Better Public Services Advisory Group Report - November 2011

Chapter 3: Better results
3.1 Alongside containing and reducing costs, the greatest challenge facing the state services is
to gain more traction on achieving results: the complex and long term issues that cross
agency boundaries 16 . This is hard territory as it requires cooperative action from Ministers,
boards and agency leaders and staff, action that sometimes competes with those Ministers’
and agencies’ narrower objectives. Past efforts have not always overcome this barrier 17 .
Recent work, such as that by the Welfare Working Group 18 , provides evidence of the
pressing need for change.
3.2 And the potential gains make the effort worthwhile. If New Zealanders are better skilled,
they are more likely to be in employment. If the range of agencies and non-government
organisations that engage with troubled families can work more effectively together, they
will better tackle the tragedy of child abuse, reliance on welfare and the need for children to
be taken into care. If the causes of crime are better addressed, there will be less pressure
on the courts and prisons. If the tax and regulatory environment for firms can be improved,
New Zealand’s export performance will be enhanced.
3.3 The chapter needs to be read alongside Chapters 4 and 5. Taken together, these
chapters provide actions to improve quality and value.
16 The technically-minded reader will note this report uses the term “results” rather than the PFA term “outcomes”. We
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have gone with the more open term as results can encompass outcomes, intermediate outcomes and outputs where
necessary.
These issues are well documented, such as in Allen Schick’s The Spirit of Reform: Managing the State Sector in a
Time of Change; previous work includes ‘Managing for Outcomes’ and the ‘Review of the Centre’.
18 Reducing Long Term Benefit Dependency: The Options, Welfare Working Group, February 2011.
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