Headline Indicators

The Progress Board is keen to make Tasmania Together more accessible. Headline Indicators allow for a snapshot of progress using only a handful of indicators.

The Board has identified 12 headline indicators, one for each goal. The Board expects to begin reporting on these indicators in 2007.

The 12 headline indicators are summarised below.

GOAL	HEADLINE INDICATORS
1. Standard of Living 2. Safe Communities 3. Education 4. Health 5. Vibrant Communities 6. Arts and Culture 7. Aboriginal Culture 8. Democracy 9. Work Opportunities 10. Business and Industry 11. Built and Natural Heritage 12. Natural Resources	Cost of living Feeling safe Literacy & numeracy Avoidable mortality Urban/regional population Attendance at cultural heritage sites Cultural interpretation at visitor centres Local Government elections Workforce participation rate Investment growth Land protection Greenhouse gas emissions

About Headline Indicators

When it decided to develop headline indicators, the Board was impressed with their use in two national processes that, like Tasmania Together, seek to monitor and report regularly on progress measures in their respective jurisdictions.

The ABS publication: Measures of Australia’s Progress is an evolving headline indicator reporting framework for Australia. Its key influence is the UK equivalent: Quality of Life Counts (QLC) - also referred to as the UK Sustainable Development Indicators – which is also built on a headline indicator framework and reported in a range of formats including the very compact and concise Quality of Life Barometer annual report cards.

The 2004 Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP2) publication describes headline indicators as being “distinguished from others by their capacity to encapsulate major features of change in the given aspect of Australian life” (p. 9). MAP2 also sets out the following ‘criteria’ for the selection of headline indicators.

A good headline indicator should:

• be relevant to the particular dimension of progress;
• where possible, focus on outcomes for the dimension of progress (rather than on say, the inputs or processes used to produce outcomes);
• show a ‘good’ direction of movement (signalling progress) and ‘bad’ direction (signalling regress) – at least when the indicator is considered alone, with all other dimensions of progress kept equal;
• be supported by timely data of good quality;
• be available as a time series;
• be sensitive to changes in the underlying phenomena captured by the dimension of progress;
• be summary in nature;
• preferably be capable of disaggregation by, say, geography or population group;
• be intelligible and easily interpreted by the general reader.  (p. 181)

The Board is aware that Tasmania Together is different to MAP and QLC, because it consciously identifies change and focuses on areas where change has been identified as desirable. This means that solid, reliable indicators that might be ideal as headline indicators for the sort of focus contained in QLC or MAP may not be the best for – or may not even be included in – Tasmania Together.