NEWDIRECTIONS – THE PROPOSALS

46. The picture that emerges is a system that provides a reasonable platform to build on, but one where some significant change is needed. We have identified three priority areas for change:
    • service delivery for cross-cutting services – more integration is needed;
    • tackling fragmentation and improving alignment; and
    • people and culture – stronger culture, a better place to work.

47. The nature of the changes we think are needed is as follows:

48. Moving in these new directions requires action across the board. The proposals that follow represent our view of good places to start. They are not a comprehensive list of things to do, nor are all of them new. A number of initiatives to address these issues are already underway across the State sector, many of them from the last 18 months, including the Partnership for Quality Agreement with the PSA, the work of the State sector Standards Board, collective work by chief executives, work on social indicators underway in the Ministry of Social Development and other departments, the Pathfinder project on outcomes and the development of Deputy Commissioner Teams in the SSC. A number of significant projects are described in Appendix 8. Our intention is not for the Review of the Centre to cut across other work, but to build on it where appropriate.

		Recommendation: We recommend Ministers note the Advisory Group’s view that the three areas for attention are: Achieving better integrated, citizen focused, service delivery, particularly where complex social problems are dealt with by multiple agencies, making sure the system is focused on the results that citizens and governments want in terms of outcomes and services; Addressing fragmentation and improving alignment particularly through: a stronger emphasis on outcomes; developing more effective, higher trust means of working together; harnessing technology; re-examining the large number of agencies and votes, and the tendency to emphasise vertical accountabilities rather than whole of government interests; and Enhancing the People and culture of the State sector, particularly building a strong and unifying sense of values, staff and management development, and meaningful opportunities for collective engagement in organisational decisions.

Integrated service delivery
49. A central question for the Advisory Group was whether the State sector is as effective as it should be in providing services to the community. Two sets of issues emerged consistently through the review:
    • The extent of inter-agency cooperation required in the delivery of some services, and the difficulty of achieving coordinated “whole of Government” action; and

    • The extent to which decisions about the service are best made at the point of delivery, in a local context, or in a standardised, frequently pre-specified way.

50. Both these issues have different implications. Neither applies uniformly to all Government services as can be seen in the diagram above. Different approaches are needed to different services. In broad terms the most straightforward services are those in the top left corner of the diagram. These are provided according to a specification that will typically be determined nationally, with minimal need for inter-agency interaction. These sorts of services tend to be standardised and predictable, a desirable characteristic for many services delivered to businesses and citizens (e.g. tax, border control). They represent a significant proportion of Government services, and by international comparison are well supported by the current New Zealand public management system.

51. Moving out of the upper, left corner, services become less well suited to national specification, and more agencies need to be involved. Moving from left to right sees an increase in service discretion, and more need for frontline staff to make case-by-case judgments. Moving from top to bottom more agencies need to be involved and vertical accountabilities need to be tempered with a stronger whole of government perspective.

52. The bottom right hand corner poses some of the hardest challenges. Services here tend to be both cross-cutting and highly devolved. The boundaries between central Government and local Government, Maori and NGOs can become blurred. Staff need to be able to manage diverse relationships and make difficult trade-offs. Front line staff need to be able to access information quickly. Considerable potential for innovation exists, as there are many different, local ways of approaching problems. With these possibilities comes greater risk.

53. To achieve significant change it will be necessary to test new concepts and empower those dealing with citizens to move away from a one-size-fits-all model. These initiatives may cross Ministerial boundaries, and may also move outside traditional reporting structures. Some of these concepts will fail. Changes recommended in this report provide the flexibility to manage the reporting and interagency relationships, but the ability of Ministers to reflect these changes in their responses will be a critical element in the success or failure of initiatives.

54. The focus of the Advisory Group has been on these issues. There are no simple solutions, or single levers that can be pulled. Progress will be made through finding flexible and responsive ways of working that reflect the particular challenges of each situation. There are proposals in this package that will enhance service delivery in all quadrants (eg culture, values and ethos) but the new ways of working, outlined below, will have the biggest impact on services nearer the bottom and right of the diagram. These challenges are illustrated in the case studies in Appendix 6.

    New ways of working to improve integrated service delivery

55. Circuit-Breaker teams: We propose the establishment of front-line based, interagency teams to find creative ways to solve problems that have proved intractable over time (e.g. the state of rural housing in Northland). These would not be simply more committees - they represent a different approach to problem solving. We already see some examples of this sort of approach, often at local initiative. The teams would also:
    • Create a demonstration effect showing that front-line, cross-boundary creativity can solve problems;
    • Show that the centre is serious about tapping the ideas of the front-line; and
    • Build stronger links between the centre and the front-line.

56. The teams would:
    • Draw on front-line staff from multiple agencies;

    • Be supported by a dedicated unit based in one of the central agencies to provide technical, research and analytical support, including advice on evaluation;

    • Undergo an initial course in problem analysis, creativity and change management;

    • Be given six months to develop, cost and plan a solution to the problem, with a brief to think beyond existing procedures, programmes or rules;

    • Meet periodically with the chief executives of agencies involved, to present their proposals and receive feedback and a go/no-go decision. Some proposals are likely to require Ministerial endorsement.

57. If the teams succeed, later teams could work on other matters (such as a development focus as opposed to a problem focus). However, we want these teams to focus initially on service delivery problems.

58. Mandated regional coordination mechanisms: Ensuring coordinated delivery is hard. Different agencies often have different levels of delegated authority, and different regional boundaries. Typically no agency is mandated to ensure coordination occurs, although in some regions coordination mechanisms have developed. We propose more work to understand the best of current practice, as a prelude to implementing mandated regional coordination mechanisms. This should include looking at the impact of factors such as the Privacy Act and different regional boundaries on coordination.

59. We expect a range of different co-ordination arrangements will emerge. They will need to facilitate more effective inter-agency collaboration and planning, and more effective interaction with local Government, NGOs and Maori, as well as being able to provide a regional perspective on how effectively government is meeting the needs of citizens. An important part of the brief for regional coordination will be to ensure a range of fora for the State sector to interact with Maori.

60. Many problems cannot be solved by a single actor, public, private or community. We have not had enough time for consultation on how to make relationships with local government, the voluntary and community sector, and the private sector and Maori stakeholders, work better, but note the work undertaken by, and subsequent to, the Community and Voluntary Sector Working Party. The review of regional coordination should pay attention to relationships with these groups.

61. Policy/operations connections: Good policy advice and implementation requires good two-way flow between staff and communities at the local level, and policymakers at the centre. The extent to which this currently occurs is variable. We need to improve the links between policy and delivery. Engaging Maori early in the process of policy development and programme design will minimise the risk of service failure. There are good models of development work at a regional level to build on.

62. We should begin with an assessment of how well current policy/operations relationships operate, to identify targeted change. While this may involve structural change, the Advisory Group does not recommend a comprehensive restructuring of the State sector to put all policy and operations into the same organisations.

		Recommendation: We recommend that Ministers agree to a series of initiatives to better integrate service delivery including: establishing cross-agency “circuit breaker” teams to solve previously intractable problems in service delivery by drawing on front-line knowledge and creativity together with central technical support; enhancing regional coordination of State sector agencies, including their interaction with local government and community organisations, by adapting and building on existing successful models of local coordination; reviewing relationships between policy and operational units within the State sector, and identifying ways of enhancing the sector’s ability to provide wellinformed and practical policy advice and to implement policy decisions on the basis of a thorough understanding of them.