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The delivery scoreboard: what the federal government reports about its own targets

How many of the federal government's own performance targets does it report meeting — and how many does it report on at all?

One delivery arc and one verdict ledger, both counted from the federal performance file this record holds. The arc: the share of departmental result indicators reported met, out of those that reached a decided verdict, in each of the five reported fiscal years — 62.6% in fiscal 2020-21, highest at 69.1%, lowest at 62.6%, and 68.8% in fiscal 2024-25. Annual values are stepped flat across each fiscal year and nothing is interpolated between them. Measured instead over every indicator reported, the same years read 45.6% and 55.4%, because the share carrying no verdict fell from 27.1% to 19.4%. The ledger: the change in indicator count in each published verdict between those two years — met +268, not met -56, to be achieved -75, not available -134, against a total of +3. Every status is assigned by the organization reporting it, against a target that organization set, and is verified by nobody. Across the 88 organizations with a decided verdict in fiscal 2024-25 the middle share is 75.0%; the evidence tables on this page carry the full record this instrument restates.
Departmental result indicators reported met, fiscal 2024-25: 68.8% of the 2,196 that reached a decided verdict, 55.4% of all 2,725 reported; 529 carry no verdict. In fiscal 2020-21 the same readings were 62.6%, 45.6% and 738. Statuses are self-reported — arrow keys inspect each point
View the data table for this instrument (20 rows)
Fiscal year or verdictValueBasis
Fiscal 2020-2162.6% of the 1,984 indicators with a decided verdict reported met
Fiscal 2021-2266.0% of the 2,063 indicators with a decided verdict reported met
Fiscal 2022-2367.3% of the 2,205 indicators with a decided verdict reported met
Fiscal 2023-2469.1% of the 2,158 indicators with a decided verdict reported met
Fiscal 2024-2568.8% of the 2,196 indicators with a decided verdict reported met
Fiscal 2020-2145.6% of all 2,722 indicators reported that year recorded met
Fiscal 2021-2249.8% of all 2,731 indicators reported that year recorded met
Fiscal 2022-2353.1% of all 2,799 indicators reported that year recorded met
Fiscal 2023-2454.3% of all 2,746 indicators reported that year recorded met
Fiscal 2024-2555.4% of all 2,725 indicators reported that year recorded met
Fiscal 2020-2127.1% of that year's indicators carrying no verdict (738 of 2,722)
Fiscal 2021-2224.5% of that year's indicators carrying no verdict (668 of 2,731)
Fiscal 2022-2321.2% of that year's indicators carrying no verdict (594 of 2,799)
Fiscal 2023-2421.4% of that year's indicators carrying no verdict (588 of 2,746)
Fiscal 2024-2519.4% of that year's indicators carrying no verdict (529 of 2,725)
Met+268Change in indicator count, fiscal 2020-21 (1,242) to fiscal 2024-25 (1,510)
Not met-56Change in indicator count, fiscal 2020-21 (742) to fiscal 2024-25 (686)
To be achieved-75Change in indicator count, fiscal 2020-21 (364) to fiscal 2024-25 (289)
Not available-134Change in indicator count, fiscal 2020-21 (374) to fiscal 2024-25 (240)
All indicators reported+3Change in indicator count, fiscal 2020-21 (2,722) to fiscal 2024-25 (2,725)
First readingEvidence through 2026-07-10

Next: The Treasury Board's next republication of the performance file. No publication schedule for it is recorded here, and the edition this reading rests on is the issuer's own March 2026 edition. The republication that…

Federal organizations reported meeting 1,510 of the 2,196 departmental result indicators they reached a verdict on in fiscal 2024-25 — 68.8% — and reported no verdict on a further 529.

The answer

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat publishes one file that carries every federal departmental result indicator, the target it was assessed against, the result reported against it, and a verdict on whether the target was met. The verdicts are the reporting organizations' own: each organization selects the indicator, sets the target, reports the result and records the status. Nothing in the file is audited, and Countability verifies none of it. What follows counts what was reported.

For fiscal 2024-25, federal organizations reported 2,725 departmental result indicators. They recorded 1,510 as met and 686 as not met. On the remaining 529 they recorded no verdict at all: 289 as “to be achieved”, where the date the target is assessed against had not arrived, and 240 as “not available”, where no result was on hand to compare with the target.

That produces two rates, and both belong in the same reading. Of the 2,196 indicators that reached a decided verdict, 68.8% were reported met. Of all 2,725 indicators reported, 55.4% were reported met. The first rate answers “of the targets it judged, how many did it judge met?” The second answers “of the targets it published, how many did it report meeting?” They are different questions and they have moved differently.

Across the five reported years the rate on decided indicators rose from 62.6% in fiscal 2020-21 to 68.8% in fiscal 2024-25, with its highest reading in fiscal 2023-24 at 69.1%. The rate on all reported indicators rose further over the same window, from 45.6% to 55.4%, because the denominator moved underneath it: the share of indicators carrying no verdict fell from 27.1% to 19.4%. In indicator counts, the latest year carries 268 more reported met than the first, 56 fewer not met, 75 fewer to be achieved and 134 fewer not available, against a total that moved by 3. A rising met-rate and a shrinking undecided share are two descriptions of one movement in this record, and the record does not separate a change in what was delivered from a change in what was reported on.

The indicator set does not hold still either. Of the 2,722 indicators reported for fiscal 2020-21, 899 — a third of them — do not appear in the fiscal 2024-25 file at all, and 902 of that year's 2,725 were not in the 2020-21 file. The identifiers present in all five reported years number 1,822, and they carry a higher reported met-rate throughout: 70.4% on decided indicators in fiscal 2024-25, against 65.4% for the rest of that year's set. The 899 that stopped appearing had already been reported met less often in their base year — 58.3% of their decided verdicts — than the 1,823 that carried through to the latest year, at 64.5%. This file records that an identifier appeared or stopped appearing. It records no reason, and none is supplied here.

Organizations differ widely on the same measure. Among the 26 organizations that reached a decided verdict on at least 30 indicators in fiscal 2024-25 — together 1,416 of the 2,196 decided indicators that year — the share reported met runs from 32.4% to 96.9%, with a middle value of 70.9%. Across all 88 organizations reporting any decided indicator, the middle value is 75.0% and the readings span the whole scale, because 30 of those organizations reached a verdict on fewer than ten indicators and one indicator moves such a share by more than ten points. Every organization here chose its own indicators and set its own targets, so a difference between two of these shares is a difference between two self-set bars at least as much as between two performances.

What this means for the decision

A reader who takes the headline met-rate on its own will read a basis movement as an improvement. The share of indicators reported met rose on both denominators between fiscal 2020-21 and fiscal 2024-25, and over the same window the share arriving with no verdict fell by 7.7 percentage points; the record carries both facts and cannot apportion between them. A reader who takes the organization figures as a ranking will read them as something they cannot support: the measure is matched, but the targets underneath it are each organization's own, so a high share may mean a demanding target was met or an undemanding one was. What this reading does support is narrower and firmer — how many targets the federal government judged, how many of those it judged met, how many indicators it published without judging, and how much of the indicator set survives five years. Those are the quantities to hold a departmental performance claim against.

The key uncertainty

Three things could move this reading, and they are different in kind. The first is the verdict itself: every status is self-assigned by the organization reporting it, on a methodology that organization states in its own words, so consistency across organizations is not established and cannot be established from this file. The second is the indicator set: a third of the base year's indicators are gone by the latest year and 596 of the 1,822 that survive have had their published name restated at least once, so a five-year comparison of the same identifier is not guaranteed to be a comparison of the same measured thing. The third is the file's own edition. A republication adds a reported fiscal year and, by the same act, deletes the plan rows for the year it now reports on — which is why this file is preserved on capture rather than read live.

What would settle it

The Treasury Board's next republication of the performance file. No publication schedule for it is recorded here, and the edition this reading rests on is the issuer's own March 2026 edition. The republication that first carries fiscal 2025-26 results will also be the one that removes the fiscal 2025-26 plan rows this record already holds, which is why the file is preserved on capture.

Federal organizations publish thousands of performance indicators about themselves, each with a target and a verdict on whether that target was met. The verdicts are their own, and they are the raw material of almost every public claim a department makes about delivering on its commitments. A reader who has only a headline share of targets met cannot tell whether it moved because more targets were met or because fewer indicators arrived without a verdict, cannot tell whether the indicators being compared are even the same ones, and cannot tell what a met target establishes. The register that answers those questions is published by the government itself, in one file, and is simply less often counted.

Evidence reviewed through 2026-07-10 · 1 cited source · 0 member Resolutions · 8 chapters

Refreshed when the Treasury Board republishes the performance file. No publication schedule for it is recorded here, so no date is stated for the next reading. This one rests on the issuer's own March 2026 edition of the file, captured on 2026-07-10, whose latest reported fiscal year is 2024-25.

How this Brief was made — sources, method and limits →

Chapter 1§

The answer

What federal organizations reported about their own targets in the latest reported fiscal year, and the two rates that answer follows from — stated once, at the top, with the denominator each one uses named beside it.

Chapter 2§

Where these verdicts come from

One published file, its two document types, and who assigns the status. The plan rows are counted here and scored nowhere: a commitment about a fiscal year that has not been reported on is not a result, and this file holds no year in both forms.

Every row of the published performance file, by document type and fiscal year, in the edition this record holds.
DocumentFiscal yearRows
Departmental Results ReportFiscal 2020-212,722
Departmental Results ReportFiscal 2021-222,731
Departmental Results ReportFiscal 2022-232,799
Departmental Results ReportFiscal 2023-242,746
Departmental Results ReportFiscal 2024-252,725
Departmental PlanFiscal 2025-262,687
Departmental PlanFiscal 2026-272,600
All rows in the file19,010

Results Report rows carry a verdict and are what this reading counts: 13,723 of them, across 91 organizations and the five fiscal years shown. Departmental Plan rows carry no verdict at all — every one of the 5,287 is empty in that column — because they state commitments for fiscal years that have not been reported on. No fiscal year appears in both forms, so no plan can be compared with the report that follows it. Each verdict is assigned by the organization reporting it, against a target that organization set; nothing here is audited by the Treasury Board or verified by Countability.

Chapter 3§

The two denominators

The share of indicators reported met, computed twice for each reported year — once over the indicators that reached a decided verdict, once over every indicator reported. Both rose. They did not rise by the same amount, and the difference between them is the movement in the basis.

Departmental result indicators reported in each fiscal year, how many reached a decided verdict, how many were reported met, and the share met on each of the two denominators.
Fiscal yearIndicators reportedDecided verdictsReported met% of decided% of all reported% with no verdict
Fiscal 2020-212,7221,9841,24262.6%45.6%27.1%
Fiscal 2021-222,7312,0631,36166.0%49.8%24.5%
Fiscal 2022-232,7992,2051,48567.3%53.1%21.2%
Fiscal 2023-242,7462,1581,49169.1%54.3%21.4%
Fiscal 2024-252,7252,1961,51068.8%55.4%19.4%

A decided verdict is one reported as met or as not met. The remainder are reported as to be achieved or as not available, and both denominators are published because the second one moved: the share carrying no verdict fell from 27.1% to 19.4% across these five years, so the share met over all reported indicators rose further than the share met over decided ones. The record carries both movements and apportions between them nowhere.

Chapter 4§

What moved underneath the rate

The four published verdicts as indicator counts in the first and latest reported years, and the change in each. A share can rise because more targets were reported met, or because fewer indicators arrived without a verdict; this is how much of each the record actually carries.

The four published verdicts as indicator counts in the first and latest reported fiscal years, and the change in each.
Reported verdictFiscal 2020-21Fiscal 2024-25Change
Met1,2421,510+268
Not met742686-56
To be achieved364289-75
Not available374240-134
All indicators reported2,7222,725+3

The four verdicts are every value the status column takes on a Results Report row, so this is a decomposition of the whole rather than a selection from it, and the final row is their total. Two of the four shed indicators while the total moved by +3: that movement is what a rising share of decided verdicts is measured against. Why any individual status moved is not recorded in this file and is not inferred here.

Chapter 5§

The indicators that stop appearing

How much of the indicator set survives all five reported years, how the surviving set's reported met-rate compares with the rest, and how far the surviving identifiers' own published names and targets moved. Presence and absence are facts in this file; reasons for either are not.

The indicator identifiers present in all five reported fiscal years, set against every other indicator reported in the same year, each at its own share of decided verdicts reported met.
Fiscal yearPresent in all five years% of decided metEvery other indicator that year% of decided met
Fiscal 2020-211,82264.4%90058.4%
Fiscal 2021-221,82266.6%90964.5%
Fiscal 2022-231,82270.0%97762.2%
Fiscal 2023-241,82271.1%92465.0%
Fiscal 2024-251,82270.4%90365.4%

Of the 2,722 indicators reported for fiscal 2020-21, 899 — 33.0% — are not in the fiscal 2024-25 file at all, and 902 of that year's 2,725 were not in the earlier one. 1,822 identifiers are present in every one of the five years; 1,823 of the base year's indicators reappear in the latest year, the difference being identifiers absent from a middle year and back again. Measured in their base year, the ones that stopped appearing had been reported met on 58.3% of their decided verdicts against 64.5% for the ones that carried through. An identifier is not a guarantee of a fixed measure: of the 1,822 present throughout, 596 carry a published name that is not identical in all five years and 882 carry a recorded target that is not. This file records presence, absence and restatement. It records no reason for any of them, and none is supplied here.

Chapter 6§

Organization by organization

The same measure — the share of decided indicators reported met in the latest reported year — computed identically for every organization: first as a distribution, then organization by organization in alphabetical order. Each organization chose its own indicators and set its own targets, which is why this is a comparison of one measure and never a ranking.

The share of decided verdicts reported met, computed identically for every organization reporting in fiscal 2024-25, as a distribution.
ReadingFiscal 2024-25
Organizations reporting indicators89
Of those, with at least one decided verdict88
Lowest share of decided verdicts reported met0.0%
One quarter of organizations are at or below58.5%
Middle organization75.0%
Three quarters of organizations are at or below84.9%
Highest share of decided verdicts reported met100.0%
Organizations at 90% or more17
Organizations at 75% to under 90%29
Organizations at 50% to under 75%29
Organizations at 25% to under 50%10
Organizations at under 25%3

One organization reached no decided verdict at all that year and is counted in the first row only. The extremes are held by very small reporters: 12 organizations sit at 100.0% and the largest of them reached 14 decided verdicts, while 2 sit at 0.0% on no more than 4. Across all organizations the count of decided verdicts runs from 0 to 170, with a middle of 17, and 30 organizations reached fewer than ten — at which point a single indicator moves the share by more than ten points.

Every organization that reached a decided verdict on at least 30 indicators in fiscal 2024-25, in alphabetical order, each at its own share of decided verdicts reported met.
OrganizationIndicators reportedDecided verdictsReported met% of decided met
Canada Border Services Agency64634876.2%
Canada Revenue Agency34331442.4%
Canadian Energy Regulator50422969.0%
Correctional Service of Canada76725170.8%
Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food60372567.6%
Department of Canadian Heritage79522955.8%
Department of Citizenship and Immigration55553054.5%
Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs50332575.8%
Department of Employment and Social Development110905358.9%
Department of Finance40323196.9%
Department of Fisheries and Oceans68574273.7%
Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development117977577.3%
Department of Health64413482.9%
Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities35322578.1%
Department of Indigenous Services70372156.8%
Department of Industry57362569.4%
Department of Justice45312271.0%
Department of National Defence2141708147.6%
Department of Natural Resources67464393.5%
Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness41411946.3%
Department of Public Works and Government Services63624369.4%
Department of the Environment61353291.4%
Department of Transport67645078.1%
National Research Council of Canada70705172.9%
Royal Canadian Mounted Police39371232.4%
Shared Services Canada53514384.3%

26 organizations clear the size cut, together holding 1,416 of the 2,196 decided verdicts that year. The cut is on how many verdicts an organization reached, never on the share itself, and the order is alphabetical: this is one measure computed the same way for every row — same variable, same fiscal year, same edition of the file, same basis, same method — and it is not a ranking. Across these rows the share runs from 32.4% to 96.9%, with a middle of 70.9%. Each organization chose its own indicators and set its own targets, so a higher share may mean a demanding target was met or an undemanding one was. Nothing in this table supports a judgement about which organization performed better, and none is offered.

Chapter 7§

What this reading cannot say

The boundaries a reader should hold against every sentence above: who assigns each verdict, what a met target does and does not establish, the field the issuer documents but does not publish, and why nothing here supports a judgement about any organization.

Chapter 8§

What to watch next

The publications that can change this reading, in the order they are expected — including the one that removes evidence when it arrives, because the plan rows for a fiscal year are deleted from this file when that year's results are reported.

Directly observed

No section of this Brief currently carries an audited outcome — zero is shown, not hidden.

Method and limitations

This Brief is published in full: the complete cited record behind its headline question. Countability can commission a related Brief with custom scenarios, a recurring refresh, or a different decision question.

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