The priorities for my Department and indicators of performance are not limited to five in number, and relate to the implementation of An Agreed Programme for Government and Sustaining Progress commitments for which my Department is responsible. My Department is responsible, in a lead role, for the implementation of in excess of 80 of the 477 total commitments contained in An Agreed Programme for Government and a number of important commitments in the Sustaining Progress social partnership agreement. Significant progress has been achieved on many of these commitments to date and further progress is expected in relation to other commitments going forward.
The statements of strategy which my Department has published in recent years have set out the high level goals and objectives relating to the organisation's priorities and the performance indicators linked to those goals and objectives. Overall progress on the implementation of strategy statement objectives and performance indicators is reported in the Department's annual reports. The indicators which the Department has used to measure performance in the period since 1997 have developed and improved over the years and will be reviewed again shortly in the context of the preparation of the Department's new strategy statement 2005-07.
A specific set of performance indicators has also been agreed for the Department in respect of the change and modernisation programme under the Sustaining Progress agreement. These performance indicators relate to modernisation initiatives such as, performance management and development, financial management, information technology and customer service. Progress on these and other modernisation initiatives are independently validated under the terms of the agreement. These modernisation performance indicators are also being reviewed in the context of the requirement for Departments to update modernisation action plans following on from the mid-term review of part two of the Sustaining Progress agreement.
