Quality of management information
These findings report on known Finance data quality issues, limitations of the indicator set in providing insight into Finance service performance, and opportunities for improvement. The Context chapter includes common quality of management information findings across all functions that are not repeated in this chapter.
The quality of the data underlying the metrics is of a high standard, and information can be meaningfully compared. Finance data is collected and stored centrally by agencies, making high-quality data readily available for metric calculation.
Note that for this exercise, the payroll process is included within the Finance function for comparability with international benchmarks. However, operationally, most agencies consider payroll to be part of the HR function.
Finance practitioners have asked for improvements in Finance effectiveness measurement for FY 2011/12. The Treasury will support Finance practitioners to make improvements to the Finance MPI, moving away from a straight 'yes/no' assessment to a capability maturity model with different levels of maturity. This will be based on The Hackett Group's capability maturity model for Finance. Practitioners are also keen to expand the Finance effectiveness metrics, as the Finance MPI is the only effectiveness metric at present.
