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ISSN 0110-5191 (Print) ISSN 1176-9831 (Online) The whole of the literary matter of Public Sector is copyright. Please contact the editor if you are interested in reproducing any Public Sector content. EDITOR Shelly Farr Biswell: shelly@biswell.net CONTRIBUTORS Gary Banks Rosalie Chamberlain Peter Hughes Margaret McLachlan John R Martin Kathy Ombler Max Rashbrooke PROOFREADERS Nikki Crutchley Rose Northcott JOURNAL ADVISORY GROUP Len Cook Chris Eichbaum, Chair Susan Hitchiner John Larkindale Julian Light Ross Tanner ADVERTISING Phone: +64 4 463 6940 Fax: +64 4 463 6939 Email: comms@ipanz.org.nz DESIGN J&K Design PRINTING Lithoprint SCOPE IPANZ is committed to promoting informed debate on issues already significant in the way New Zealanders govern themselves, or which are emerging as issues calling for decisions on what sorts of laws and management New Zealanders are prepared to accept. INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS Public Sector considers contributions for each issue. Please contact the journal’s editor for more information. SUBSCRIPTIONS IPANZ welcomes both corporate and individual membership and journal subscriptions. Please email admin@ipanz.org.nz, phone +64 4 463 6940 or visit www.ipanz.org.nz to register online. DISCLAIMER Opinions expressed in Public Sector are those of various authors and do not necessarily represent those of the editor, the journal advisory group or IPANZ. Every effort is made to provide accurate and factual content. The publishers and editorial staff, however, cannot accept responsibility for any inadvertent errors or omissions that may occur.
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CONTENTS 2013 IPANZ Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards..........................................2–3 Looking to the future – the SSC . .............................................................................4 Guest editorial: Seeking innovation, not just change ............................................5 By IPANZ President John Larkindale Callaghan Innovation – fine-tuning New Zealand’s innovation system.................5 COVER STORY.......................................................................................................6–11 Innovation – the act of trying something new with insights from ANZSOG Dean Gary Banks, TEC Chief Executive Tim Fowler, REANNZ Chief Executive Steve Cotter, and ESR Chief Executive Graham Smith Protecting New Zealand’s primary interests: An interview with Wayne McNee.....................................................................12–13 Innovative IT solutions deliver – Earthquake Employment Support............ 14–15 Charting the course to great: The Getting to Great report........................... 16–17 A century of public service – looking to the future: Excerpts from a speech by Professor Peter Hughes.....................................18–19 Better Public Services watch: Finance Minister Bill English and Labour Spokesperson for Finance David Parker........................................... 20–21 White-collar Radical: Mark Derby discusses his book about union activist Dan Long...................................................................................22–23 Pathway to Smokefree New Zealand..................................................................... 23 Obituary: Dr Robin M Williams CB, CBE (1919–2013)........................................ 24 Citizenville – democracy in the digital age............................................................ 24
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Innovative IT solutions deliver – Earthquake Employment Support
Protecting New Zealand’s primary interests: An interview with Wayne McNee Photo: Mark Coote
PUBLISHER The Institute of Public Administration New Zealand PO Box 5032, Wellington, New Zealand Phone: +64 4 463 6940, Fax: +64 4 463 6939 Email: admin@ipanz.org.nz Website: www.ipanz.org.nz
VOLUME 36:2
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Visit www.ipanz.org.nz and complete the publication survey to let us know what we are doing well, what we could do better, and what you would like to see more of in Public Sector. Deadline for this survey is 5 August 2013. Front cover image: Technology Human © Rolffimages | Dreamstime.com Public Sector is printed on an economically and environmentally responsible paper sourced from internationally certified Well Managed Forests and manufactured with EMAS accreditation (ISO 14001).
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2013 IPANZ Gen-i
Public Sector Excellence Awards Vision, Innovation, Results Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners of the IPANZ Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards. The winners were announced at a ceremony held on 3 July 2013 at Wellington’s TSB Arena.
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play in ‘getting to great’. Great leadership is about reciprocity – in return for their commitment and passion to achieving agency outcomes, our people working in the public sector deserve to be inspired and empowered by their leaders and to see their own careers and working lives enhanced through this.” Perhaps Dr John Cullen, Head of Division, Surgery, Waitemata District Health Board who accepted a Judges Commendation award in the business transformation category on behalf of the DHB’s work on a service model for hip and knee surgery summed up the spirit of the awards best when he intentionally misquoted poet Alfred Tennyson. “‘Tis better to have tried and lost than to have never tried at all. We need to challenge ourselves and our colleagues to address some of the big issues that are facing our country. If we try and succeed that’s good, if we try and fail we can accept that, because the only true failure is when we don’t try at all,” he said.
Photos these pages: Mark Tantrum
his year, there were a record 80 submissions to the awards with IPANZ President John Larkindale noting all of the submissions were “outstanding examples of excellence that are innovative and responsive to the needs of New Zealanders”. Minister Steven Joyce presented the supreme Prime Minister’s Award which went to the Ministry of Social Development communications campaign, “It’s OK to Help”. The campaign also received the Excellence Award for Public Sector Communications. It’s OK to Help is a multi-media campaign to give family and whanau, friends and informal networks, the language, confidence and support to challenge violent behaviour. As one of the judges noted about the
campaign, “With a small team and a limited budget, MSD has been able to lead societal change, in part by engaging with and empowering organisations and individuals across New Zealand to do their bit to end family violence.” Tim Miles, CEO of awards sponsor Gen-i, congratulated all of the winners and said how important it is to take time to celebrate successes. “The public sector has been involved in a number of successful and innovative projects this year. Overall, you have shown an ability to adapt and move quickly to bring high-quality programmes and services to the New Zealand public. It’s important to take a moment to reflect on what has been accomplished and to recognise those who have shown vision, innovation, and results in their work.” Hamiora Bowkett, Partner of awards sponsor PwC, noted leadership is key for inspiring excellence. “With a list of finalists that seems to grow stronger and stronger each year, it’s important to reflect on the role that good leaders
The Ministry of Social Development’s “It’s OK to Help” campaign received the Prime Minister’s Award during the 2013 IPANZ Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards. Accepting the award (from left to right): Paula Strickson – Manager, Collaborative Initiatives (Family and Community Services); Murray Edridge – Deputy Chief Executive, Family and Community Services; Trish Green – Team Manager, Social Campaigns and It’s not OK (Family and Community Services); Brendan Boyle – Chief Executive, Ministry of Social Development; and Robyn Rusher – General Manager, Operations (Family and Community Services). 2 Public Sector July 2013
2013 AWARD WINNERS Prime Minister’s Award – Supreme Award ☼☼ It’s OK to Help – Ministry of Social Development
Improved Public Value through Business Transformation Sponsored by the Treasury Joint winners: ☼☼ The Reluctant Customer: Transforming the Collections Operating Model – Ministry of Justice ☼☼ IPONZ Business and Service Transformation – Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Crown–Māori Relationships Sponsored by Te Puni Kōkiri ☼☼ Toi Te Ora – Bay of Plenty District Health Board
Integrity and Trust Sponsored by the Justice Sector ☼☼ Balancing ease of doing business and integrity – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Improving Performance through Leadership Excellence Sponsored by the State Services Commission and the Leadership Development Centre ☼☼ Building a highly engaged workplace – Land Information New Zealand
Networked Government Sponsored by Microsoft ☼☼ Registry System Modernisation – New Zealand Transport Agency
Public Sector Communications Sponsored by SweeneyVesty ☼☼ It’s OK to Help – Ministry of Social Development
Working Together for Better Public Services Sponsored by the State Services Commission ☼☼ Joined-up Justice – Ministry of Justice, New Zealand Police, Department of Corrections
New Professional of the Year Award Sponsored by the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington ☼☼ Jeremy Palmer – Land Information New Zealand
Judges Commendation in the business transformation category ☼☼ A clinician-led, incentive-based service model for hip and knee surgery – Waitemata District Health Board
Poster Award for excellence in design of supporting poster Selected by sponsor Scenario ☼☼ Pink is Tough – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners of the 2013 awards, including: (pictured from top to bottom) Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Balancing ease of doing business and integrity programme (winner of the Integrity and Trust Award); Jeremy Palmer of Land Information New Zealand (winner of the New Professional of the Year Award); and Bay of Plenty District Health Board’s Toi Te Ora (winner of the Crown–Māori Relationships Award).
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2013 IPANZ Gen-i
Public Sector Excellence Awards
Looking to the future – the SSC “UNLIKE public sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, which ushered in major policy changes, the challenge for the public sector now is to look for opportunities to do things more efficiently and effectively,” Head of State Services and State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie said at the recent Public Sector Excellence Awards ceremony. “Throughout the 1990s, New Zealand moved to the front of OECD countries in terms of policy service. That level of commitment to change is required again, but this time the focus is not on policy settings but on delivering programmes and services in innovative ways,” he said. “There is urgency and a need for stronger execution and innovative solutions,” Rennie said. “The Global Financial Crisis, the Canterbury earthquakes, and the effects of globalisation and new technologies are just some of the drivers that are challenging the public sector to think and act differently.” He added collaboration and innovation will be key in addressing issues ranging from family violence to climate change. “The good news is that these awards are precisely about that – public servants doing things differently for the benefit of New Zealanders. The finalists and winners of the awards provide a road
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map for other programmes and organisations to follow.” The state sector is currently undergoing its biggest transformation in a generation, he said. “Changes will enable agencies to move around resources, leaders and budget to provide better services and value for money for New Zealanders. The reform also puts greater focus on developing better leadership across the state services – ensuring that there is a pipeline of capable, high-performing people for critical roles to deliver outstanding results.”
Performance Improvement Framework The State Services Commission, the Treasury, and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are involved in a number of initiatives to lead the transformation of the state sector. One of those initiatives is the Performance Improvement Framework. SSC recently published the report Getting to Great to identify good practice from 21 individual PIF reviews (see “Charting the course to great” on pages 16 and 17). To supplement the report, SSC is running a series of Getting to Great seminars to provide leaders in the public sector with ideas about what their agencies can do to become leading, world-class institutions.
Photo: Mark Tantrum
Vision, Innovation, Results
A number of PIF-related resources are also being developed that focus on people development and productivity; in particular how the very best agencies develop talent, organise people to be more effective and how to motivate people to perform at their best. As SSC Principal Advisor Deb Te Kawa noted at a recent Getting to Great seminar, “Most people join the public service from a strong sense of mission and a desire to make a positive difference to the lives of New Zealanders. We are lucky to have many of the nation’s brightest graduates and best thinkers working for the state services. Over the next few months, we are going to draw on the advice of expert practitioners from the public and private sectors to profile and promote good practices using the PIF reviews to date. We expect to be able to release the resources in October,” she said. Te Kawa added that the goal of the PIF is to help agencies make lasting changes that will serve them well in the future. “Along with new resources, we are also upgrading the PIF model. This upgrade will be the most significant yet. It will reflect the ambition to build better public services,” she said.
GUEST EDITORIAL
Seeking innovation, not just change By IPANZ President John Larkindale
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trong, effective and efficient public administration matters. The fundamental point is that the New Zealand taxpayer and the broader public deserve to receive optimum value by way of service delivery and policy development from the taxes they pay. In this regard, we have been well served since the passage of the Public Sector Act 1912, which laid the groundwork for the development of strong and effective public administration in New Zealand. In turn, this has been the foundation on which New Zealand’s high international reputation for probity, lack of corruption and transparency has been built. But of equal importance is the fact that sound public administration reduces transaction costs and enhances the international competitiveness of New Zealand businesses, while also making New Zealand a more attractive investment destination. All of us, therefore, have a stake in how the public sector works. Effective public administration is not just a Wellington “beltway” issue. That which is regarded as effective and efficient today, may not be so tomorrow. The core constitutional principles that underlie the 1912 Act and those that followed remain critically important. They have stood the test of time. But the way in which (such as, the “how”) these principles should be followed in practice is something that needs to be kept under constant scrutiny as New Zealand evolves politically, socially, culturally and technologically. We are a very different country today than we were in 1990, let alone 1960.
It is a truism that change has been a constant for many years. Public administrations, just like the rest of the country, have changed business models and the way in which their staff work very significantly over many years. And this continues. This is a necessary condition if New Zealand is to continue to enjoy both directly and indirectly the fruits of good public administration. But is it also a sufficient condition? I suggest not. Change can result in efficiencies and it can achieve cost savings. Both are worthwhile objectives in themselves, but change is not sufficient to drive the kind of paradigm shifts that can really make the big differences that we need to achieve if New Zealand is to continue to succeed in an increasingly competitive and challenging world. In addition to change, we need to innovate. What’s the difference? To my mind, the State Sector Act 1988 and the Public Finance Act 1989, for example, were innovations, while state agency reorganisations tend to be changes. The first was game-changing; the second can make a difference for the better, but benefits other than incremental ones are rare. Innovation can’t be mandated or directed, but governments and chief executives can create an environment in which innovation might be expected to flourish. We have all heard ministers urge their departments to take risks and to be innovative. In practice, however, there has been very little tolerance when outcomes have not been as foreseen. In short, “please take risks, but in such a way that nothing can go wrong”. That’s not a climate in which true innovation can take off.
There needs to be a much better understanding of what innovation means. As is clear from the private sector or from scientific and technological research circles, the majority of “good ideas” come to nothing; very few ever reach a fully developed stage, let alone make it into production or into wide practice. There is no reason why new ideas in public administration are likely to have better chances of success. Such “failures” are the cost of achieving innovation. But it’s not only political leaders who need to have this understanding. Perhaps even more importantly, the wider public and, in particular, the media need to develop a more nuanced understanding of innovation. Thus if, for example, a new process is shown at the pilot stage not to deliver on what its objectives were as originally set out, this is not a failure or a waste of public funds, provided that the process was developed along sound project design and risk-management principles. Of course, poor process, profligate expenditure, and lack of appropriate oversight should be exposed. But where such maladministration is not evident, the response should be to seek lessons learnt rather than assign fault. And if the media and public were to be more understanding that innovation and a measured level of risk are two sides of the same coin, perhaps we might come to enjoy a climate that is more encouraging of and conducive to the kind of innovative thinking in public administration that all of us in New Zealand need more of. That really would encourage Better Public Services.
Callaghan Innovation – fine-tuning New Zealand’s innovation system IN February this year, Callaghan Innovation was created as a stand-alone Crown Entity. Chief Executive Dr Mary Quin, who took up her role in May, leads a team of 400 researchers, scientists, engineers, and business specialists, focused on encouraging innovation by linking businesses with research organisations, along with offering funding support and their own research and technology services. Public Sector will be featuring the work of Callaghan Innovation in an upcoming issue, but in the meantime we encourage readers to check out their new e-zine Accelerate. On page 3 of the June issue, Accelerate looks at trends in
the 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators Report from Thomson Reuters, and notes “the collaborative nature of innovation – open innovation – and how universities, government agencies and scientific research centres are becoming more critical players in the innovation process”. In the following pages we learn more about what individuals and organisations in the public sector are doing to foster an innovative work environment that results in better outcomes for New Zealanders. www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz
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Innovation – the act of trying something new
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Innovation – or the act of trying something new – is considered by many to be the necessary spark for many of the public sector’s policies and programmes. While the word “innovation” has become ubiquitous in annual reports, speeches, and statements of intent, PUBLIC SECTOR asked some of today’s thought leaders and practitioners to delve beneath their organisation’s vision statements and tell us what innovation means to them and how they encourage it in their own organisations.
INNOVATION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS By Professor Gary Banks, Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government nnovation boils down to doing new things, or doing old things in new ways. This encompasses changes in products, processes and relationships. Much of it involves importing ideas generated elsewhere and finding ways of making them work in one’s own organisation. The light bulb moments of pure invention are pretty rare. I sometimes feel the word innovation has been high-jacked by the scientific community and been equated with technological invention. Technological change is important, but it’s rarely the most important source of innovation in an organisational setting. Nor is it the most important source of performance improvement. It’s
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better to think of innovation more broadly as simply synonymous with affecting change – hopefully for the better (though not all innovations turn out well). A useful framework for thinking about innovation and how it comes about has three dimensions to it. First there are the pressures and incentives facing people to be innovative; second, how capable people are in responding to those incentives; and third, but not least, the scope or flexibility to actually implement desired changes. Putting this together, innovation only occurs when people want it or need it, and when the facilitating conditions are right. Skills and knowledge are needed, of course, but also an awareness of opportunities, and an openness to changes which often can be
confronting and disruptive. Successful innovation depends on having good people around, but it is much more likely to happen when people are challenged to do better and have opportunities to learn from each other. Such opportunities will arise within an organisation or work teams, but they can be even more powerful when people who normally don’t work together come into contact with each other. A key source of such learning in the public sector in Australia has been our much maligned federal system of government. While it could no doubt work a lot better, not enough recognition is given to its track record as a proving ground for administrative innovations. Our casemix system for funding hospitals [the funding model used for the reimbursement of the cost of patient care] is a case in point. It started in Victoria, was adopted by a few other states and ultimately got picked up nation-
ally. Over the years, there has also been a fair bit of trans-Tasman learning and innovation within the public sector – in both directions. One recent instance is the departmental capability reviews. Another is food regulation. A third is the establishment of the NZ Productivity Commission, which is already starting to make its mark.
Appealing to the best and the brightest When it comes to building capability, however, I am concerned that we seem to have been struggling – at least in Australia – to keep the quality of the public service where it needs to be. People have more employment choices than ever before and more scope to earn “big bucks” in the private sector. And they have been voting with their feet. Why would the best and brightest today want to become (and remain) public servants? Fortunately, there is a good
answer. Most people enter the public service for just that purpose – to be of service to the public. When public servants are asked about what motivates them professionally, they often remark that it’s to make a difference. But I am not sure their experience on the job always validates that choice. Good people can be put off by bad systems. The best public servants need to feel that their ideas count and want to do more than be passive implementers of the political programmes of the government or minister of the day. I think the most fundamental challenge confronting innovation in the public sector is having innovative people in settings that reward innovative thinking.
Transforming the sector Enormous opportunities already exist to transform the public sector; for example, by using advances in data management and communications technology, or by adapting customer relationship models from the private sector. Take recent efforts in Australia to “nudge” citizens’ choices in the right directions through provision of web-based organisational report cards. As more information becomes available about services, people become empowered to make better choices. We are beginning to see this in relation to the new “my school” data. Such informational mechanisms will hopefully create momentum for ongoing improvements in public service provision, and in some areas, may help clarify whether government should be participating in service delivery at all. Innovations often come from unexpected quarters; through lateral thinking or as people put together things that hadn’t been associated previously. For example, a decade ago, when local governments in the East Gippsland region of Victoria were tackling
the problem of a paucity of transport for poorer people, someone suggested tapping into a hitherto under-used resource – the fleet of school buses that were lying idle most of the day. After some negotiation with the bus operators, a modestly priced day-time service came into being, which has been greatly utilised by older citizens and the unemployed. (This success story is detailed in ANZSOG’s case, East Gippsland’s ‘Let’s get connected’ project, available at www.anzsog.edu.au).
Risk – the four-letter word Any organisation deviating from established ways of doing things risks the possibility of failure. While private companies will be prepared to chance their arm, and even invest large amounts of money on innovations that might not work out, politicians and public managers are far more risk averse. Given the source of their money and political accountability for its use, that is probably inevitable. The flipside of this incentive system, however, is a brake on innovations that could deliver taxpayers greater value for money over time, even if not all succeed. Ironically, undue risk avoidance can in itself become one of the biggest risks to organisations. It means that changes are more likely to be reactive than proactive, to come about only in response to a crisis or issue. In these circumstances, the costs of change are often higher and the scope for innovation narrower. In the natural environment, it’s a matter of adapt or die! The choice is rarely so stark in the world of government. But the opportunity cost of retaining old modes of behaviour can become very large over time. It’s important, therefore, that governments provide room for risk taking. And of course, there are ways to be innovative while still being cautious. One
ANZSOG’s notion of innovation and strategy is that it happens best when those who are leading it engage in networks where problems, solutions, and political realities can be openly discussed. Someone once coined the expression “policy primeval soup” to convey this. By facilitating ongoing conversations among the brightest minds across governments, we see ourselves as helping to encourage and build real capacity in public sector innovation.
Innovations often come from unexpected quarters; through lateral thinking or as people put together things that hadn’t been associated previously. is by introducing better project management around innovations, so that changes are properly scoped, risks are identified and openly discussed, and accountabilities made explicit. The different experience with public-private partnerships across Australia has shown how important this can be and how things can go wrong when these things are done poorly. Since innovative ideas are as likely to emerge as much from the bottom of an organisation as from the top, it is important that people be encouraged and facilitated. That can be challenging for hierarchical public sector departments, where instructions tend to come from on high. And this has arguably become exacerbated over recent years by an excessive ethos of “responsiveness”.
Taking the lead It follows from what I have just said that I see leadership as the key to innovation in the public sector. Public sector leaders, who recognise the value of creative thinking and interaction, are more likely to encourage it and pursue innovation in their own organisations.
Working together Currently, some of the more interesting innovative activity around public service provision in Australia is happening at the state level. As noted, this is being spurred by the imperative to reduce budget deficits. An important stream concerns ways of harnessing community capacity and private sector business acumen to improve efficiency and effectiveness. These have drawn on lessons emerging from an extensive academic literature on this topic from Europe, North America and elsewhere. One of the more important lessons is that much can be gained from reforms focused just on service logistics, without disrupting the interface with citizens that can lead to public rancour. So, for example, traditional relationships between families and schools don’t change, but the management of school buildings and other procurement systems do. Likewise, patient-doctor relationships are sustained in line with common expectations, but efficiencies are pursued in the range of other, more standard activities, that create well-functioning hospitals and health systems. An overdue development is increasing client focus in public service delivery. After all, this has been a key driver of organisational success in the market economy. In > July 2013 Public Sector 7
Innovation – the act of trying something new queues at central-city offices, with big demands on peoples’ time. Aided by technology, the relevant agencies have come up with ways to make it much easier for everybody concerned – notably through online transactions and the contracting out of technical inspections. Another good example of this kind of thinking is the Ministry of Social Development’s Linwood Community Link in New Zealand
which is a past winner of the IPANZ Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Award in Working Together for Better Services. This is a concept designed to bring together many of the services needed to tackle the most complex problems facing families and communities, which grew out of localised efforts to apply a multiagency approach. These and other examples illustrate what the public sector
can achieve if people have good leadership, the right mind-set and sufficient opportunity to serve the public better. Professor Gary Banks AO took up his role as Dean and CEO of ANZSOG in January 2013. He brings to ANZSOG wide experience and deep understanding of major public policy issues. Prior to this role he had a well-respected leadership record at the Australian Productivity Commission.
Photo: Linwood Community Link, Ministry of Social Development
the public sector too, it can obviously prompt insights that would not emerge if those involved only viewed things from a producer perspective – as parodied in “Yes Minister” as the hospital without patients. One small, but significant instance of this is motor vehicle licensing and registration. As many of us know from painful experience, renewing car registration used to entail cumbersome procedures and multiple
The Linwood Community Link is an innovative approach to bringing services to the people who need them.
INNOVATION – STEP BY STEP
The Tertiary Education Commission’s new Chief Executive Tim Fowler explains to writer KATHY OMBLER that innovation is not just about the newest technology or the big breakthroughs – it’s also about the day-to-day actions people take to improve performance.
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EC Chief Executive Tim Fowler is sold on the value of innovation, for both within the TEC and across the wider tertiary education sector. “Innovation for us is critical because it’s vitally important for the performance of the economy and the country more generally. It’s everything from how we grow exports to how we keep improving the performance of the public sector to how the All Blacks keep evolving their game. “It’s the big stuff and it’s the little stuff and I think the trap is that sometimes people only regard 8 Public Sector July 2013
innovation as the iPhone of the day,” he adds. “In my view you can get trapped into thinking innovation is about large breakthroughs and technology. In actual fact, the thing that we are primarily investing in is people, and the skills and knowledge they are developing as citizens that we want them to use to be able to not only contribute to our country but also to grow the economy. “If you regard innovation as breakthroughs and baby steps, as a mind-set as well as a series of outcomes then I think that gets
you into a more interesting space.” That’s the wider picture, then for what Fowler sees as a two-fold task for innovation in the TEC. “One task is to look at what the TEC is doing internally, in its own business, and to be the best we can be. The second task is to consider what we are seeking to do on behalf of New Zealand, investing $2.7 billion every year (in tertiary education), monitoring its use, and providing information and advice,” he says. Looking internally, Fowler believes it’s all about normalising innovation. “It’s an attitude. The more you regard innovation as this special thing that only some people who are highly qualified in technology can do then I think you’re on the wrong track. It is that, but
it’s also a whole variety of other large and small things.” Systems, relationship management and communication with the wider sector all come to Fowler’s mind. “I’m a big fan of looking at ongoing business and system improvements. In terms of how we are going to extract that out of our teams, I think a lot of it boils down to trust. It’s freeing people up, freeing up that mind-set to make valuable changes.” Having clear business objectives for ideas development avoids unnecessary risk, he adds. “You need to have good parameters, process governance and accountabilities, so there is really good rigour attached to it. It can’t just be open slather. “You have to define the playing
field so people know the rules of the game. That creates safety for the organisation, I think also for the individuals involved, so they know for a fact they can say, that’s going to work or not.” Considering the wider sector, Fowler says questions are being posed every day around where tertiary education is headed. “One is around the rapid emergence of mass online and open courses, and what that means to traditional models of tertiary education. In addition, how do we address internationalisation? “Institutions and vice-chancellors of various educational organisations are seeking to innovate, whether it’s teaching, research or their own business and governance practices, to deliver the best possible education,” he says. “The fact that greater perfor-
mance and improved completion and qualification rates were achieved across the sector during the past four to five years of global recession supports the view that innovation is alive and well within the sector. “The question for us is what is the TEC doing to support that innovation, what are the signals we’re sending to the sector, what are the incentives that we’re providing, and what is the environment we’re creating to see that happen?” Fowler says the process is just beginning, and the TEC is keen to have “that conversation” with the sector. After just a few weeks in the job, he already has huge confidence in his own people’s ability to think innovatively. “One of the things I’ve been super impressed by since I have been here is the quality of the
people in the organisation. I am absolutely convinced that many of the innovations that could be made in this place are well known to individuals here already. It is a case of corralling that.” It is really important that the TEC actively embraces innovation not only for the organisation itself, but for the institutions and people it serves, he says. “We are responsible for managing the Government’s annual funding for tertiary education, which is why we have sometimes been described as the ‘banker’.”
He says in the narrow definition of this role it might seem like the TEC has mainly transactional relationships. “But if you were to think of the TEC as a bank with a commitment to innovation, then I think that gives you a bit of a feel for the opportunity for us and what that could mean for the people we serve. “If anything, we would say that every institution and every student that we are technically investing in when we are investing tertiary spending is an investment in innovation. And why shouldn’t it be?”
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“It’s an attitude. The more you regard innovation as this special thing that only some people who are highly qualified in technology can do then I think you’re on the wrong track. It is that, but it’s also a whole variety of other large and small things.”
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YOUR FIRST CHOICE FOR PUBLIC SECTOR PROFESSIONALS
July 2013 Public Sector 9
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BUILDING A NETWORK
REANNZ’s (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd) Chief Executive Steve Cotter has been in his role for just over 18 months, but as he explains to Editor SHELLY BISWELL, that can be an eternity in the world of technology where the “next big thing” is just an idea away.
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hile most of us think of large electronic files in terms of that 12 MB family photo that clogged up our email last summer, for many scientists and researchers, large takes on a whole new meaning. As part of their research work, many now need to share, process, and manipulate “big data” – data sets that are so large and complex that they can’t be processed through regular database management systems. At its most basic, working with big data requires a “big, fat pipe” for the information to travel through – ultra-fast broadband. To assist, the government set up REANNZ as a Crown-owned company eight years ago with the vision of promoting “education, research and innovation for the benefit of New Zealand”. In 2006, the REANNZ network went live to connect New Zealand’s researchers to each other and to other researchers and research institutions around the world. That initial investment and vision were crucial says REANNZ Chief Executive Steve Cotter, but in some ways there was a “build it and they will come” approach that needed to be addressed. “There was so much focus on building an information highway, that there wasn’t enough attention paid to building up the capabilities of the users of the network – we had a highway without on ramps and off ramps. We know that the value of the REANNZ network, like other telecommunications networks, 10 Public Sector July 2013
is proportional to the number of connected users – Metcalfe’s law. Building a strong network in New Zealand is affected by our distance and our small size, so we have got to be both innovative and strategic in how we meet the needs of researchers,” he says.
“Building a strong network in New Zealand is affected by our distance and our small size, so we have got to be both innovative and strategic in how we meet the needs of researchers.” Cotter says one of the main shifts has been to find out what REANNZ’s users need. “When I came into the position, it was very much a matter of ‘this is the service we offer’. Not only is that limiting for customers, it’s also limiting for staff. We have turned that around with the question ‘what do you need,’ which has made a huge difference in mind-set and understanding what’s possible.” REANNZ also works more closely with universities and other research organisations to determine
the best way to help researchers do their work and how their IT teams can support them. “For example, universities have security systems in place that are appropriate for most corporate uses, but when scientists try to move big data through they hit a firewall that prevents them from sharing their work,” he says. “We have solutions to these issues, so our team will sit down with an institution’s IT team to find out what the needs are, how those needs are being met, and if there are ways to do it better.” Cotter says for more and more researchers, having the infrastructure in place to handle big data is becoming a non-negotiable about where they conduct their work. “If we want to attract and keep the best and the brightest it means that New Zealand’s research institutions need to be competitive with research institutions around the world.” With fierce international competition, Cotter says that innovation is imperative to stay relevant. For example, earlier this month REANNZ and FX Networks announced an innovative public-private partnership to share the costs of deploying and managing a cutting-edge network that will deliver advanced internet to their respective customer bases. The new network is on par with the most advanced optical networks in the world. “Innovation can be found in business models too,” Cotter says. “Projects like this are critical to staying both technologically and financially competitive.” Cotter says that competitive advantage may be tested over the next few years because New Zealand has come to the research and education network quite late
compared to some other countries. “The Dutch celebrated the 25th anniversary of their network earlier this year, the United States Department of Energy’s network is 27 years old, and Canada’s network is over 20 years old. On the other hand, REANNZ has only been operational for seven years,” he says. “There is a natural progression to establishing networks that takes long-term planning and investment. As a culture, we’re very good at being creative and making do which serves us incredibly well for the short- and medium-term, but when you consider that the New Zealand government has no overarching strategy on big data it’s clear there are longer-term issues that we need to tackle.” Prior to coming to REANNZ, Cotter spent his fair share of time in Silicon Valley working in management positions at Internet2, Google, and Cisco Systems. Cotter says one of the digital-age myths that comes out of Silicon Valley shows the need to be innovative and strategic in equal measure. As he explains, “In the late1990s, when Google’s founders needed large amounts of disk space to test their ‘Pagerank’ algorithm on the world-wide web, they asked themselves, ‘How would we do this if we were already a successful company?’ In other words ‘How would we do this right?’ When they thought about it that way, the answer came to them immediately, ‘we need to build the servers ourselves’. Which they did. One million servers later, Google is an interesting case study of what can happen when you push the boundaries, but also know where you want to go.”
Innovation – the act of trying something new Nearly two years, ago Graham Smith took the helm as Chief Executive of ESR, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. With work in the areas of health, forensics, and food and water safety, there is much to get Smith and ESR’s team of scientists up in the morning, but as he explains to Editor SHELLY BISWELL, it’s also an organisation where keeping pace with new technologies and new uses for those technologies needs to be considered ‘business as usual’ to succeed.
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SR Chief Executive Graham Smith describes the scientists and researchers at ESR as New Zealand’s “standing army” in case things go wrong. Whether it’s a biosecurity threat, an unsolved crime, or an influenza pandemic, chances are that someone on the ESR team will be involved in providing scientific support or advice to one of their government clients. “We are the principal science advisor to the Ministry of Health, the sole provider of forensic services to the New Zealand Police, and preferred science provider to government agencies like the Ministry for Primary Industries and New Zealand Customs, along with working with local government, NGOs and the private sector on various projects. In a way, we often provide the ‘frontline’ of science,” he says. In an organisation where microbiologists, biostatisticians, forensic scientists, and public health physicians can be called in to work on local, national, and international issues on any given day, Smith says innovation is simply an aspect of ESR’s work. “We recognise that the moment we think the status quo is good enough, we are going to have a problem. We are also involved in areas of research and work where people’s incomes and lives depend on us continually seeking new and better ways of doing things,” he says. ESR’s work with E. coli in beef is one such example. “ESR tests for E. coli in beef that is being
exported to countries like the United States – so our initial role is one of risk mitigation and quality assurance,” Smith says. “But we’re also working with the meat industry on developing an antibacterial phage to kill E. coli on animal carcasses which could have major health and economic benefits for New Zealand. It’s still very early days for this project, but right now we are looking at how this phage could be incorporated into the existing production system to ensure continued access to overseas markets, and a competitive advantage for New Zealand Inc.” Innovation can come in many guises, Smith says, “from business models, to process innovations, to the blue sky innovations that can change the course of an entire discipline. “Working within the Crown research institute model adds another layer to innovation that is quite positive in that we need to balance our market focus with ensuring that what we are involved in has tangible benefits for New Zealanders,” he says. He says one way ESR is able to keep that balance is by keeping science – and scientists – at the centre of decision-making, including having a strategic science team that assists with many science investment decisions within ESR. “We also ask ourselves two questions with our work: Is it good for New Zealand? Is it good for ESR? We need to be able to answer both of those questions with a yes for any of the projects we work on,” Smith says.
While it’s the research “successes” that get the attention of ministers and the media, the very nature of scientific inquiry means that not all research will lead to commercialisation. “There are inherent risks associated with research, not every experiment will be successful and not all research objectives will be realised,” he says. “It’s important to mitigate those risks as much as possible, for example, by having a solid plan in place, but you also need to have a tolerance for some ‘failures’ along the way. “We try to support innovation in how people conduct their daily work, but we also look for ways to accelerate innovation through various schemes. For example, last year we instituted a Pioneer Fund that ESR staff can apply to that provides a small amount of funding [$10,000 to $30,000 per
project] to go towards research that might not be funded through our normal budget channels.” Four of ESR’s senior scientists serve as the judging panel for the competitive fund and about 20 projects have already received support through the fund. “Do we expect all of these projects to go on to be commercially successful? No, but we think that we will find some jewels amongst these projects and some we will certainly want to continue to support,” Smith says. “As a research organisation, the key is to balance our research work. To sow seeds like we do with the Pioneer Fund, to invest in improving existing technology, to find ways we can add value, but also to invest in new knowledge or blue sky research. It all adds up to an environment that is innovative and relevant.”
Innovation can come in many guises, Smith says, “from business models, to process innovations, to the blue sky innovations that can change the course of an entire discipline”.
Photo: ESR
INNOVATION – A BALANCING ACT
July 2013 Public Sector 11
An interview with Wayne McNee Wayne McNee recently stepped down in July as the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries, which was formed in a merger of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Fisheries and the Food Safety Authority. McNee is leaving the public sector to head up the Livestock Improvement Corporation, a farmer-owned co-operative that provides genetic products and farm management systems to the dairy industry. He spoke to writer MAX RASHBROOKE about staff morale, going through mergers at speed, and how to promote innovation within the public sector.
Following the merger of the Ministry for Primary Industries and that of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, do you think there will be more mergers in the New Zealand public sector? Well, having a primary industries ministry together was quite logical, and the industry wanted it. Federated Farmers wanted it and the fisheries industry wanted it. In general, I think ministers are reasonably comfortable with what they have done. The jury is probably out on MBIE, but so far, it seems to be working well. New Zealand does have a fragmented public sector, but if you are thinking about more mergers, when you look at some of the smaller agencies, you have to ask, is it worth it? You could go through a lot of angst and get very few gains. My sense is that, among ministers, there isn’t a philosophy of being pro-mergers … although you could look out into Crown entity land and see some opportunities there.
If industry support for change is one criterion for a successful merger, what are the other criteria? A merger has to make sense for the nature of the organisation. It is better if the merged entities are trying to achieve a similar goal. In our case, we could develop a strategy that fitted across the business pretty easily. It would be harder to have a successful merger without that unifying strategy. 12 Public Sector July 2013
Mergers can be very difficult, even traumatic for staff. How much has the merger that created MPI affected staff morale? There was a period, when we were going through the merger, when there was of course disruption. But my personal view is that we are well beyond that. We improved in every sector of our staff engagement scores in March. We are still below the public sector average, but then MAF had had below-average engagement scores even before the merger. We will be at the public sector average or above it, I expect, by the time of the next survey. We are on a strong upward curve.
What about the process – what makes for a successful merger? The important thing is you just have to get on and do it. Of course you need a proper development of your proposal and you need to consult on it – which we did, twice – but you need to do it quickly. During the MPI merger, I said to the teams that were doing the merger work, ‘There is to be no slippage’. People want certainty. They want to know whether they will continue to have a job. If you take a long time, you are going to lose your best people, and the ones who stay will feel pretty bitter about it.
How have you avoided creating silos in the new ministry? Murray Sherwin, who was the chief executive of the old MAF, had already been reshaping its structure around the business that it carried out, rather than particular policy areas, and I have largely continued with that. So rather than having a fisheries section, an agriculture section, a food section, a biosecurity section, and so on, we decided to have horizontal silos. The compliance team, for example, does food, biosecurity and fish compliance.
Does that create its own issues? Yes … as always, you then start to form new silos! For example, the standards team
Photo: Mark Coote
Protecting New Zealand’s primary interests
might not be working as well as they could with the compliance team. So we have set up operational coordination groups (OCGs), which cut across the teams. For example, there is a food OCG. The OCGs have worked well for food and biosecurity, because they had been strong teams before. It hasn’t worked as well yet in the primary production OCG, because it wasn’t a naturally pre-existing group.
After the Pike River Mine disaster, there has been a shift towards more hands-on regulation. Does MPI have areas it needs to be regulating more? Well, our areas are still pretty heavily regulated. We [MPI] are the biggest regulators in government. That said, there are areas – such as the production of infant formula – where we are looking at our levels of regulation to see if they are fit for purpose. Getting infant formula into China has become a gold rush, so we are looking at the regulatory regime to make sure it is adequate, given that there are incentives now in place that could be driving aberrant behaviour. But you have to be careful not to have a knee-jerk reaction when something goes wrong and throw a whole lot more cost into the system unnecessarily.
Has the merger harmed MPI’s ability to deal with issues such as the bacterial kiwifruit vine disease PSA or the meat certification issue with China? No, I think we’d be better placed to deal with PSA, for example, than we were at the time. The merger has brought a lot more rigour to how we think about our response to situations of that kind. We are much better connected to other agencies like the New Zealand Police and New Zealand Defence, which would be important if we were having to shut down roads, for example. When it comes to the meat certification issue, I think the review coming out will make it clear it was a case of two people
not connecting and consequently making a mistake. One person said this, one person said that. Now, we didn’t react as quickly to that as we should have, in terms of the escalation of the issue … but the people who are doing that work, they are good people. And during the merger, we didn’t change the resources in that area, the market access team. They moved buildings, but they were otherwise unaffected. In fact, we are increasing our resources for the market access team, by another eight full-time equivalents, at the moment. There are some lessons that will come out of this for us, however, in terms of the formality of our systems. The informal approach most of the time has worked beautifully, but sometimes it doesn’t.
The Ernst & Young evaluation of the Better Public Services programme was fairly critical of aspects of the implementation of the programme. What’s your view about how the programme is going? Well, it is slow progress. But there is a process in place, and it’s being resourced. It’s about identifying exactly what is the problem we are trying to fix. In our case, we are working with New Zealand Customs on a project to allow businesses to interact with us more effectively. We are developing a joint border management system – called Trade Single Window – that will allow businesses to get their export, food and biosecurity certification processes done all at once. It’s making one transaction process from three. It has been a big, challenging project, costing around $80 million. But it will save businesses money and that’s vital. Whatever we do in this area, it needs to be something that business finds attractive.
Why are you making the shift to the private sector? I realised I wanted a new and different challenge. Partly that’s because I don’t think there are any other public sector roles that would be of interest, and I have had 14 years as a public sector chief executive. This has happened, however, a lot more quickly than I had expected or intended. I was approached about the role, and I decided that if I waited, in 18 months’ time, that opportunity might not be there. It was too good to pass up.
What can the public sector learn from the private sector? We are trying to learn a lot at the moment about innovation. We are doing some work around prototyping and innovation in policy development, the way we initiate new ideas, letting people try some new things. As part of that, you have to accept that there will be failure. There is in any prototyping. So the key is to do it outside of your normal production systems. We have been giving people the opportunity to develop ideas outside of day-to-day business, giving them time to look across the business at different ways of doing things. We are doing simple things like having an “ideas room” in the building. One of the biggest challenges is giving people time. We have people saying, “I have these great ideas, but I’ve never done anything with them”. The challenge is giving them a chance and celebrating those efforts. So we have set up an awards programme called the Director-General’s awards, in which we recognise people who have done something innovative within the organisation.
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July 2013 Public Sector 13
Innovative IT solutions deliver –
Earthquake Employment Support The Ministry of Social Development used innovative IT solutions after the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake to make emergency payments to Cantabrians. In a short timeframe, MSD paid $215 million to 70,000 employers and employees. Writer ROSALIE CHAMBERLAIN spoke to members of the team who were behind the Earthquake Employment Support project about developing IT solutions in times of crisis. The project was the winner of the Networked Government category of the 2012 Gen-i IPANZ Public Sector Excellence Awards.
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mmediately following the Christchurch earthquake on 22 February 2011 which left thousands of people homeless and without work, the Government announced a financial support package on 25 February 2011, with emergency payments for 12 weeks to alleviate financial hardship.
MSD, as the lead welfare agency, set up the Earthquake Employment Support project to build the emergency payment system by 28 February – less than a week after the earthquake struck – with first payments to applicants going out on 2 March 2011.
Start your engines “We have an emergency management team and we can respond quickly,” says Barry Fisk, MSD’s Enterprise Business Manager. “We had the weekend to design something for Monday. We couldn’t use our normal processes – people had no payroll information and they couldn’t get into their buildings. We asked ourselves two questions: ‘How little do we need to have in place? What is the priority?’ “We bounced around several ideas on how to respond. Two of the most crucial ideas were when our Chief Information Officer David Habershon and our former Chief Executive Peter
Left to right: David Habershon, CIO; Barry Fisk, Enterprise Business Manager; Anurag Madan, Manager – IT Applications; Microsoft Presenter; and Jason Crib, Project Team Member. Hughes decided that if we got the IRD numbers of employers and employees who lived in central Christchurch, together with a valid bank account number, that would be enough to confirm identity and validate where an individual’s payment should be made,” Fisk says. Under earthquake emergency legislation, privacy rules were temporarily relaxed. This meant
Inland Revenue could provide IRD numbers, which made it easy to validate eligible employers and staff.
Getting money to affected people Affected people could apply online or call a 0800 emergency number. Businesses could get a subsidy of $500 per week per employee to help them to keep paying their staff. People who had
Christchurch, New Zealand – 8 June 2013: A temporary Pallet Pavilion market has been erected in Victoria Square on the the former site of the demolished Park Royal Hotel (Crowne Plaza Hotel). 14 Public Sector July 2013
lost their job and couldn’t contact their employer could get job loss support of $350 per week. Fisk says the first deliverable was a website and an online application form. “We wanted it online as we only had three operational offices in Christchurch. We needed functionality quickly – it came down to what was possible.” Fisk says MSD had three days to work out how to pay people. “The system was all manual at the start. We’d get a manual cut of information from applicants and finance would use Deskbank [provided by Westpac] to load the payments. We had to build the system in such a way that we could collect all the data. “We asked, ‘What pieces do we need to do the job now?’ Then we built it. We started with the application form and the website, then we built the payment engine and the reporting system. The IT folks put in an extraordinary effort; they were working 18 to 19 hour days.”
Smart IT solutions The IT team reused functionality developed for other projects and
adapted existing components and infrastructure to meet the needs of the project. Anurag Madan, Manager – IT Applications, says, “We used a rapid application delivery platform. We separated the content and application delivery so we could easily change content. We used peer programming to ensure that we had minimum issues when we were ready to deploy. We used Kanban principles and an agile approach to help us to implement the IT solutions quickly. “This was the agile approach on steroids! It was all crammed into days,” he says. Consultation was vital – the MSD held daily meetings and regularly updated external stakeholders by phone conference and emails. The project team included people from Work and Income, IT, policy, legal, and finance. Madan says, “It was a big engineering process to build the system. We pulled together, the cooperation was outstanding, and our relationships have strengthened.”
© Nigel Spiers | Dreamstime.com
Collaboration and partnerships key Existing partnerships with industry supported the technology solutions. “The contacts I had with my IT counterparts were critical,” says Madan. “Everything was promptly addressed, they were very supportive.” MSD used its existing SMS infrastructure for StudyLink clients with Fronde, to send messages to applicants. “We couldn’t send anyone a letter, but most people had a phone and we confirmed payments by text and email,” Madan says. Datacom provided disaster recovery infrastructure for the website. Westpac enabled payments to be made on weekends. The IR helped to approve employers and employees from Canterbury.
“Sometimes it’s good to get started, rather than wait for the best design. Keep it simple; don’t over-engineer your solution.” MSD rolled out functionality in daily releases at the start, with two to three releases in the next two weeks. The technology platform and tools used to deliver the application were open source and didn’t attract any usage costs. The subsystems for email, SMS, and payments processing were within the scope of existing arrangements and didn’t attract any set-up costs. The total project cost was $280,000 with minimal external spend. The system was delivered on time and first payments were made on 2 March 2011. The Government extended the emergency payments after 12 weeks and MSD enhanced the system to support reapplications.
Helping people survive Barry Fisk says, “No one’s application for support was unanswered. We had 70 people in a Rotorua processing centre doing exception processing, to ensure people got paid. Our approach was, we believe what you’re telling us, but we are going to check. At the end, we did a reconciliation and we did largely get the money to the right people in a timely way. “This project involved smart people working hard, with creative interventions and flexibility. It’s one of the best things we’ve been
involved in – we feel huge pride and we made a difference when people needed it,” he says.
Learn by doing Both Fisk and Madan say part of the reason for the success is down to the fact that they were willing to “learn by doing” instead of “developing a gold plate design” – an important approach when working under tight timeframes. Fisk adds, “If you need to get something done quickly, you can do it, as long as you choose the right technology. Normally it would have taken us several months to create this system. In a week, we created an emergency payment engine. We know if we’re faced with a similar situation we can do it. “We used the system again within a few days of the grounding of the Rena and we can use it to deliver fast payments in a civil defence emergency.” Madan advises other agencies, “When you think about a solution, ask, can we reuse something or buy something from the market? If not, then build something new. Build your asset base by looking at parts that you can build and reuse. “Sometimes it’s good to get started, rather than wait for the best design. Keep it simple; don’t over-engineer your solution.”
About the sponsor Microsoft is proud to support the IPANZ Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards through its sponsorship of the Networked Government category. Microsoft’s goal is to support government agencies’ use of information technology to enhance productivity, innovate, strengthen their connection with the New Zealand citizens they serve, and improve the quality of services delivered
July 2013 Public Sector 15
In April 2013 the State Services Commission published Core Guide 3: Getting to Great; Lead Reviewer insights from the Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) to identify good practice from the individual Performance Improvement Framework reviews. Written by Lead Reviewers PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) New Zealand Partner Debbie Francis and former Secretary to the Treasury Dr Murray Horn, the report provides practical advice on what it takes to shift an organisation’s performance from good to great. Editor SHELLY BISWELL learns why some agencies are consistently such high performers.
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his autumn and winter, Debbie Francis and Dr Murray Horn, Lead Reviewers for the Performance Improvement Framework (PIF), are leading a series of seminars for public service
managers. Hosted by the State Services Commission, the purpose of the seminars is to discuss the findings of Getting to Great and how those findings can be translated into action. Both Francis and Horn are champions of New Zealand’s public service, their enthusiasm is infectious as the animated discussions following one of the recent seminars suggests, but they are also in pursuit of lifting the overall performance of the sector. Debbie Francis says, “The public sector already does many things well as feedback from Kiwis Count or recognition from organisations like Transparency International shows, but there are also areas where we could improve. “The report doesn’t make light of all the superior work that is already being done. Instead Getting to Great looks at ways to capitalise on that work and, where possi-
ble, to emulate it across the public sector,” she says. “Murray and I set out to write a report for practitioners, which means Getting to Great isn’t an academic discussion or a philosophical treatise, it’s more like a how-to guide on ways to achieve excellence in the public sector.” That’s not to say it’s an easy journey. As Francis and Horn note in the report’s acknowledgements: “For even the most seasoned leader, guiding public institutions through the current uncharted waters is an immensely challenging, and lonely task. Without fail, each chief executive who has completed a PIF Review has been willing to admit they have to try new things. It takes a sense of self-confidence and courage to do things differently, let alone chart agencies through these times.” Dr Murray Horn adds: “We know what success looks like and
What it takes
IN Getting to Great, the Lead Reviewers found the following traits in organisations that are capable of sustained superior performance. • A clear purpose and clarity on how the organisation’s strategy will best achieve its goals. Where an organisation’s leadership and staff know how they can add the most value to New Zealand now and in the future. “Too many agencies are focused on where they are at and what they need to do next, rather than where they need to go and how to get there.” • Strong internal leadership that attracts talented people and inspires them to dedicate themselves to working with integrity to deliver the outcomes that the agency has identified as mattering most to New Zealand. “Talent is attracted to public service and the best organisations develop and manage that talent to deliver the results that matter most. However, too many of our agencies rely too heavily on the talent and commitment of individuals rather than adding value to the individuals they attract.” • Invests in talent by providing challenging, interesting and important work to do, while also managing poor performers to either improve or to exit. “Superior agencies focus effort
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© Dana Rothstein | Dreamstime.com
Charting the course to great
we know the approaches and systems that foster success. The rub for chief executives and their senior leadership teams is to not accept good as ‘good enough’.” Since the PIF was rolled out in 2009, 26 individual agencies have gone through the process of learning where their strengths and weaknesses lie in the areas of strategy; leadership; and improving delivery, finances and resources compared with where they need to be to deliver the outcomes they are seeking to achieve. Getting to Great is based on the findings of the first 21 reviews conducted between 2009 and 2012. When asked independently of each other what the reviews suggest needs to change within organisations, both Francis and Horn reply with two words: stewardship and confidence. Horn says, “In terms of stewardship, most agencies are good at
where it matters most, set high standards, delegate authority and then help people achieve the agency’s goals.” Enlists the active support of all those outside of the agency who are necessary to the agency delivering. “The best agencies understand what others are trying to achieve and how others can help and then work to align others’ interests to deliver the desired results. The relationships formed by poorer performers tend to be overly transactional; often defensive; focused on activity rather than results; and driven by narrow rather than broad community interest.” Demonstrates learning, innovation and continuous improvement are valued. “The best agencies expect and support ongoing improvement and adaption through measurement, testing and review. Too many of the others largely ignore this dynamic element of performance.” Engages corporate support areas like finance, information technology, organisational development, strategy, risk and human resources as business partners. “The best agencies develop and use information and analysis to support decision-making to add value and manage risk. The others avoid risk rather than manage it.”
serving their ministers, but some don’t seem to take the long view. Public servants need to serve the government of the day but they also need to serve the public and they need to be well placed to serve future governments. Highfunctioning agencies have been able to find the right balance and are stronger for it.” Francis adds, “In some ways having a great organisation comes down to having a clear and worthy purpose. Confidence in leadership comes from having a profound sense of mission and a commitment to work toward that mission. It means leaders need to be ambitious and need to start managing risk instead of trying to avoid it.” She says that the mission needs to go beyond an individual agency’s performance. “What we see in agencies that do well is that they have a clear sense of purpose within the organisation, but they also think beyond their own walls to attain their goals.” Horn says, “People don’t come to work to find efficiencies or to avoid a bad outcome. They come to work to reduce crime, or to get more young people into training, or to help small businesses, or to protect our environment. They come to work to make a difference. Agencies that are successful have staff who are fired up about the goals of their organisation, have a clear understanding of their role in achieving those goals and are able to enlist those outside the organisation to help deliver the desired result. The PIF was carefully developed with two purposes: to provide specific feedback and advice to senior leaders to help lift their organisation’s performance, and to consider the reviews as a whole to identify any system-wide trends.
Horn says, “The first question I asked when approached about being a Lead Reviewer was, ‘Who do I work for?’ I wanted chief executives and their leadership teams to be able to be absolutely candid with reviewers and then embrace the recommendations we made. That requires us to identify where agencies need to improve to better deliver the outcomes they are seeking to deliver in order to do the best they can for New Zealand. “The reviews are about looking for ways to lift the performance of an agency no matter where it’s at – not comparing it to other agencies that may have very different goals and drivers. Taken together, the reviews also reveal what we need to do to improve performance across the state services.” Over time, the reviewers began to see certain strengths and challenges across the majority of agencies examined. Francis says, “Reviewers discuss their draft report on an agency with the Lead Reviewer Peer Review Panel. This moderation process ensures the recommendations in the individual reports are robust, but it also means that reviewers are able to see and discuss trends across agencies.” Taken as a whole, the reviews show some of the public sector’s strengths, such as ability to respond to issues and events – the response to the Canterbury earthquakes being an outstanding example – and areas where there’s need for improvement, such as building core capabilities. Francis adds, “If I were to distil the findings of the review into one piece of advice, it would be for public servants to be bold. There is risk in this, and there will be the occasional failure, but to attain greatness means stretching out to reach your goals.” Visit www.ssc.govt.nz/pif-core-guide-3 to view the full report.
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A century of public service In our final instalment on the series of seminars held last year to commemorate the Public Service Act 1912, Professor Peter Hughes in his role as Head of the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, discusses the public service of today and what the public service of tomorrow may look like. Hughes is now the Secretary for Education and Chief Executive for the Ministry of Education.
EXCERPTS FROM PROFESSOR HUGHES’ SPEECH: THE PRESENT AND FUTURE
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hen I joined the public service in the early 1980s, the service was largely unchanged from what had been established through the Public Sector Act. We worked under an administrative paradigm that was focused on inputs and processes. I started out as a basic grade clerk – or 007101 – in the old department of social welfare. As a basic I reported to a section clerk – a 007102 – and she reported to a senior section clerk – a 007103 – and she reported to a divisional officer – a 007104. At this point we entered ‘he’ territory. The divisional officer reported to his senior divisional officer – or 007105. He reported to the senior executive officer – or 007106 – who then reported to the assistant director benefits and pensions – or 007107 – who reported to the district director of the department – or 007108. In other words, the system was intensely hierarchical where, aside from decision-making, most of the productive effort was undertaken by the basic clerk group. The purpose of all those other levels was to check, authenticate or quality control the work of the basic clerks. If decisions were required, they would go through all those levels until reaching a level where a person had the authority to make a call. Sometimes decisions could only be made by those very, very high up in the system so a lot of things – and I’m talking individual benefit cases here – would need to 18 Public Sector July 2013
be sent to head office. If something needed to go to head office, it would need to be formally submitted and not only go through our district office’s hierarchy, but also the hierarchy of the head office. When formal submissions went to head office they could be there for 12 to 18 months. When the submissions came back they would have a page attached to the top of them and the decision would be in red type. There was no justification or rationale for a decision. To facilitate this hierarchical system there was a set of prescriptive department and servicewide manuals. There was a whole section in our department manual on how to supervise in case you rose to 007102 or above. One example of the “common faults requiring disciplinary action” as defined in the manual was the “direct approach to a more senior officer for advice on work – this most annoying practice often arises when individuals on the staff rightly or wrongly consider that the section clerk does not know his job.” This was a system with a lot of clutter and a lot of bureaucracy in it, and I’ve made light of some of that. But the really important thing to understand about that system, which served us very, very well in New Zealand, is that it was much better than what we had in this country before 1912. Prior to the Public Sector Act we had elements of patronage and
corruption, ministers involved in the appointments of civil servants, ministers involved in the setting of remuneration of civil servants, and individual civil servant’s performance debated in the Parliament.
Focus on outputs The 1912 Act brought in sweeping changes and established a system that was world-leading at the time. Many developing countries around the world today would still regard that system we left some time ago as a huge advance on the patronage and corruption and chaotic forms of government they have in place. It was, however, a very inefficient system. There was very little focus on the customer and it stifled innovation and creativity. In the late 1980s there was somewhat of a revolution in New Zealand with the State Sector Act in 1988 and the Public Finance Act in 1989. Very quickly we went from an inputs-focused system to an outputs-focused system – or from an administrative paradigm to a managerial paradigm.
It’s about outcomes So now we are some 30 years on under this system which is known in the literature as “new” public management. The system has a very good reputation around the world and is largely considered to a greater or lesser degree to be benchmark best practice, but as a country we are still struggling to gain traction on some of the big issues like child poverty and disparity, family violence, child abuse and neglect, intergenerational welfare dependency,
educational underachievement, a long tail of low-paid jobs in the New Zealand labour market, and the perennial issue of productivity and economic competitiveness. We have lifted the quality of service delivery, but when it comes to outcomes and effectiveness we are still struggling. If those issues were going to be solved by policysetting changes or policy initiatives alone we would have gotten more traction than we have to date. My proposition is that the delivery side of the public service is almost as important as the policy settings. For this reason, we need to embark on another time of reform with a focus on better outcomes. We have the Better Public Services programme which includes finding efficiencies and increasing productivity, but the really big idea in better public services is a focus on outcomes as well as outputs. The first thing you figure out if you’re working in government and you’re trying to achieve better outcomes is that it’s all about integration, collaboration and cooperation. The vertically integrated model we currently work under is not fit for purpose for achieving better outcomes. Most government departments have everything they need to deliver excellent customer service, but when it comes to delivering outcomes what is needed means working across agencies, the nongovernment sector, and even the private sector. What would an outcomesfocused system look like? A caveat
here, I think in New Zealand we have solved this problem more in practice than we have in theory. In most government departments there are people at the front-end who are working in new and different ways with an outcomes focus, but who are constrained or straining against the current outputsfocus system. Under the new paradigm there will need to be a focus on outcomes not just outputs, where the paradigm itself is about leadership not about managerialism. This new paradigm means working across systems without the use of formal authority. In my role as former chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development I worked with staff to move towards an outcomes focus in the organisation. In my discussions I found what resonated with staff was to explain this new paradigm in the following way: “We have a job to do and that is the delivery of outputs – our products and services. That is the bottom line to our job. But there is also a top line to our job. The top line is the achievement of better outcomes. We need to do both.”
“We have a job to do and that is the delivery of outputs – our products and services. That is the bottom line to our job. But there is also a top line to our job. The top line is the achievement of better outcomes. We need to do both.” Thinking horizontally My sense is the public service of the future is going to need to be networked horizontally instead of vertically. Below are some of the areas where I think we will need to see the greatest change. Integrated approach: In the public service right now there are two choices for working in an integrated way: an officials’ committee or a merger. We need other ways of working. We have started to experiment with central clusters, but I think we also need a joint venture vehicle. We need ways of joining agencies that are not structural but allow us to get the benefits of working together more closely. Accountability: The whole notion of accountability needs to change. Currently we think accountability is vertical and relates to a single person. In the future, we are going to need to think about shared and collective accountability which already happens in the private sector with the board model, but we struggle with it in the public sector.
Performance measurement: It is relatively easy to measure an output at a point in time, but it’s a lot harder to measure the achievement of outcomes or results over time. One is performance measurement and the other is evaluation. Culture: The biggest challenge I see is the shift in culture. We have been socialised over 30 years to a way of thinking about working and doing things in the public services and now that needs to change. We can spend a lot of time fiddling at the top of the system changing policy settings or changing aspects of the model, but if we don’t have a system-wide led culture change process we are not going to get the benefits. Information technology: Technology will drive a much more virtual and networked world where information is key. Privacy: Under the current system, privacy is about data and data matching for the purposes of compliance or administrative efficiency, but in the future data will
become more about data pooling for better outcomes.
Unlocking potential The changes I’m talking about are technically and managerially hard. They are also personally challenging for those of us who have worked under the current system. But I think we have a great opportunity before us and that New Zealand has the ability to once again lead the world in public sector reform. If we succeed, we will unlock a huge amount of human potential and creativity which we will be able to apply to some enduring issues in our country. The seminar series was hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and IPANZ. In the December 2012 and April 2013 issues of Public Sector we featured excerpts from the presentations of Dr John E Martin, IPANZ Fellow John R Martin, and Professor Jonathan Boston. Visit www.nzhistory.net.nz/handsonhistory/downloads-and-podcasts to listen to podcasts of all four seminars.
July 2013 Public Sector 19
– results matter
© Lars Christensen | Dreamstime.com
Better Public Services watch Budget 2013 supports better public services By Finance Minister Bill English
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udget 2013 continues the Government’s strong support for delivering better public services to New Zealanders. What works for the community works for the Government’s books. If we have effective and focused government services, the books will come right. We are working to create a more innovative and efficient public sector to deliver better results that meet the modern demands of New Zealanders. Achieving this will require a public service willing to learn and change quickly, and public servants who are motivated and professional. Our view is that spending restraint is not a handbrake on providing better public services. In fact, big increases in spending have often been a measure of failure in programmes, rather than a measure of success. Therefore, our approach has been to spend well, not to spend up. Over five Budgets, the Government’s spending increases have been modest compared to the large increases of the 2000s. More importantly, we have invested in programmes that will achieve results and improve the lives of New Zealanders and their families, and we have stopped programmes that are not achieving results. Last year, the Prime Minister set 10 challenging results for the public sector to achieve over the next few years. They included reducing long-term welfare dependency, supporting vulnerable children, boosting skills and employment, and reducing crime. These results span the public sector and the Budget contributes to meeting all of them. For example, we have set ambitious targets for student achievement. In particular, we want to have 98 per cent of school entrants having participated in early childhood education, and 85 per cent of 18-year olds achieving NCEA Level 2 or equivalent qualification. 20 Public Sector July 2013
We are making progress. We are lifting student achievement at all levels of the education system, making more information available to parents and lifting the quality of teaching and professional leadership in schools. The Government is backing up its focus on student achievement with total investment in education next year of $9.7 billion – across early childhood, primary and secondary schooling. Our particular focus is on supporting children who have too often missed out on educational opportunities. The Budget provides $41 million to support vulnerable children to participate in early childhood education and $6 million for a new mentoring programme to help vulnerable students achieve NCEA Level 2. Law and order is another area of special focus for the Government. Again, we are making progress, with reported crime falling by almost 17 per cent over the past three years. We are determined to reach our Better Public Service target of a 25 per cent reduction in reoffending by 2017, which will result in 18,500 fewer victims of crime every year. This will require government agencies across the justice sector working together closely and collaboratively. The Corrections Department has already delivered an 8.9 per cent reduction in reoffending, meaning 1,643 fewer repeat offenders and over 6,500 fewer victims of crime each year. Other Better Public Service targets for the justice sector are to reduce the total recorded crime rate by 15 per cent, the recorded violent crime rate by 20 per cent, and the youth crime rate by 5 per cent, all by 2017. Again, this is about the Government investing wisely in programmes that work. The Corrections Department is investing $10 million over two years to reduce reoffending by prisoners after they are released. And the Police are investing more than $160 million over a number of years to give frontline officers access to new technology,
such as smartphones and tablets, which means they can deal with issues on the street without having to return to the station to complete paperwork. The Budget also confirms significant changes to providing housing for those New Zealanders most in need. Despite the Government’s $15 billion investment in housing, some people cannot get housing assistance when they need it. As with our reform of welfare programme, which is focused on supporting more New Zealanders into work, the Government will target upfront investment to ensure more New Zealanders receive the housing support they need. So the Budget includes three major social housing changes. First, we will begin developing pathways for New Zealanders in social housing to regain independence and self-sufficiency in housing as their individual circumstances permit and as alternatives allow. The Budget provides $47 million to progressively extend reviewable tenancies to all social housing tenants. They already apply to some Housing New Zealand tenants. Second, the Government is increasing spending on income-related rent subsidies by $27 million over four years, and this will be available as a capped pool to community housing providers. This will put community housing providers on an even footing with Housing New Zealand. Finally, housing needs assessments will be shifted from Housing New Zealand to the Ministry of Social Development, so people seeking different types of government assistance can get it from one organisation. Overall, Budget 2013 confirms the Government’s next steps in delivering better public services, supporting government agencies to meet their ambitious results targets, and ensuring New Zealanders most in need receive the support they deserve.
Public Sector asked Finance Minister Bill English and Labour Spokesperson for Finance David Parker for their views on how Budget 2013 is addressing better public services. Here are their responses.
Cronyism is now rife in New Zealand
By David Parker, Labour Spokesperson for Finance
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he National Government has done a lot of talking about improving public services, but at the same time there are many serious examples of improper actions which are undermining New Zealanders’ trust in our public processes. This is eroding confidence in our democracy and our freedom from corruption. Like any workplace or service, trust is the key. People won’t put their money in the bank if they don’t trust it to look after their money. They won’t buy goods from a shop if they don’t trust the salesman. And they won’t value or have confidence in their public sector if they see a constant stream of news stories that undermine that trust. Confidence in public services comes from the top. Ministers must be seen to be acting scrupulously and above board. If they are not, this behaviour both undermines confidence directly, and filters down through these lower standards being applied by the civil service. Too often this Government appears to be making policy over dinners, breakfasts or backroom deals favouring vested interests or the political interests of the National Party. That erodes confidence in the wider democratic system as well. John Key’s oral acrobatics over his relationship with now GCSB Chief Executive Ian Fletcher, who was either an old school chum, family friend or someone he hadn’t seen in years, depending on the day the Prime Minister was asked, has strongly eroded trust. Having breakfast with Mr Fletcher just a few weeks before he cancelled the applications shortlist, and the subsequent admission that he called him to suggest he apply for the GCSB position, for which he was the sole person
interviewed, was questionable in the extreme. The SkyCity convention centre for pokies deal has been damaging. The Auditor-General found that only SkyCity knew regulatory advantages could be traded in return for building the convention centre but no other tenderer did. We will never know for certain, but a proper process could have resulted in a convention centre not reliant upon the misery caused by gambling. The Auditor-General’s report into the deal reached worrying conclusions about ministers and civil servants. There is no doubt that the Prime Minister was happy for SkyCity to be the winner of the pretend tender. That put civil servants in an impossible situation, effectively having to ignore proper process and pursue the minister’s pick. The warnings at the time from the Treasury; the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment; and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are still suppressed, probably because they show the Prime Minister was warned it was wrong. This blatant non-compliance with the Official Information Act has become common. The rushed-through ban on protesting in the exclusive economic zone – done by way of supplementary order paper with no public input via select committee process and with no Bill of Rights vet – was another example. The regulatory impact statement was not given to Parliament for debate, even though Treasury and MBIE officials said it should be. The astonishing ousting of the Court’s jurisdiction to even hear complaints by carers for disabled family members was pushed through
with a blacked-out regulatory impact statement. Ouster clauses cannot be justified. Urgency was deliberately used by the government to limit the public backlash. The Law Society is on record that it is going to complain to the United Nations. Yet more trust is undermined. Go back two years, and the Prime Minister used an arm of the state, the Police, during an election to raid the media after his publicity stunt with John Banks over a cup of tea went wrong. After the sideshow had passed, the Prime Minister said the journalist was “deemed guilty” for recording the conversation, but dropped the prosecution, which would of course have embarrassed the Government. Then John Banks was outed for failing to disclose political donations from Dotcom and SkyCity. In the former case he “forgot” his helicopter ride to the mansion, his request for the money and the arrangements for payment. In the latter case, he even collected the cheque. But the Prime Minister refuses to criticise (or read) the police report, and it is left to a private citizen to bring a prosecution. All the while, the Chair of the Prime Minister’s electorate committee, Stephen McElrea, is sitting as a board member of the Broadcasting Commission even after he was found to be interfering, for political reasons, with the timing of a documentary on child poverty in New Zealand. Actions speak far louder than words and ministers are taking the wrong actions. For the civil service to deliver for New Zealanders, ministers must be sticklers for proper democratic standards.
July 2013 Public Sector 21
Historian and writer Mark Derby (pictured right) will be speaking on behalf of the Dan Long Trust at this September’s Public Sector Conference. IPANZ Communications Advisor MARGARET MCLACHLAN recently spoke to Derby about his newly published book White-collar Radical about union activist Dan Long.
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he 1960s – a time of ferment in New Zealand and throughout the world – also saw the rise of unions. From 1960 until his sudden death in office in 1976, Dan Long was the most visible face of the Public Service Association, New Zealand’s largest union. Historian Mark Derby who has written White-collar Radical about Long’s life says, “Initially I thought, what can be so exciting about a man who put on a brown raincoat every morning and caught the train in from Upper Hutt to Wellington to work for the PSA. But I discovered there was much more to the story of Dan Long.” While conducting his research, Derby found that Dan Long’s background and political attitudes made him a very unusual leader of what had been a traditionally conservative organisation. As its General Secretary for 16 years, Long led the PSA during its transformation from a gentlemanly professional body into a large, well-resourced
and highly effective trade union representing public employees at every level. Long was also instrumental in broadening the range of PSA activities beyond immediate issues of pay and working conditions to include human rights, internationalism, and the social revolution of the late 1960s and 70s. Long grew up at the isolated, railway community of Cross Creek Wairarapa; the son of a unionist railway guard. He and his two brothers refused military service and consequently were sent to detention camps during World War II. From age 19, Long spent four years “behind the wire”. This was a formative experience, which exposed him to people of other beliefs. He participated in heated discussions about a desired post-war society, pursued an education, listened to music performances and did physical training. After the war, he worked as a labourer for a gas company for two years, then joined the Ministry of Works, and earned a law degree. This was at a time of large public works, like hydro schemes, airports and homes for heroes. Since 1935, the public service was a growing body with the prevailing ethic being of state socialism – government organisations undertook the big infrastructure projects. Long joined the PSA as a member, then was
Photo: Andy Palmer
Stand up – making radical ideas mainstream
elected a site delegate and by 1958 became the president. He was a champion of equal pay – this at a time when women doing the same jobs as men officially got paid less. The same year the equal pay for the public service was enacted, he married fellow PSA delegate Margaret Brand, nicknamed ‘firebrand’ because of her lively personality. “She’s still alive today, and despite her modesty, was my main source for the book. She and Dan were a team throughout their lives,” Derby says. In 1960, Long became the general secretary of the PSA. He represented a disparate organisation – from senior departmental heads, to night cleaners, to lighthouse-keepers, to government deer cullers. The majority of government employees belonged to the PSA and there was a span of political views. His
Public Sector Conference – taking stock THE inaugural Public Sector Conference will be held in Wellington in September. Marking the centenary of the Public Service Act of 1912 and of the formation of the Public Service Association a year later, the intention for the conference is to make connections between New Zealand’s past, present and future public services. IPANZ President John Larkindale says, “The conference will be a chance for speakers and participants to reflect on where we have come from as a public service but, more importantly, to share ideas for the shape of things to come.” The conference is a joint initiative supported by IPANZ, the Labour History Project, the PSA, and the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington. Conference themes include: • the citizen as consumer – what we have ended up with after 100 years • from the social laboratory of the world to the poster boy for free trade – reflecting on the last century for pointers to the future 22 Public Sector July 2013
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after the call centre – the “i-phone state” and looking ahead to the next century. Confirmed speakers include: • British journalist and writer Polly Toynbee who is a columnist for The Guardian • British journalist and communications specialist David Walker who is the contributing editor to the Public Leaders Network and former communications director of the UK Audit Commission • Economist Brian Easton who researches, writes and consults on a wide range of economic issues to speak on the contribution of the public realm in New Zealand’s economic history • Professor Claire Robinson of Massey University who will discuss design and the public service. Join your colleagues over the two-day conference (5-6 September) to examine the choices and challenges facing the New Zealand public sector. www.thepublicsectorconference.org.nz
“He believed it was a legitimate function of a trade union to go beyond the immediate needs of its members and to consider the issues of how could society be improved.” considerable achievement was to keep the various factions together. Helen Kelly, President of the Council of Trade Unions, is quoted in White-collar Radical stating Long’s contribution was significant. She says he was intelligent, capable, fair-minded, and regarded as an equal by government ministers and chief executives. “You had to be at the top of your game to be sitting across the negotiating table from Dan.” He was an internationalist – he believed New Zealand should play a bigger role overseas. He was involved with other public sector unions and challenged them to consider the third world and the Asia-Pacific region. Derby says, “He was better travelled than the prime minister. He gave the PSA a voice beyond New Zealand.” During his watch, the PSA’s objectives were redrafted: “to promote and protect the economic, social, industrial and educational interests of its members including their civil rights”. Long involved the PSA and its members in various causes, including revival of the Māori language, Ban the Bomb, anti-Viet-
nam War and debates about New Zealand’s role in international affairs, how we were treating our Pacific neighbours, and support for the establishment of the Consumer Institute. He believed in a degree of public ownership and the role the PSA had to play in a democratic society. He helped implement or consolidate many of the advances within government including induction processes and glide time (flexible hours). Long died of a heart attack in 1976, a decade when New Zealand also lost other significant leaders like Bill Sutch (economist, writer, public servant and diplomat) and Norm Kirk (Labour Prime Minister 1972-74). “We lost a generation of men who could have made a considerable difference to society,” Derby says. When asked about Dan Long’s legacy, Derby says New Zealand is a completely different place compared to what it was in the 70s; and many of the political premises Long worked for have since been discarded. “But I would say to young people, learn from the earlier generations. It’s important to stand up for things you believe in and against injustices. Some of the battles need to be re-fought.” Long thought it was reasonable for the PSA to be concerned beyond immediate issues of pay and working conditions. “He believed it was a legitimate function of a trade union to
go beyond the immediate needs of its members and to consider the issues of how society could be improved.” Derby thinks public servants and the organisations that represent them still have a role to play in considering issues beyond their immediate needs and can act as a force for good in society. White-collar Radical: Dan Long and the rise of the white-collar unions by Mark Derby. Craig Potton publishing.
Pathway to Smokefree New Zealand THE Ministry of Health recently announced selected projects for the first Smokefree New Zealand 2025 Innovation Fund. The fund was established in 2012 to advance the Government’s goal of Smokefree Aotearoa 2025. The fund’s purpose is to support innovative approaches to reduce the smoking prevalence among Māori, Pacific people, pregnant women, and young people across New Zealand. Selected projects range from Auckland UniServices’ WERO – Group Stop Smoking Competition that is informed by Māori beliefs and tikanga; to Massey University’s self-sustaining project to create a smokefree youth movement; to Manukau District Health Board, Waitemata Primary Health Organisation and Transitioning Out Aotearoa’s development of a Quit Bus to cover the Greater Auckland region. Decisions have not yet been made on how future funding will be distributed, but the Ministry of Health anticipates there will be further opportunities for providers to access the fund. www.health.govt.nz
July 2013 Public Sector 23
Obituary – A life led in service Dr Robin M Williams CB, CBE (1919–2013) By John R Martin
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or many years Robin Williams, who died in March, was a Wellington identity maintaining his interest in public policy through his regular attendance at seminars around the city, most recently at the IPANZ and Ministry for Culture and Heritage series of talks on the centenary of the Public Service Act 1912. On such occasions, Dr Williams was always willing to share experience and wisdom from his extraordinary career as mathematician, participant in the Manhattan project, State Services Commissioner (and later Commission Chair), and Vice-Chancellor at universities in Dunedin and Canberra, Australia. Robin Williams was educated in Christchurch, at Christ College and Canterbury University College, graduating in mathematics in 1940. Because of World War II, Williams was unable to take up a scholarship to Cambridge University, but worked on radar at the former Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Radio Development Laboratory between 1941 and 1944. He was then seconded to the United States, working with the British team on the Manhattan project developing the atomic bomb. In 1945, he took up his deferred scholarship at Cambridge and earned a PhD in 1949. Returning to New Zealand in 1950, Williams joined the DSIR Applied Maths Laboratory, becoming Director in 1953, a position he held until 1962. Following the
McCarthy Royal Commission on the State Services, the State Services Act 1962 provided for four appointments to the new State Services Commission – although the McCarthy Commission had proposed a single State Services Commissioner. The SSC was to replace the Public Services Commission, which had regulated the public service since 1913. Robin Williams was appointed to the SSC, a position he held until 1966. In a commission dominated by efforts to establish new pay-fixing machinery, Williams had responsibility for a portfolio of departments with a technological orientation. In 1967, he took up the position of ViceChancellor at Otago University, which he held until 1973 when he moved to Canberra, Australia as Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University. In 1974 he was approached by the Kirk Labour Government to return to New Zealand as Chair of the State Services Commission. This he saw as a challenge. By the time of his return in February 1975, Norman Kirk had died and been replaced by Bill Rowling as Prime Minister; and by the end of the year the National Government led by Robert Muldoon had assumed office. His six years as Chair of the State Services Commission were turbulent years in which the economy was under severe challenge from world events, when inflation surged, and when industrial relations were marked by constant strife from which the state sector
was not immune. Major reform of the public sector was not on the agenda of the Muldoon Government, but the pressures of a changing and diverse society received a response led by the SSC. Of particular interest to Williams was the extension of opportunities in the state services for women, Māori and Pasifika people. Williams was held in high respect by his peers in the public sector and his counsel was valued by ministers. He had a capacity for quick analysis of complex issues and the ability to find solutions. He was unfailingly warm and courteous in his relationships with others irrespective of their status. He saw the role of the SSC, in his own words, as “the guardian of the public service ethic, as a body independent of the government in staff matters, and as an institution that public servants felt they could approach about perceived wrongs or injustices in their departments” (interview Public Sector, December 2012). In “retirement”, Robin Williams pursued his many interests, including membership of organisations committed to the betterment of the environment and of society. He was always a dedicated reader with a special love of poetry and chaired the New Zealand Book Council. He was a man with a wide circle of friends by whom he will be sadly missed. IPANZ extends its sincere sympathy to his children, Janet Hector, Bridget Williams, Tony Williams and their families. His wife of over 60 years, Mary, predeceased him.
Citizenville – democracy in the digital age IN his book, Citizenville: How to take the town square digital and reinvent government, United States politician Gavin Newsom, the Lieutenant Governor of California and past Mayor of San Francisco, argues that government is often stuck in the past while the lives of citizens are changing at an accelerated rate. Newsom writes in the book’s opening chapter, “Government initiatives in the United States, whether local, state or federal, get bogged down in a thousand different ways. Legacy companies, such as cable providers, fight against new technologies that would undercut their business. Special 24 Public Sector July 2013
interests flood the system with cash and block initiatives they don’t like. And the civil service, the system under which millions of non-military government employees work, is in many ways stuck in an antiquated mind-set – one that does not provide for flexibility and often rewards longevity over innovation and creativity.” Through a series of interviews and essays, Citizenville explores democracy in the digital age. With chapter titles like “there’s an app for that” and “angry birds for democracy”, it’s clear that Newsom sees technology as a way for citizens to engage and to effect change. Published by Penguin Press, 2013.
FROM THE CROWD.
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