Measuring what matters

The debate surrounding this year’s budget has highlighted a familiar tension in Malta’s policymaking: We are increasingly generous in our social ambition, yet still limited in our capacity to measure, prioritise, and deliver.

The budget offers comfort, stability and reassurance, especially in areas such as pensions, family support and reductions in income tax. The announcement that White Rocks will be converted into a public park also signals an important shift toward valuing quality of life, open spaces and collective wellbeing. These are meaningful signals of a country that is thinking not only about economic growth, but also about how it wants to live.

Yet, the challenges Malta faces are structural. We must sustain economic resilience in the face of demographic ageing, declining fertility, environmental pressures, and a labour market that has grown by expanding its size rather than its productivity. This model has created growth, but it is reaching natural limits. The next phase requires moving from expansion in numbers to expansion in value.

This is where implementation becomes central. Malta needs to shift from budgeting for activities to budgeting for outcomes. Performance-based budgeting can help ensure that policy measures deliver the results they promise. This system focuses on defining clear objectives, identifying measurable indicators of success, and linking public spending to evidence of impact. It allows government to ask not only how much is being spent, but whether the spending is improving lives, strengthening capabilities and delivering long-term value.

Many of the budget’s measures are socially constructive. Increases in pensions and children’s allowances support dignity and inclusion. The extension of first-time buyer grants, preferential stamp duty on inherited homes and incentives for family business succession help sustain family formation and intergenerational equity. The salary incentive scheme for long-term employees, expanded Micro Invest credits and tax deductions for research and innovation encourage enterprise stability and skill retention. The extension of grants for electric vehicles and incentives for alternative transport signal a broader environmental awareness.

However, these measures must now be situated within a clearer strategic frame. Vision 2050 aspires to a Malta that is greener, more innovative, more inclusive and more productive. It imagines a country that invests in its human capital, restores its natural environment, improves mobility and infrastructure, and strengthens trust in institutions. The values underpinning that vision are widely shared. The question is how to translate them into sequencing and delivery.

Rebuilding public trust

Systematic impact assessments should become standard practice. Before a measure is introduced, government should specify the expected outcomes and how success will be tracked. During implementation, spending reviews should assess whether the intended results are being achieved. Programmes that perform well should be scaled. Programmes that underperform should be redesigned or phased out. This is how to create fiscal space for real transformation without continuously expanding expenditure.

This is also how to rebuild public trust. Citizens need to see that policy is not only generous, but fair, strategic and effective. They need to see that the measures being funded today contribute to a stronger, more resilient and more cohesive society tomorrow.

Malta is at a moment of possibility. We have a socially ambitious budget that offers stability when it is needed. We have political proposals that introduce new ideas for intergenerational opportunity. We have a long-term vision that places wellbeing, sustainability and innovation at the centre of our national trajectory.

The challenge now is to bring these elements together through disciplined implementation. The task is to move from announcing measures to demonstrating results, from expanding expenditure to improving its quality, from talking about change to building the systems that make change possible.

Tracking policy

In the end, what matters is not only what we spend, but what that spending creates. The future will belong to the Malta that can measure what matters and remain committed to learning, adapting and improving.

To do this effectively, Malta must also develop stronger policy coordination across ministries. Many of the most pressing issues we face; fertility, productivity, housing affordability, educational performance, transport efficiency are not problems belonging to a single ministry. They are system challenges, shaped by the interactions of multiple policies and incentives. For example, lowering tax rates for parents is positive, but the impact will be limited without addressing housing costs, childcare availability, work-life balance practices in the private sector, and urban environments that support families. Similarly, business incentives can stimulate entrepreneurship, but without improved skills training and research capability, we risk subsidising activity without increasing value.

This is why institutional capacity matters. The Vision 2050 documents recognise the need for stronger governance frameworks, better data systems and more transparent monitoring practices. But vision requires translation into administrative reality: Clear lines of accountability, shared targets across ministries, and an annual performance dialogue between government, social partners and independent oversight bodies. Policy becomes credible when it is trackable.

Civil society, local councils, employers and educators all have a role to play in this shift. The next phase of Malta’s development must be co-created rather than centrally administered. A future-focused economy depends on participation, not just provision, on citizens who feel ownership over the country’s direction and confidence that public institutions act with integrity and purpose.

The task is to shape

None of this diminishes the importance of the budget’s stabilising role. Social reassurance matters, especially at a time when many feel stretched, uncertain or disconnected. But reassurance cannot be the end point. It must be the foundation upon which we build a more capable, collaborative and forward-looking society.

The path ahead is not about choosing between comfort and ambition. It is about recognising that true comfort comes from capability, and true social protection comes from systems that are strong, coherent and responsive over time. The task now is not simply to spend, but to shape; to ensure that every euro invested strengthens Malta’s capacity to grow, care, create and thrive.