First KPI set

No Minister has been recently calling for KPI's to be set for the new government.

For the uninitiated, IMHO, Key Performance Indicators are points against which performance might be measured. Usually generated internally by an organisation as targets to achieve, the best being 'world class'.

And why not have defined performance standards applied to our politicians? Surely only positives can result.

The newly appointed Minister of Plods has unwittingly set the first KPI for the new government.

In 2006, as MP for Clevedon, she presented a 5000-signature petition to Parliament calling for the ratio of police to residents in Counties-Manukau to be no less than one to 556. It is currently one to 658.

God knows from which orifice that figure of 556 was plucked, but it will do till some policy wonk comes up with another. I await a report in short order from her to tell us where we are today, so with regular future (online?) reports we might see how things are improving on her watch.

I look forward to the Minister of Child Abuse making public what the Children's Commissioner sees as the number of kids that are allowed to be murdered as a world class KPI. We already know the numbers we currently achieve, don't we? And we better that measure, year on year.

I have no concerns about saying 'this is a policy that this Government has been elected on and I expect that to be fulfilled as part of the operational requirements that we expect of you'

As part of the KPI system, it is not merely fit to note what has been achieved. Following on, a culture of continuous revision must be enforced and low performance must have consequence.

National demanded accountability from Labour ministers over the failures by Corrections, but Ms Collins said she would not be taking the blame for any botch-ups - immediately at least.

"The outgoing Labour Government never did in nine years, so I think I'll give myself a bit of a chance before I go round answering for their mistakes."

The same system should applied to the politicians from today when they are sworn in. Bring it on, the sooner the better.

HT No Minister