MEDIA RELEASE

4 July 2013

Head of State Services commends 2013 IPANZ – Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards winners

Head of State Services and State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie today congratulated the winners in the 2013 Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (IPANZ) – Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards describing the award winners as “outstanding examples of the transformational change that is underway in the public sector.”

“With the rising expectations on public servants, including the need to show collective leadership on the tough issues, winners demonstrated innovation, collaboration and commitment as they strive together to deliver better public services,” Mr Rennie said.

The awards ceremony was held last night at the TSB Arena in Wellington and recognised public sector excellence in eight different categories. Minister Steven Joyce, who represented Prime Minister John Key, presented the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award to the Ministry of Social Development for the ‘It’s OK to Help’ campaign.

The State Services Commission (SSC) is proud to support the IPANZ awards and this year sponsored the “Working Together for Better Public Services” category. This award was won by the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Corrections, and the New Zealand Police for their project ‘Joined-up Justice’.

The first programme of its kind for the public sector, ‘Joined-up Justice’ is a joint programme of the three major justice agencies that aims “to reduce crime by joined-up justice services”. They have formally agreed to act in a unified way in the areas of strategic direction, sector governance, Better Public Services (BPS) delivery, resource sharing, and front-line co-operation, while retaining the accountabilities of separate agencies. Crime rate is currently is at its lowest in thirty years in the country and this programme aims to ‘lock in’ this low rate of crime and the benefits it has for our communities.

Other winners are:

-Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) were joint winners for the project ‘The Reluctant Customer: Transforming the Collections Operating Model’ (Improving Public Value through Business Transformation category);

-Bay of Plenty District Health Board for the project ‘Toi Ora’ (Crown Māori Relationships category);

-MBIE for the “Balancing ease of doing business and integrity’ project (Integrity and Trust category);

-Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) for the initiative ‘LINZ: Building a highly-engaged workplace’ (Improving Performance through Leadership Excellence); and

-New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for the project ‘Business Continuity Programme (BCP) aka Registry System Modernisation’ (Networked Government category).

-Jeremy Palmer, LINZ Data Service (LDS) Manager, was awarded New Professional of the Year.

The IPANZ Awards is an annual event to recognise outstanding achievements of the New Zealand public sector.

ENDS

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