Nova Scotia, like Alberta, went through a period of severe retrenchment in the middle 1990s. It also adopted a government wide planning and reporting system that was in many respects comparable to Alberta’s. The Nova Scotian exercise was begun as part of the provincial budget-making cycle and was led by officials within the province’s Department of Finance. A tentative list of 80 government wide performance measures was published in 1995 (Nova Scotia Department of Finance 1995). A refined list, developed by officials after informal consultations with representatives of business and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), contains 55 measures. The government’s first formal report on these measures,Nova Scotia Counts,was released
in October 1998. As in other jurisdictions, the Nova Scotian government argues that agreement on key outcome measures will help to overcome “ad hoc planning” and the “weak link between government priorities and departmental goals” (Nova Scotia Priorities and Planning Secretariat 1998). It also suggests that its public report “is fundamental to accountability . . . Knowing
where we stand and how we are progressing tells us where we need to increase or redirect our efforts” (Nova Scotia Department of Finance 1998, 1). (The Nova Scotia measures are listed in annex 1.D.)