of the realities of three-year BPAs aligning with budget forward estimates for resource planning and allocation. The introduction of three-year business plans attempted to better align governance structures with desired performance.
Centrelink’s planning methodology employed a gap-analysis process that analysed the differences between the current and desired situations for the organisation and devised strategies to reduce those gaps (Hubbard 2000). Planning was seen as complementary to strategic thinking, positioning and implementation and stressed the importance of relating environmental scanning with organisational purpose and internal capability (Centrelink 1998b:13–16; Mintzberg 1994). While Centrelink had already adopted many private sector concepts, it was seeking more commercial planning methodologies and techniques to meet its strategic objectives. Along the way, planners compiled regular strategic outlook reports containing key environmental trends of economic and fiscal outlook, customer numbers and demographics; additionally, they related these trends to agency performance trends against corporate goals and conducted comprehensive scenario planning (Centrelink 2001e). Other approaches were reflected in annual reports from 2000. As such, Centrelink combined the industrial organisation model of external environmental influence with the resource-based view of internal core competencies to derive strategic futures (Hanson et al. 2004).
Centrelink undertook considerable work in establishing its strategic frameworks by linking its vision with customer-driven purposes for its operations. This led to a corporate sense of business logic with very clear overtones of commercial interest in agency growth and profit to include such notions as price differentiation, market share calculation and the creation of market demand for organisation services (Centrelink 1998a, 2003c). This planning methodology obviously influenced the resultant corporate goals, national and area-based themes. Further, Centrelink consolidated its goal structure and derived its strategies using a ‘vision for success’ approach (Bryson 1995) by identifying future achievements for the various planning periods.
The organisation retained some historical baggage from its amalgamation but effectively cemented its new identity and position using continuous improvements in service and technology innovation to overcome any residual reservations or constraints. The agency’s IT and communication strategies constituted a key element in this regard (Vardon 1998a). The use of extensive community consultation and feedback was pivotal in contributing to strategy development, as shown in the annual reports of the agency.
As a federal agency, Centrelink was subject to the government’s ‘outcomes and outputs’ financial reporting framework. In complying with accrual budgeting requirements, it published explicit outcome and output statements in its budget papers. The agency also identified six corporate goals with accompanying outcomes, drivers and scheduled activities. This structure purportedly enables more targeted resource allocation against set objectives, although the lack of clear pricing information has long been an area of contention with Centrelink’s purchasers and the Department of Finance (Interview with senior DoFA official).
Performance reporting provided a continuing headache for Centrelink. BPAs contained detailed performance standards for service quality and delivery for customer segment products and services, although there were continuous ‘strategic conversations’ with providers about the number, extent, value and frequency of these standards. Reports on customer transactions and quality indicators were prepared regularly for clients in accrual format to match budgeted output goal statements. Centrelink also reported on internal performance at local and national levels. CSIPs attempted to reflect corporate goals at the regional level and reports were collated at the area level to monitor progress. CSIPs were, however, shown to be ineffective in capturing local performance and were replaced with business plans and business improvement plans. The key performance indicators in the National Balanced Scorecard reflected national performance objectives and progress reports were prepared for the board each month. The balanced scorecard mirrored corporate goals, which covered customer and community involvement and satisfaction, staff, partnerships and client departments, efficiency dividend to government and innovative and personalised solutions. Collectively, the scorecard indicated achievement against a separate goal entitled ‘benchmarked as best practice and first choice’ (Centrelink 2001a:13). Balanced scorecard results were available to staff on the agency’s intranet, but the system’s usefulness was subjected to close scrutiny over the years, resulting in significant changes in its coverage and outputs.
Risk-management and evaluation processes have been significant in the planning, implementation and conformance aspects of managing the organisation. The tightening and consolidation of strategic planning reflected in the Future Directions series and heightened emphasis on business planning showed a growing maturity and awareness of the socio-cultural environment in which Centrelink operated. Indeed, they showed a degree of responsiveness to political oversight with big changes occurring in 2003 with a new mission, vision, goals, strategies and key performance indicators (Centrelink 2003c, 2004c).
In summary, Centrelink continued to institutionalise proactive planning, including basic financial and corporate planning. The Centrelink board and executive provided corporate direction within the legislative mandate and communicated their longer-term intentions to the rest of the organisation. The agency’s planning developed rapidly and appeared to incorporate a better understanding of the purchaser–provider environment as evidenced by its growing list of clients