The Department of Social Welfare (DSW) is a state government department that provides support and counselling services to several groups in the community: the elderly, the unemployed children at risk. DSW is accountable to a range of stakeholders, some of whom dictate specific deliverable or performance requirements (the government) while others are community-based interest groups and clients.

The government requires that DSW provides high quality, timely and relevant services to clients, and that it achieves service delivery improvements and operates within a tight budget. The government also expects DSW to implement government decisions that involve changes in services, on time and within budget. Clients expect Services to be easy to access, of high quality and suited to their circumstances.

Community groups expect to have an involvement with DSW, so DSW needs to develop close relationships with those groups and consult closely to ensure that the services it provides to clients are appropriate.

DSW is structured into three divisions: Aged and the Unemployed, Child Safety, and Financial Support. Each division is managed by a Divisional Director who forms part of DSW's senior management team.

The Director of DSW wishes to put in place a performance management system to help manage these accountabilities. He has talked to his senior management team and they agree that a balanced scorecard with appropriate Perspectives and a range of lag and lead indicators is the way to proceed.

To provide the foundation for the balanced scorecard, all of the company managers participated in a strategic planning retreat. The outcome of the retreat was a mission statement for the DSW and the identification of five perspectives for the BSC:

• Mission: Provide timely financial support and advice to individuals and families in need and encourage them to become self-sufficient.

• Perspectives: Government and other stakeholders, Clients. Service delivery, Employees, Finance:

Required:

1. For each perspective, provide one or two objectives.

2. Use the objectives to draw a strategy map.

3. Formulate a balanced scorecard for DSW that includes two or more lag and lead indicators to support each objective. Make sure that your measures relate specifically to DSW.

4. Explain how your balanced scorecard may be used by the DSW senior management team to monitor managerial and divisional performance, to motivate all DSW staff, and as a tool for continuous improvement?