If the Liberal National party wins power in Queensland at the weekend’s election as many expect, its cabinet ministers will be assigned targets – and face consequences if they fail to meet the grade.
The opposition leader, David Crisafulli, again confirmed on Thursday that each minister in a government he leads will be issued a public key performance indicator – a “KPI” – contained within their ministerial charter letter.
If they don’t hit the target, they’ll be sent to the backbench – out of the cabinet – he said.
“I’m talking about ministerial accountability, and ministers will be given tasks to deliver, and that means that Queenslanders will see a better government,” Crisafulli declared.
But experts say there is little evidence that target-setting improves performance in government. Instead, they can create perverse incentives – like the rat catcher deliberately breeding more in order to boost his fee, or the factory deliberately producing inoperable vehicles to meet a quota.
Alastair Stark, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Queensland, said setting a KPIs only encourage achieving outputs, “but they don’t help you improve outcomes”.
“This is what every public servant knows: when you have a minister who is fiercely focused on a target, the target and the measurement becomes the policy.
“Public servants will always say, privately, that they’re constantly having to jump through hoops and meet targets at the expense of good policy process and a focus on outcomes.”
Stark said KPIs for ministers would mean ministers’ officers would “ratchet up the extent to which the target must be met”.
The most important target of all – 289,657 – would be set for the premier.
That’s the number of victims of crime in Queensland in 2023, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Crisafulli has said he would resign at the end of his first term if the number of crime victims at that time isn’t lower, population growth aside.
Stark said it would be “extraordinary” if that target was met.
William Wood, a criminologist at Griffith University, said using victim numbers as a metric may discourage agencies from encouraging victims to come forward.
“It may also encourage agencies to find ways to manage down the number of victims on paper, regardless of whether crime is going up or down,” Wood said.
“There is a risk of relying too much on initiatives to ‘reduce victims’ while giving less focus and attention to serious offences that [are] more difficult to immediately reduce.”
The statistic is also mostly representative of non-violent crimes such as theft rather than more damaging crimes such as murder.
Wood said it’s relatively simple to address property crime and minor assault through targeted interventions such as hotspot policing.
“There is a risk of relying too much on such initiatives to “reduce victims” while giving less focus and attention to serious offences that are more difficult to immediately reduce,” he said.
‘Very risky’
There is also a political risk to setting clear targets in government. Having run a “small target” opposition, there would now be extremely specific targets on the backs of ministers and no mandate for the types of change needed to achieve them.
Adam Hannah, a lecturer in political science at the University of Queensland, said Crisafulli’s promise to resign if he did not meet crime victim reduction targets – made during a first campaign debate – was “very risky”.
“Those clips are out there. They could be replayed in a campaign ad in a few years’ time, very, very, very easily.”
Hannah said the LNP’s “risk minimisation” strategy has made some sense as a tactic to win an election, because it limits the extent to which a detailed set of policies can be attacked.
“[But] do you then hamstring yourself if you do get into government [if] you haven’t built a broad based mandate full of policies that have had the support of the electorate?”
This could pose a particular problem for the LNP, whose only government in Queensland in recent memory was the unpopular Newman government, which lasted a single term.
“So they’re trying to define themselves as not the Newman government,” said Hannah. “But what are they, if not?
“If you don’t define yourself you can get defined by your opposition.”
A Labor opposition would know exactly how much a minister missed their target by – and likely use question time to remind them.
If Crisafulli can’t meet his target, others would be more than willing to take over.
Moderates in the LNP have long held anxieties about Amanda Stoker – the figurehead of the Christian right – who is on the ticket and has, so far, toed the party line.
“Watch Sky News After Dark promote her to Premier-in-Waiting at the first sign of any trouble,” one LNP member siad.
