In recent years, growing attention has been placed on how corporations and governments identify and report on the social outcomes of what they do.

During the 1990s, companies, academics and the environment movement developed increasingly sophisticated systems for firms to report on their environmental protection efforts.

Allied with these developments were the growth of 'corporate social responsibility' initiatives and the appearance of the 'triple bottom line' report, which has now permeated significant sections of the corporation world.

Within the public sector, there has also developed, in some Australian jurisdictions and in comparable OECD nations, various examples of Government being prepared to publicly define its key economic, social and environmental targets and to publicly report on the achievement or otherwise of these milestones.

Examples include the Blair UK Governments anti poverty targets, indexes of wellbeing in some US State jurisdictions and the Tasmania Together and Growing Victoria Together initiatives by the respective State Governments in Australia.

In NSW, the Carr Government adopted a debt elimination fiscal target in 1996, but has been reluctant to establish a set of measurable objectives for publicly reporting its performance in other economic, environmental and social arenas.

The NSW Opposition releases an annual State of the State report, that provides information on a range of social indicators, not however, necessarily linked to the responsibilities or dominant influence of the NSW Government.

The Measuring Social Results seminar explored the progress of a suite of reporting initiatives that provide information about the social, environmental and economic performance and impacts of corporations and governments. NCOSS also publicly released Measuring Up its proposal for a NSW social performance framework.

• Triple Bottom Line and the Public Sector
  Paul McLeay MP (Vice Chairman, NSW Public Accounts Committee) [156kb pdf]
• Growing Victoria Together
  Donald Speagle (Vic Department of Premier and Cabinet) [109kb pdf]

• Measuring Up: A Framework for Government Social Performance Reporting in NSW (248kb pdf)
• Measuring Up Executive Summary (71kb pdf)