Appendix 1 – Definitions and Glossary ^{Endnote 23}

Accountability:

Is the obligation to answer for one’s responsibilities. Accountability can be shared (but is not easily relinquished)

Accountability has three parts:

• Beforehand – stating the objectives (outputs/outcomes).
• Providing the rationale (logic, linkages) for the objectives.
• Afterwards, reporting what happened.

Responsibility is the obligation to act whereas accountability is the obligation to answer for an action.

Activity:

What is done during the course of the program’s operation. (meeting, training delivering session).

Agency Assessment Process:

The act of comparing the organization’s outcomes to the articulated needs of its primary customers; identifying variances from objectives; the causes of those variances; developing and continually monitoring a plan to produce results that better meet the needs of customers.

Attribution:

The demonstrable assertion that a reasonable connection can be made between a specific outcome and the actions of a government policy, program or initiative.

Baseline data:

The level of results at a given time that provides a starting point for assessing changes in performance and for establishing objectives or targets for future performance. It is the initial collection of data to establish a basis for comparison.

Benchmark:

The highest level achieved of a particular core measure in the LBS Program; therefore a standard that all agencies will seek to reach over time. A benchmark that is verifiable and that has resulted by design and all other measures meet at least minimum standard. Very simply put Benchmark is a numerical/empirical total, average or mean of a ‘what is’. It is a programmatic outcome.