Measuring performance. (Letters).

SIR: Chief Justice Spigelman (March 2002) is right--not all the things that count in an activity like the administration of justice can be counted. Organisational performance might need qualitative assessment rather than quantitative measurement. And it is also true that there are problems with subjective assessments that are more like opinions than judgments.

There are processes to overcome these difficulties but Chief Justice Spigelman finds them less than useful. Basically, the processes involve:

(i) Describing a number of required performance qualities as a series of propositions, such as: "In NSW, all people have equal access to the law";

(ii) Asking people who understand the activity to assess the performance, either individually or consensually, by agreeing or disagreeing with the proposition;

(iii) Awarding a grade (usually a number) for the assessments according to the level of agreement or disagreement, on a scale of say, 1 to 5 (expressing a quality as a number does not amount to quantification; this remains a qualitative assessment. The number has no meaning as a quantity);

(iv) Noting the consensus grade or averaging the individual grades awarded and ensuring that the performance qualities in each grade are relatively comparable;

(v) Determining what action might be needed to improve performance.