Assessing Organisational Health and Capability

To succeed, our organisation needs strong leaders, a clear sense of direction, and a constant form of communicating the outcomes that are to be achieved. We continually strive for a healthy, vibrant and capable organisation with all the appropriate resources to contribute to our desired outcomes.

With this in mind, Te Puni Kōkiri continues to focus on improvement in critical areas as follows:

• Capitalise on strong external relationships that enable us to provide quality advice and deliver on our responsibilities in the most effective way;
• Encourage and develop senior managers aspiring to leadership positions;
• Maintain the systems, structures, and processes, that enable us to be a performance-based organisation focused on “best practice”;
• Employ excellent people who have top quality intellect, commitment, balance individual and team work and work with a passion for achieving Māori success; and
• Engage effectively to promote and communicate the outcomes for which Te Puni Kōkiri is responsible.

Working Better Together

The Government has given clear signals to the Public Sector that it expects government agencies to work together collaboratively; to focus on “front-line” delivery; to deliver “smarter, better public services for less”.

Te Puni Kōkiri is ideally placed to contribute significantly to Government’s challenge. We are an agency that works together with a wide range of government, non-government and Māori organisations.

The implementation of the Whānau Ora approach, for which Te Puni Kōkiri is the lead agency, will be a significant test of our ability to transform the way in which government transacts with social service providers and whānau.

People Capability

This year we began a process to develop a new People Capability Strategy. We will look to conclude that process this year when we move to implement our new strategy, through to 2016.

We continue to be committed to making Te Puni Kōkiri a place where people aspire to work, are able to develop and can make a difference. Our People Capability Strategy will be informed by our Values, our latest staff engagement survey and the public service context within which we operate. We will incorporate our remuneration, employment relations, learning and development and succession management planning into our strategy.

We have commenced negotiations with the Public Service Association for a new collective agreement and anticipate concluding these during 2010/11. This new collective agreement will reflect the “Government’s Expectations for Pay and Employment Conditions in the State Sector”.

Equal employment opportunities

Following our 2007 Pay and Employment Equity Review we integrated our response plan into our People Capability Strategy. Our new strategy will continue to build on the key themes of equity in rewards; participation; and fairness and respect. Human resource key performance indicators continue to monitor for gender equity as do periodic reporting mechanisms such as staff participation in performance management and annual reward rounds.

Communications

It is Te Puni Kōkiri’s intention to be a more effective communicator and we aim to proactively promote the activities and achievements of Te Puni Kōkiri. External publications such as Kōkiri and E-Kōkiri are an effective means of advising the most relevant, timely, and factual information to staff and stakeholders alike. A further communiqué, - Kōtuitui, is our main means of internal networking that aims to link us all in our work by sharing success stories. We continue to focus on our shift toward e-based communication tools.

Maintaining an Evaluation Programme

This year we have strengthened our evaluation strategy and broadened the scope of our internal evaluations. The previous focus on investment categories from the Māori Potential Fund provided useful information to justify our community based investments. With the change to a more programme-based investment strategy we will be looking to use our evaluation function to support this approach.

The revised strategy will set the direction for all Te Puni Kōkiri evaluation activity for the next three years to ensure the annual evaluation work programme supports the Ministry’s work, assists it in meeting its accountability requirements and informs and influences policy development for Māori.

Te Puni Kōkiri seeks to build a broad evidence base to demonstrate progress in achieving outcomes, supporting new and/or expanded programmes or investments; justifying expenditure and making decisions about how best to allocate limited resources.

The strategy provides a foundation for Te Puni Kōkiri to use evaluation to:

• provide an evidence-based approach to support decision-making in relation to investment decisions, programme planning and design, implementation and related policy advice;
• be able to demonstrate value for money in respect to the expenditure of public funds; and
• be able to demonstrate progress in achieving outcomes for Māori.

Assessing our Cost-Effectiveness

Te Puni Kōkiri will continue to ensure that provision of all services to Ministers and Stakeholders alike, is provided efficiently and effectively through:

• a sharpened focus on delivery of the Governments objectives at all levels throughout the organisation, from strategy to wāhanga work programmes, to individual performance agreements;
• sound investment in people, processes and systems;
• benchmarking using the Common Measurements Tool; and
• an internal review programme to identify and implement efficiency and effectiveness improvements in programme management, relationships and information and corporate compliance.

The actual assessment of cost-effectiveness of policy work remains challenging, given that the outcomes we are pursuing are dependent on a wide range of contributors. However, we will, over time, benchmark and measure the cost-effectiveness of achieving our impact measures. Alongside this, the costs of policy production are continually monitored to ensure that the Governments objective to improve value for money (VFM) within the State Sector is being adhered to.

Finally, Te Puni Kōkiri shall continue to work to improve performance measurement as a key means of supporting good decision making, as well as meeting accountability requirements.

Performance Improvement Actions

For 2009/10 Te Puni Kokiri agreed to six Performance Improvement Actions. Three of these focussed on reviewing existing programmes/appropriations and will be reported on in the 2009/10 Annual Report:

• Review SHAZ funding
• Review Tourism funding
• Review Rangatiratanga Grants

The remaining three Performance Improvement actions were designed to improve management and reporting systems:

• The first of these was the establishment of a formalised measurement system to allow Te Puni Kōkiri to monitor and measure our effectiveness against our “Performance Framework”.
• The second was a refined Investment Strategy to ensure future investments are aligned to the specific outcomes of the Government.
• And the third was a review of the cost allocation system to assess the appropriateness and accuracy of the current system in determining the direct costs associated with administering the Māori Potential Fund (MPF).

For 2010/11 it is intended that the Performance Improvement Actions will be set out in the Action Plan agreed following the completion of the Performance Improvement Framework assessment in July 2010.

Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) Assessment

In April 2010 Te Puni Kōkiri became the fourth government agency to undergo a PIF assessment overseen by the central agencies.

The objective of Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) assessments is to improve agency performance. The assessment process delivers an independent view of an agency’s performance, and based on this it identifies priority areas for action. These are areas where the assessment team believe the agency could significantly improve its performance.

The organisational management part of the model contains four critical areas:

• Leadership,
• Direction and Delivery;
• External Relationships;
• People Development; and
• Financial and Resource Management.

An action plan setting out Te Puni Kōkiri’s response to the review is due to be agreed between the Chief Executive and the State Services Commissioner by July 2010.

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