New independent research flies in the face of a recent decision by the Coalition Government to dump the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency for the South Island.

Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu was advised last month that after 10 years of successful and proven commissioning activities, it no longer had the Government’s support. Instead, Whānau Ora commissioning would be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up.

Yet in an independent evaluation of the agency’s direct commissioning activities, released last week, Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu was hailed as an “outstanding exemplar of an organisation delivering public services that actually work”.

Pouārahi, Ivy Harper, said the Government and Te Puni Kōkiri had consistently overlooked clear research and data. The latest evaluation, completed by Ihi Research, was particularly compelling, she said.

“After 17 evaluations of our flagship Wave direct commissioning stream, including economic impact analyses, outcome analyses and process-driven evaluations, the results are clear: investing in whānau directly to achieve wellbeing is economically efficient, results in strengthened intergenerational whānau connection, improved cultural connections and opportunities to connect, and increased whānau life satisfaction.

“Direct commissioning is a model that works; we have all seen it, we have all felt it, and we have the data to prove it, yet this Coalition Government blindly refuses to acknowledge all that has been achieved.”

Evaluation of Wave 17 for Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu. Ten years of commissioning for whānau wellbeing

Lead author of the Wave 17 evaluation, Dr Catherine Leonard, Research Manager at Ihi Research, said the latest study confirmed the link between direct social investment and increased life satisfaction for Māori.

“In the previous Wave 16 evaluation in 2023, we sought to measure the impact of commissioning on whānau wellbeing to determine the return on investment (ROI) in partnership with the Agribusiness & Economics Research Unit (AERU) at Lincoln University. The evaluation demonstrated that the most conservative impact implied an economic benefit of $2.40 for every $1 of investment, with the value of increased life satisfaction combined found to be at least $7.2m. In this evaluation, we asked whānau what contributed to their sense of increased wellbeing to better understand how the commissioning approach supports whānau wellbeing.

“We found that the increased life satisfaction reported in the Wave 16 study could be directly attributed to the way in which commissioning operates because it enables whānau to work together intergenerationally, in culturally aligned kaupapa with financial support.”

Professor Paul Dalziel, Director of the Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit (AERU) at Lincoln University, said the latest evaluation provided clear evidence that direct commissioning was not only making a difference for whānau but was also economically efficient.

“Like the previous 16 reports, this latest report contains important insights revealing how social investment success is being achieved by participating whānau. It also provides evidence of the economic value being created by Whānau Ora for taxpayers. In short, the report confirms that Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu is an outstanding exemplar of an organisation delivering public services that actually work.”

Dalziel said the commissioning model developed by Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu was capable of generating long-term transformative change with a lower investment than traditional service delivery. The evaluation is recommended reading for anyone involved in social investment, he said.

“In fact, all 17 reports are important. They show to whānau themselves what whānau are capable of achieving, and they show to the government that its social investment in Whānau Ora was delivering value to taxpayers.”

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