Key facts
Should impact analysis be reinforced? This question is at the heart of the current debate surrounding a resultsoriented culture. Impact analysis serves the purpose of accounting for the activities of the federal offices and of establishing the consequences of the measures taken. It also supplies criteria for judging the effectiveness of programmes and provides recommendations for improving them. Evaluations are not the only instrument which allow impacts to be analysed. Evaluations complement controlling, monitoring, performance audits, benchmarking and quality control, but represent the most comprehensive of all these procedures. At the level of the Confederation, there are no set standards or uniform procedures. The Netherlands, for example, has adopted a procedure by which the Ministry of Finance sets out analysis standards and criteria which each government department must apply.