Income Security: A Roadmap for Change

MEASURING OUTCOMES
Recommendation 20: The recommendations in this Roadmap should
be accompanied by a transparent report on associated outcomes and
indicators, to be updated annually and made publicly available by MCSS.
In the past, efforts to document the effectiveness of income security programs
have focussed on describing the services and activities provided and the outputs
that have resulted—for example, the number of cheques issued or the number
of people served. While this information is important and will continue to be
collected, it is necessary to shift to describing the impact of programs, through
the use of a performance measurement framework
The first step is defining the outcomes that we would expect to see if the
income security system is functioning exactly as it should—both individual-level
outcomes (e.g., physical, emotional, mental well-being, financial) and systemlevel
outcomes (e.g., ease of navigation, transparency). It is beyond the scope of
the Working Groups to develop a full performance measurement framework for
income security, and it is understood that the ministry already has some work
underway in this regard
As the performance measurement framework is finalized, we offer the following
as considerations that must be included:
1. The importance of collecting and making publicly available disaggregated
data so that the impact and outcomes on individual sub-populations can
be observed and to support equity-based program design, assessment
and evaluation. This is important to ensure the system is able to identify
whether intended outcomes are occurring for marginalized groups,
including Indigenous peoples, racialized individuals, women, newcomers to
Canada, refugee claimants, LGBTQ2S and youth
2. The need to ensure indicators are meaningful to communities and developed
with a wide range of experts, including persons with lived experience
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