Planning in the Bureau of Meteorology is based on a framework of program-based activities delivering Government-agreed Outputs and Outcomes. The planning system operates on overlapping five-year and one-year time-scales. For 2004-05 the system involved:

• a Regional Director's Conference and Planning Workshop on 17-18 March 2004, which considered draft plans for 2004-05 and agreed on a revised planning framework, the output of which would include a five-year Strategic Plan, to be published between August and November, and an Operational Plan focusing on the next financial period, to be published between June and August;
• issue of a Budget Staff Notice on 12 May 2004 advising of the implications of the Budget introduced into Parliament on the previous evening;
• a Budget and Program Workshop on 20-21 May 2004, which reviewed draft plans and resource allocations for 2004-05 in the light of the Budget outcome; and
• publication of a Strategic Plan 2005-10 providing an overview of the planning and performance evaluation framework, a description of the major issues influencing the Bureau over the five-year period, and a summary of the Bureau's strategic plans and related corporate goals for improving the delivery of its four basic Outputs.

Due to staffing shortages in the Coordination and Planning area, a complete edition of the 2004-05 Operational Plan was not published but the essential elements of the plan were promulgated in a series of internal notices.

An essential component of the annual planning cycle is an evaluation of performance against plans. The Bureau monitors and reports, through its annual report to Government, on the effectiveness as well as the quality, quantity and price, of each of its four Output Groups using a range of indicators that relate to the objectives of its internal programs.