| Abbriviation | Definition |
|---|---|
| Administered items | Expenses, revenues, assets or liabilities that agencies administer on behalf of the Commonwealth. Administered expenses include grants, subsidies and benefits. |
| Average staffing level(s) (ASL) | ASL is the average number of employees receiving salary/wages (or compensation in lieu of salary/wages) over a financial year, with adjustments for casual and part-time employees to show the full-time equivalent. |
| Clients | Recipients of social support payments or outputs. Sometimes also known as customers. |
| Competitive tendering | The process by which agencies call for offers to perform a service from internal and external bodies, including the private sector and other departments and agencies, in an open and transparent competitive environment. |
| Departmental | Assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses directly controlled by agencies. |
| Departmental outputs | Four common ‘departmental’ outputs are reported for each of the 10 output groups. Broadly, these outputs are the direct product of the policy, management and administrative functions of FaCS. |
| Effectiveness | The extent to which actual outcomes are achieved, in terms of the planned outcomes, via relevant outputs or administered expenses. An intervention’s effectiveness should be distinguished from its efficiency, which concerns the adequacy of its administration. |
| FaCS | Department of Family and Community Services. |
| Governance | Method or system of government or management. |
| Outcomes | Results, impacts or consequences of actions by the Commonwealth on the Australian community. Outcomes are the results or impacts that the government wishes to achieve. Actual outcomes are the results or impacts actually achieved. |
| Outputs | The goods and services produced by agencies on behalf of government for external organisations or individuals. Outputs include goods and services produced for other areas of government external to the agency. |
| Output groups | The aggregation based on homogeneity, type of product or beneficiary target group, of outputs. Aggregation may also be needed for the provision of adequate information for performance monitoring or based on a materiality test. |
| Performance | The proficiency of an agency or authority in acquiring resources economically and using those resources efficiently and effectively in achieving planned outcomes. |
| Performance indicators | Qualitative and quantitative measures of an output which provide a guide on performance where direct causal links are not obvious and changes in performance are difficult to measure directly. |
| Performance information | Evidence about performance that is collected and used systemically. Evidence may relate to effectiveness or efficiency. It may be about outcomes, factors that affect outcomes, and what can be done to improve them. |
| Performance measures | A more precise measure than indicators. Performance measures relate to outcomes, outputs, third party outputs and administered items. They are used when there is a direct causal link between an intervention and a measurable change in performance. |
| Portfolio Budget Statements | Statements prepared by portfolios to explain the budget appropriations in terms of planned government outcomes. |
| Price | The amount the government or the community pays for the delivery of agreed outputs. The total of all prices aggregates to equal total expenses. |
| Quality | Relates to the characteristics by which clients or stakeholders judge an organisation, product or service. Assessment of quality involves use of information gathered from interested parties to identify differences between users? expectations and experiences. |
| Quantity | Size of an output. Count or volume measures. How many or how much. |
| Strategies | Groups of activities to produce outputs required to achieve planned outcomes. Strategies usually comprise several activities and outputs. |
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