Plans & Progress


The Council's work plan evolves as elements of the Roadmap and Virginia's performance leadership and accountability system are put in place. The Council regularly publishes an update of its work. The current update, Executive Summary 2007 (November 2007, PDF, 1.4 MB), provides an overview of current progress and next steps for the Council and its partners. In addition, the Council annually publishes The Virginia Report (December 2007, PDF, 1.4 MB). This report provides a summary look at Virginia's progress toward its long-term goals and details specific advancements the state has made in fulfilling the Roadmap for Virginia's Future.

The Council's scope of work is comprised of three main elements:

  • Assessing progress against long-term objectives.
  • Improving state service performance by aligning resources with high priorities and ensuring accountability.
  • Accelerating the rate of productivity improvement and innovation in state service delivery.

Progress Against Long-Term Objectives

One of the Council's roles is to assess the progress being made toward long-term objectives for both Virginia and state government. To facilitate this assessment, the Council has developed Virginia Performs, a performance leadership and accountability system whose most public face is the website, Virginia Performs.  This "scorecard" for Virginia aligns agency-level outcomes with broader statewide goals. 

The system's "architecture" has 3 levels.  At the highest level, quality-of-life measures known as societal indicators provide a snapshot of how Virginia is doing on significant issues (e.g., water quality, educational attainment).   Key measures – at the middle or “enterprise” level – help us understand whether we are achieving high-priority performance targets and improving the factors that influence these targets.  At the foundation or agency detail level, service area measures are used to promote budget transparency and monitor whether state government programs and services are producing desired results.

Service Performance (Strategic Planning and Performance-Based Budgeting)

The Service Performance component has been focused on the development of a new planning and budgeting system. The old system presented numerous challenges, including variations in how planning was done across agencies, differences in planning language, and the segregation of planning from budgeting processes. The Department of Planning and Budget (DPB) created a new service area structure that now serves as the new “taxonomy” used for budgeting, accounting, and planning. These and other changes have produced a significant shift in how planning occurs at the agency level.

Accelerating Productivity and Innovation in State Government

The Commonwealth has a long history of innovation and change in state government operations. While these achievements have been impressive, they have not been enough to offset rapidly rising operating costs and the growing demands for more effective and efficient services from an expanding population. As a result, measuring and improving productivity in state government are also important goalsl for the Council.

The focus of the Productivity component is to generate innovative ideas to reduce costs and improve service delivery for citizens.  through seed funds, innovative collaborations, enterprise project leadership, and formal mechanisms for change management and continuous improvement.