'Outputs' are automatic products of policy changes. 'Outcomes' may have been produced by a particular policy change but may reflect other unrelated factors.
We live in an age where statisticians are constantly trying to measure and evaluate performance.
The multiplication of targeting within Whitehall has been one by-product of this everything-must-be-measured age.
Measurers have to make the very important - but not always easy - distinction between outputs and outcomes.
For example, an undeniable output of the increased imprisonment of the 1990s is the fewer convicted criminals that remained on the nation's streets. But is the fall in crime seen over the same period an outcome of greater imprisonment? The fall in crime could be a product of better policing, more CCTV cameras or a smaller teenage population. For a policy change to have produced an outcome there has to be a proven link between that change and the desired goal.
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