Recommendation 12

The Department informed us that it has a “raft of other measures” that it could be measured against, including international comparators. It highlighted its ‘export wins’ measure, which is the value of exports that it thinks it has directly contributed to, as determined and agreed by the companies that it has helped.28 However, the Department’s annual export wins target has limitations because it focuses efforts on short-term export support rather than on longer-term activities that are needed to grow exports. Activities that require a longer timeframe (for example, building capacity in domestic supply chains and understanding the impacts of addressing market barriers) are not currently captured in the Department’s metrics.29 The Department said that there may not be a single measure that provides a link between its own contributions, export performance and UK prosperity. It plans to develop new performance metrics that will help it to understand the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and to segment and target support better to individual companies.30