As part of the Services and Development Agreement for managing the Station, Civic Nexus Pty Ltd is obliged to meet 15 service standards and 60 related KPIs as well as developing and maintaining a range of documentation including quarterly performance reports, operating manuals, quality assurance manuals, asset management plans and annual reports (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.54). As stated above, the audit found that a number of the service standards and KPIs were difficult to measure which impacted on the ability of the Southern Cross Station Authority to successfully monitor and review the consortium's performance (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.43, p.54). Thus, the audit team concluded that the Southern Cross Station Authority should make "demonstrable progress" in addressing its deficiencies (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.36). This is important as without a robust KPI regime, the Southern Cross Station Authority may not have been able to enforce service provider under-performance (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.42).
These findings illustrate a wider point about the need to review KPIs regularly. Depending on specifics, there may be a case for the public partner to review KPIs annually (in conjunction with service providers) to determine the extent to which service delivery is achieving VfM propositions as well as ensuring that KPIs remain relevant (Edwards et al 2004: p.45) over time. There may also be justification for conducting a more frequent KPI review (over and above the annual review) to assess the ongoing appropriateness of performance data including what should be used to inform trend analysis (Victorian Auditor-General 2007a: p.58) for performance and risk management purposes.