Max Bowden's BusinessSense: Trans Tasman Briefing Report Highlights Government Department’s Political Dilemmas

Trans Tasman’s new briefing report – 2010 New Zealand Government Departments – People and Policy - An Analysis Of The Inner Workings Of The NZ Bureaucracy, is a unique publication.

It is the first time a comprehensive analysis of the New Zealand public sector has been attempted in one publication. The Government agencies are not only analysed by some of the country’s best political writers, but ranked on “real world” criteria by an Independent Board Of Advisors, comprised of high profile leaders across a wide range of sectors in the NZ economic and social system.

The publication is in two sections, first the analysis of the agencies performance across five criteria – Performance of CEO, Ease of doing business with the Department, The Budget performance and value for money of the Department, the Department’s quality of service delivery, and the overall performance of the Department. These rankings are based on a questionnaire sent to the 16 members of the Independent Board of Advisors.

The Board members are Mai Chen, Chen and Palmer; Peter Conway, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions; Bernadette Courtney, Dominion Post; David Farrar, KiwiBlog; Charles Finny, Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce; Dave Henderson, The Association of NGOs of Aotearoa; Brian Lynch, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs; Phil O’Reilly, Business New Zealand; Tina Reid, NZ Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations; Katherine Rich, New Zealand Food and Grocery Council; Bruce Robertson, Hospitality Association of New Zealand; Barrie Saunders, Saunders Unsworth; John Shewan, Pricewaterhouse Coopers; Ross Tanner, Tanner Ritchie and Company; Alasdair Thompson, Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern), and Mark Unsworth, Saunders Unsworth.

The Board members were also asked to rank their top three Departments and top three CEOs to create a Government Department of the Year, and a Government Department CEO of the year. These will be revealed on publication day, June 11th.

The next section of the report utilises the services of Trans Tasman’s Parliamentary team and others to look at how the Departments operate, who some of the key people involved are, what their current work-streams are and where they’re likely to be focusing in the future. The analysis picks up on contentious issues and relationships between the activities of the Departments. It includes contact details, who the senior personnel are and an update on significant new measures approved in the 2010 Budget.

Trans Tasman’s Editor In Chief Max Bowden observes one of the things which comes through after reading the report is “how long it takes for change to filter through the mechanics of Government. While the Key Government wants to change the public service’s attitude to things like value for money, what we are seeing at the moment is window dressing. The Departments, especially the larger ones like Education and Health have proved extremely difficult to change. It doesn’t matter what direction the Government heads in, meaningful change takes time to work through the state sector. After working under the Clark regime for ten years, the bureaucracy will take a lot more time to absorb the Key Government’s way of working.”

Another of the threads picked up in the report is the connection between the social agencies, which underlies all their work. When the Police are more active, Corrections are more active, which follows through to the Ministry of Social Development, and the Department of Labour. This will have implications for the Ministry of Economic Development and others as the flow on effects create headaches for other Departments down the line.

Another interesting point raised is how the Ministry of Defence is invariably doing better under Labour Governments than National led administrations.

One of the trends also picked out in the analysis is the desire for some Ministries to achieve Mega-Ministry status. Internal Affairs has a desire to bring Justice, Corrections, the Police and the Security services under its wing, and there is also pressure for the Department of Statistics to join Internal Affairs. And there is plenty of politicking going on, such as ACC, which is currently under the wing of the Department of Labour, expressing a desire to be overseen instead by the Reserve Bank.

Each Department’s CEO has a pen portrait. It is clear from the way the Independent Board of Advisors rated the varying organisations that leadership is vital. How a Department’s CEO relates to his or her Minister has a significant bearing on the influence of the Department.

The Departments are having to operate under a new set of circumstances under this Government. The Global Financial Crisis has crimped expenditure plans, but the Key administration is focused on transforming what one senior Minister has described as “an often crap service delivered at high cost.” The Government wants internal management within the public sector to drive the change itself and deliver what the customer is asking for.

This applies the blow torch even more harshly to the CEOs and senior staff. But at least National appears willing to listen to new or contrary advice from the Departments. Whether this is maintained will be another test for the overall relationship between the oft criticised public service and Ministers.

For a special pre-publication price order your copy of the report now at http://transtasman.co.nz/home/special-report-2010

ENDS

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