The NPF & Scotland Performs:
Analytical Underpinning and
Challenges
Mairi Spowage
Office of the Chief Statistician
23rd March 2009
An outcome based approach
• This “New Approach” presented many
opportunities for analysts
• We could now bring to bear the whole
package of evidence to say something
meaningful about change
• A way to go, particularly in evaluation
Introduced since last May
National Performance Framework
Summary of National Performance
Framework
How were the indicators chosen?
There was a need to
be able to measure
progress against the
5 strategic
objectives and the
15 national
outcomes
How were the indicators chosen?
A selection of indicators
were chosen to act as a
representative set, so
when taken all together
they may be able to tell
us something about
progress on the
outcome
Longer, Healthier Lives
Scotland Performs
• Designed to show how the government is
performing against its key indicators and
targets
• New and innovative approach
• Big difference to previous administrations
The Indicators
• Mixture of many types of targets and
indicators, from existing targets to those
which were set down by legislation to
some which were not currently
measureable
• Many are direction of travel indicators
Existing Targets/ Those from
other frameworks
• HEAT – Health improvement, Efficiency,
Access and Treatment
• E.g.
Achieve annual milestones for reducing
inpatient or day case waiting times
culminating in the delivery of an 18
week referral to treatment time from
December 2011
Those contained in legislation
• All unintentionally homeless
households will be entitled to settled
accommodation by 2012
• Reduce the number of Scottish public
bodies by 25% by 2011
Those which could not be/were
not measured
• Improve knowledge transfer from
research activity in universities
• Increase the average score of adults on
the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental
Wellbeing Scale by 2011
• Reduce overall ecological footprint
Challenges
• Huge range of data sources
– Survey vs. Administrative Data
– Composite measures
– Some SG sources, some UK Departments,
some ONS, some from partner agencies
• Many are National Statistics, but many are
not, at least at the moment
• Differing frequencies of publication and
lags
How are the thresholds
decided?
• Arrows comment on the change between
the last two data points
– Simple, but easy to understand, can be
universally applied and is transparent
• Thresholds take into account:
– Variance, if known
– Past trends
– Significance of change
– To some extent, the change required by the
target
Threshold Examples
• GDP
– 0.01 percentage points
• Social Economy
– £10M
• Housing Supply
– 1,000 Houses
Background
• Scotland Performs Steering Board and
Scotland Performs Technical Assessment
Group (SPTAG)
• SPTAG:
– Director of Analytical Services (chair)
– Chief Statistician
– Chief Researcher
– Head of OCEA
– Chief Scientist
When data need to be updated…
• Each indicator has a Lead Analyst
assigned to it from with in Government
• This forms the Scotland Performs Analyst
Network – more about this later
• We have built in the updating to the
standard publication process
When data need to be updated...
• The analyst submits a recommendation to
the Scotland Performs Technical
Assessment Group [within the pre-release
period]
• The group make comments on the
presentation of the information, to improve
accessibility
• The approve or reject recommendation
SPAN
• Network meets regularly to debate
technical issues which underpin Scotland
Performs
• Support to SPTAG
• Acts as a “peer-review” function
Questions?