Better Public Services Advisory Group Report - November 2011

services in this manner, as proposed by the Advisory Group, they would of course be the
ones to shape and decide which actual results the government of the day might choose to
pursue.
3.21 What the work undertaken by the chief executives shows, however, is that amongst the
current leadership of New Zealand’s state services, there is a common belief that our efforts
are spread too thin, are not well coordinated and would benefit from a sharper focus on
bigger challenges that are likely to make a bigger difference. Even within the constraints of
the current system, some changes could be made to drive better results. The Advisory
Group supports the chief executive groups’ direction of travel, and the nature of their
suggested sets of results, but considers that with further work on the sectoral results
framework, and ministerial backing, significant improvements in performance could be
secured. Some of the indicative thinking developed by the groups of sectoral chief
executives is set out below. Should Ministers agree to consider or adopt this approach,
further analysis of results options would be required.
• Natural resources 24 : Tentative results identified included the quality, flow and
availability of fresh water and value derived from the coastal and marine area. The
sector noted the importance of working with iwi and local government as well as other
stakeholder and user groups in pursuing these objectives. Chief executives
emphasised the importance of evaluating any programmes introduced and the need
for tighter governance arrangements at both ministerial and agency level.
The Advisory Group concurs with this initial thinking, but believes that the current
voluntary and consensus-based arrangements that guide the work of the natural
resources chief executives’ group may not be robust enough in the quest for results.
Better traction would probably be made on one or both of these results by
establishing, for example, a more formal joint venture arrangement that brings
together staff and resources from a range of agencies into a single shared entity.
• Social sector 25 : A semi-formal social services chief executives’ sector group has been
operating for about 10 years. It has already established a track record of reporting
jointly to Ministers and running pilot joint ventures focused on specific local issues.
The critical two results that the social sector chief executives identified in this exercise
were improved services for children aged 0–6 from families with multiple issues and
young people contributing and achieving.
The chief executives judged that if significant efforts were made by their collective
agencies to make an impact on just these two targets, much better social outcomes
would be generated over the long term. The chief executives considered that there
24 The Natural resources group includes: Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry, Land Information New Zealand, Department of Conservation, Te Puni Kōkiri.
25 The Social services group includes: Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, Ministry
of Education, the Department of Building and Housing.
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