In the course of 1997-98 two Government commissioned studies of performance indicators were undertaken. The first was by the government’s then Industry Commission (now the Productivity Commission). Because the study was not established to provide information and recommendations for the government in relation to the recommendations of the Bell Report, its terms of reference confined it to the examination of national and comparative performance indicators for local government. The origins of the study, in fact, predated the Bell Report and it did not include indicators for State and Territory governments except insofar as the latter used indicators with regard to local government performance. The report’s conclusion was that a consistent, national approach to performance measurement for local government was not ‘warranted’, at that time (Industry Commission 1997a: vii). It did, however, note that further discussion might, in time, lead to ‘nationally consistent’ approaches (Industry Commission 1997a: vii). This must have been a disappointment for the government — given the Prime Minister’s wish that such indicators be developed — however, it had neither the constitutional or statutory authority to impose its will on either the state or local governments (Howard 1997).
The second study was organised through the Office of Small Business (the OSB), located in the Department of Industry Tourism and Resources. The OSB worked with line departments and the ORR to develop a set of nine RPIs for the Federal Government (DITR 2006: 2). Not only was the task intrinsically difficult, there were also contentious issues in relation to the specific objectives of the exercise, such as: the number and type of indicators that should be developed; the potential for overlap with other indicators; the extent to which indicators should be incorporated within a modified RIS process; and, which organisation should be responsible for the indicators. Nevertheless, a set of nine RPI was developed and agreed to by the government. These were designed to provide performance information in relation to the six objectives specified by the Prime Minister (Howard 1997: 82):
to ensure that all new or revised regulation confers a net benefit on the community;
to achieve essential regulatory objectives without unduly restricting business in the way in which these objectives are achieved;
to ensure that the regulatory decision-making processes are transparent and lead to fair outcomes;
to ensure that information and details on regulation and how to comply with it are accessible and understood by business;
to create a predictable regulatory environment so business can make decisions with some surety of future environment; and
to ensure that consultation processes are accessible and responsive to business and the community (DITR 2006: 3-4).
As with the Prime Minister’s 1997 statement, this final set of RPI did not contain a specific indicator intended to measure the achievement of a ‘lower cost to business’ (although this might be estimated from the calculation as to net benefit to the community), or an indicator for administrative efficiency.
The promised study of comparable performance indicators for state and territory governments did not eventuate at this time and no formal explanation has been found by the author for this omission, other than the conclusions of the Productivity Commission report noted above. Officers interviewed indicated that it might have ‘fallen between the cracks’. It is worth noting that, in 2006, following the government’s acceptance of the Banks Report, the Productivity Commission was directed to undertake a study of performance benchmarking for business regulation (Productivity Commission 2006).