Roger Partridge: Parliament is asking tough questions about whether taxpayers are getting value for money

This year, the Government will spend nearly $190 billion. Yet we know remarkably little about whether those billions represent value-for-money.

The centrepiece of public sector performance is the Budget – a 700-page ledger of planned spending by department and programme. But it is not a performance report. It tells us how much government is doing, not what it is accomplishing. It measures dollars appropriated, not lives improved. That focus on inputs and activity – not outcomes – has shaped the way government manages itself for more than a century.