- Public, Wednesday 21 October 2009 11.29 BST
Do the government's data systems measure up? Photograph: Getty
How many reports does it take to make a trend? In the third report in as many months, the quality of information used by government has, yet again, come under fire.
Today's report from the National Audit Office, Measuring Up: How good are the government's data systems for monitoring performance against Public Service Agreements? (PSAs), may sound like one for the anoraks among us, but once again pinpoints the challenges that face any government in attempting to make the public sector more efficient.
The need to do so was underlined by yesterday's figures from the Office for National Statistics, showing that the UK's net debt at the end of last month was an enormous £824.8bn - equivalent to 59% of GDP.
The government wants the public sector to save £50bn through greater efficiency, but the NAO report highlights the real challenges in doing so, unless the public sector improves the data needed to ensure efficiency.
As the report says, good quality data systems "play an important role in helping departments improve programme management and performance; assess whether they need to revise policies and programmes; allocate resources; and make other policy decisions".
But good quality data appears still to be lacking. This report looks specifically at the data being used to monitor the government's PSAs - the targets intended to drive cross-departmental co-operation and outcomes.
It says there has been a "modest improvement" in the data being used by departments to measure progress against these targets. But it concludes that it is "unacceptable" that 11% of central government's data systems remain unsatisfactory and 34% of systems still have weaknesses.
When the Treasury reduced the number of national targets and PSAs in 2007, it said measuring progress would require high quality, timely data.
It is not just the NAO that has noted the lack of good information in the public sector. In August, the Audit Commission came to a similar conclusion in its report on poor information management in local government, while the Institute for Government thinktank also reported that while central Whitehall departments had exceeded their efficiency targets, the push for savings "may be hampered by poor data".
The NAO says many of the weaknesses in the data systems stem from departments failing formally to consider the quality of data needed to check progress on their PSAs and an associated lack of formal risk assessment.
"Despite HM Treasury issuing good, comprehensive guidance on the development of indicators which help departments know if PSAs were being met, departments did not consistently apply this guidance and HM Treasury did not enforce its application."
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, called on the Treasury to do just that, and enforce what he described as "good guidance". Departments have had the benefits of lessons from a decade or more of outcome-oriented performance management, he pointed out.
