Making formal recommendations in annual reports
The Office issued recommendations in its annual
reports to promote both its claims to expertise
and its views about performance measurement.23
The 1994 annual report of the Office is the first
to contain a sustained argument on the value of
measuring performance. The report was issued in
October 1994, the same month as Government
Accountability, creating momentum around the
Office’s claims of expertise. It especially recommends
that each department measures key performance
outputs, and discloses them in its financial reports to ‘‘bring together’’ information on costs
and results (Office, 1994b, p. 11). On several occasions
the Office uses the credibility of financial
accounting to enhance the legitimacy of performance
measurement and thereby its expertise. Further,
the Office seeks to anticipate readers’ possible
objections by specifying that it wants to encourage
the development of simple performance measurement
systems: