Nicola Willis talks about targets to a public service audience – then explains what the Social Investment Agency will do
Andrew Bayly (it is far to suppose) awoke this morning and braced to face further questions about how much liquor he consumed, when he consumed it, and other matters on the day he blundered into calling a worker a loser. How many interactions he had with the complainant in this political drama is among the further questions being pursued by Opposition politicians and the media.
But perhaps Nicola Willis had cause to be apprehensive about the day ahead, too. Her agenda included a session with the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand, an outfit which says its mission is to inform, inspire and challenge public sector professionals – to help build skills, knowledge, performance, connections and careers – and to strengthen the public administration system in which they work.
Its membership includes more than 140 organisations as well as individuals working within or in close contact with the public sector – comprising public sector departments, Crown entities, local councils, academic institutions, not-for-profit organisations and some private sector agencies.
Some of those members are bound to have become victims of the government’s assault on public service staff numbers in the name of fiscal prudence.
Speaking as Minister of Social Investment (according to the speech notes), Willis explained to the audience what social investment is all about under the Luxon Government and why changing the way that social services are commissioned will be a critical component of the approach she takes.
The speech can be found buried in an avalanche of posts on the government’s official website in the past 24 hours.
The others include news of ministerial trips overseas, the progress of some legislation and a statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour aimed at clarifying the facts following questions in Parliament about the roof-top incident at Korowai Manaaki this week.
Its membership includes more than 140 organisations as well as individuals working within or in close contact with the public sector – comprising public sector departments, Crown entities, local councils, academic institutions, not-for-profit organisations and some private sector agencies.
Some of those members are bound to have become victims of the government’s assault on public service staff numbers in the name of fiscal prudence.
Speaking as Minister of Social Investment (according to the speech notes), Willis explained to the audience what social investment is all about under the Luxon Government and why changing the way that social services are commissioned will be a critical component of the approach she takes.
The speech can be found buried in an avalanche of posts on the government’s official website in the past 24 hours.
The others include news of ministerial trips overseas, the progress of some legislation and a statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour aimed at clarifying the facts following questions in Parliament about the roof-top incident at Korowai Manaaki this week.
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Speech
Thank you, Liz, for your introduction, and to you all for the opportunity to speak to you today.
23 October 2024
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In her speech to the Institute of Public Administration, Nicola Willis said she acknowledged the role the institute plays in promoting excellence in the public sector and expressed her appreciation for the work public servants do “to keep New Zealanders safe and ensure people receive the public services on which they depend”.
“I am grateful that while our Government is facing into a particularly challenging set of economic circumstances, we do so with wise and experienced public servants at our back and by our side.”
She didn’t explain why some Ministers are apt to reject this wisdom in favour of “independent” advice.
She did draw attention to her challenge as Minister of Finance:
In the past six years, there has been an 82 per cent increase in government spending and an additional $118 billion of debt added to the government books. As a country we have been living beyond our means. And now, we must correct course.
And:
As a government we are committed to getting the books back in order and bringing debt down, but our aspirations go far beyond changing the colour of the ink in the government’s accounts. We want to do more than simply deliver better value for money. And we are interested in far more than simply ticking off actions or delivering to targets.
We are intent on improving lives.
Willis said public servants had a critical role to play in this
… because, frankly, what we’ve been doing in recent years hasn’t worked for too many New Zealanders. Some of those who most need help haven’t been getting it.
That comes at an economic cost to the country, but more importantly it comes at a human cost. People are our greatest asset and delivering for people is our greatest purpose.
In recent times, New Zealand has failed too many of its people: both economically and socially. Falling levels of educational achievement, poor housing, rising welfare dependency and an economy that is not growing quickly enough have denied opportunity to those who most need it.
The Government has brought back public service targets to focus the public sector on driving better results in health, education, law and order, work, housing and the environment.
We understand targets aren’t a perfect mechanism, but past experience has shown they do help to focus attention on the things that make a difference.
It’s also why this Government is determined to scale up the efforts that have gone into social investment so far.
The philosophy underlying social investment makes sense to everybody.
The Government has established the Social Investment Agency to lead, build, and demonstrate a social investment approach, Willis explained.
It was established as a central agency because the Government wants to see system change across the public service.
To this end we are asking the public service to think about service delivery in a different way. We are asking for more purposeful thought about how we invest for the New Zealanders in most need. Going beyond the easy platitudes of good intentions and instead moving towards a world of far greater accountability for what results are delivered.
This demands thinking about what should be changed and how best to make it happen.
First: what are the outcomes we want to achieve? That is a different question from the question that is often asked by governments – ‘what can we give people’. And it is a question that leads to different outcomes.
Second: who needs help? Not ‘how shall we distribute these services that we already have?’ That means putting the needs of the people who need help ahead of the needs of organisations providing services.
Third: what services should be prioritised? Not ‘what shall we add to the service mix?’ That means identifying what is working and, just as importantly, what is not working.
This is one of the most challenging issues governments face because stopping programmes that are not performing well affects the people involved and can be interpreted as an admission of failure.
But, if we are serious about making a difference to the lives of our most vulnerable, we have to be rigorous about directing resources away from initiatives that are not making a difference towards initiatives that are.
Fourth: how do we enable providers to achieve the outcomes we want? Not, ‘how do we manage providers so they do what we want’ but how do we empower them to achieve the outcomes we all want to see?
And fifth and finally: ‘How will we know if what we are doing is working?’ This is a question that is not asked often enough and the failure to do so is at the root of too much inefficiency in our social system.
Drawing on evidence and being clear about the answers to these questions, gives us the best chance of changing lives. It also ensures we get value for the money we spend.
Another important aspect of social investment was recognising that not all the answers to the challenges being addressed could be found in Wellington office blocks, or the Beehive.
Communities often know what the best solutions for their people are. We need and want to foster genuine partnership between the public service and proven community-based providers.
That led Willis to say the way the government contracts and commissions programmes is broken; current contracting arrangements fail to focus on the thing that really matters – whether the service makes a difference for people.
When I talk to and visit providers, they tell me about the multiple overlapping contracts that they have with different agencies who do not seem to be talking to each other.
They tell me about how government ties their hands by requiring specific outputs that prevent them from innovating to provide services more effectively.
They tell me about the time they waste producing reports that don’t seem to inform future conversations and contracting decisions, and the teams of people they have to employ to produce reports that aren’t read.
They tell me about being forced to ‘contract farm’ to secure piecemeal funding across multiple contracts in order to ensure they can stay afloat and serve their communities.
All of this is a drain on their resources which means they have less time to deliver outcomes for vulnerable New Zealanders. They have less time to think creatively and less ability to adapt and flex how they deliver.
Social investment suggests providers should deliver outcomes rather than outputs, Willis said.
Once contracts have been negotiated, providers should be able to choose how best to achieve the outcomes everyone wants.
Outcomes-based contracts allow providers to flex their services around the needs of the people they are working with and to develop new solutions. To move away from a focus on serving the needs of a government department and instead take radical accountability for the results they deliver for the people they serve.
Changing the way that social services are commissioned will be a critical component of the social investment approach.
Willis has asked the Social Investment Agency to lead work with other agencies to develop prototype outcomes contracts to replace the current set of criss-crossing and overlapping outputs-focused contracts. The aim is to provide a blueprint for other commissioners and providers of services to follow.
The Government is also progressing work to establish a Social Investment Fund that will directly commission outcomes for vulnerable New Zealanders and work with community, non-government organisations and iwi providers.
The fund will be managed by the Social Investment Agency and will serve as a testing ground for innovation which – when successful – can be applied more broadly to the social sector.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
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