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Technical Appendix 3 - Smart targets

SMART Targets

This document should be read in conjunction with Part A of the Technical Annex.

Threshold Based Targets

If an authority and its partners wish to establish a target for a threshold based indicator, then it is desirable that these indicators should comprise multiple thresholds and should reflect progressive or relative improvements in accessibility. A threshold-based target might read as:

a) "To secure a y% increase by year z in the percentage of secondary school age children WITHIN w minutes travel time of their nearest secondary school and a u% increase by year z in the percentage of secondary school age children WITHIN x minutes travel time of their nearest secondary school".

Targets could also be established reflecting i) year on year improvements in accessibility, ii) a prioritisation of the regions or wards within a local authority which are experiencing the poorest accessibility, i.e. "to ensure that 20% of a local authority's least accessible wards to/from secondary schools experience a 10% improvement in accessibility by 2008".

However, it should be noted that targets that focus on specific wards run the risk of neglecting changes that occur within other wards or encouraging the inappropriate transfer of resources and possible unanticipated deterioration in accessibility in other wards. They may therefore be most usefully considered in combination with more general indicators measuring accessibility for the entire area or population.

SMART Targets

If we consider the Specific Measurable Appropriate Realistic Timed (SMART) acronym for a target, it is evident that accessibility targets must satisfy all five properties. Targets and associated indicators must be:

a) Specific, saying precisely what is to be achieved.

b) Measurable over the duration of the target. It must allow for regular evaluation of the effectiveness of the target. Thus the target must use data which is easily collected and updated over the duration of the target.

c) Appropriate, and linked to the overall objectives and aims of the authorities' accessibility strategy.

d) Realistic, in terms of their potential for being achieved over the duration of the target.

e) Timed. The target must define a date or series of dates by which it is expected to be achieved.

Targets may generally satisfy Specific, Measurable, Appropriate and Timed. However it is the realism aspect where targets often fail. For SMART targets, there is thus a need to ensure that whilst being challenging, the targets are grounded in reality. One way to develop a realistic and achievable target is to model or quantify the accessibility benefits of the various policy interventions under consideration to investigate the improvement that can be achieved. An important consideration in the establishment of achievable and realistic targets is ensuring that policy interventions stand a realistic chance of being fully funded over the lifetime of the project.

Authorities and their partners are encouraged to foster a culture of continuous improvement in accessibility by establishing challenging, but realistic, targets Continuous, sustained and significant improvements in accessibility are only likely to arise if authorities and their partners mainstream accessibility issues and objectives into their key decision making processes.

Targets should be reviewed regularly, not only to assess the extent of progress towards achieving targets but also to assess the reasons for lack of progress and to re-prioritise resources and actions towards the delivery of the target in under-performing areas and regions.