Assessing Organisational Health and Capability

Our Workforce

Te Puni Kōkiri enjoys a positive culture, and maintaining and indeed building upon this over the coming period, as we realign our work programme to our strategic priorities, is of critical importance to us.

We continue to position ourselves to ensure we retain sufficient flexibility to implement the changes we envisage during the term of this Statement of Intent, both in terms of the skills and capability mix that we will need to meet the requirements of our new strategic direction and outcome focus and, if required, to our structure.

We are focused on becoming a dynamic and agile organisation, and one which is able to both understand our stakeholders, and respond to their needs and expectations in a manner which further builds their confidence in us. Continuous improvement is becoming embedded and staff will “always look for a better way” to maximise both value for money and stakeholder benefit.

Our People Capability Strategy and underlying Performance Framework ensures we continue to have robust and timely information available to us on our current capabilities and common areas of development. We intend in the short term to build our leadership capacity across the organisation, and to provide our staff with opportunities to not only to build their analytical capabilities, but also their resilience in the face of change. As part of our strategy for development, we will also consider whether we need to supplement or change existing systems to effectively monitor and review the depth of capability within core areas of the Ministry.

The current fiscal environment means that our workforce going into the future may be smaller and more highly and differently skilled. However until the outcomes of the review processes, and in particular the Future Focus review, have been confirmed, it isn’t possible to be more specific than this. Once final decisions have been made, we intend to commence a targeted recruitment campaign to allow us to further build the depth of skills and capabilities we believe will be necessary to fulfil the Ministry’s agreed role and functions - ārahitanga, Whakamaherehere and Auahatanga.

Despite the uncertainties of recent years, including the widespread changes across the public sector generally, the results of our most recent external assessments (summarised in the table on page 26), across the full range of public sector indicators confirm that Te Puni Kōkiri continues to maintain both a capacity and a capability comparable to that of our colleague agencies.

Key assessments of our organisational health

Measure / Review	Outcome / Result
Independent Review of Policy Advice for year ended June 2012	4.97 out of a possible 6.
Treasury led Benchmarking Administrative and Support Services (BASS) report	Compares Te Puni Kōkiri favourably with other agencies with a similar profile. Trend data shows continual improvement in both efficiency and effectiveness over time.
SSC Human Resources Capability Survey Report	Released by SSC in October 2012. Compares Te Puni Kōkiri positively with the core public sector.
SSC PIF Report	Undertaken in 2010. Of the 15 + agencies reviewed since, Te Puni Kōkiri compares favourably. As a matter of continuous improvement, a follow-up self-assessment will be undertaken.
2011/12 Stakeholder Surveys	Key Regional Stakeholders Survey - 4.5 out of possible 5. MBFS Client Satisfaction Survey – 3.9 out of possible 5.
Independent Audit Ratings of our Management Control Environment	Based on Audit NZ ratings for 2011/12 Financial information, systems ,and controls very good (2011: very good). Management control environment good (2011: good). Service performance information, systems, and controls needs improvement   (2011: needs improvement).

Equality and Diversity

The State Sector Act sets out particular employment responsibilities for the public service in relation to the employment and aspirations of Māori people and the need for greater involvement of Māori in the Public Service. 70% of our employees identify as Māori.

With a 50/50 gender ratio within our senior management, Te Puni Kōkiri is a leader in the public sector. We also have one of the lowest gender pay gaps in the Public Service. These measures demonstrate that the ongoing commitment to attracting a diversity of quality applicants for our vacancies, and retaining the talent we employ, is effective.

The People Capability Strategy, which has evolved over recent years, continues to build on the key themes of equity in rewards; participation; fairness and respect. Human resource key performance indicators will continue to monitor for equity, as will periodic reporting mechanisms such as staff participation in performance management and annual reward rounds. 2013 has seen a significant increase in participation in the performance management process.

Financial Health

Te Puni Kōkiri is accountable for departmental appropriations of $62.657m and non-departmental appropriations of $156.002m within the Vote Māori Affairs portfolio. The majority of the Vote’s non-departmental expenditure can be categorised as either Crown and other statutory entities for which Te Puni Kōkiri has a monitoring and policy development role or programme investment, including the Māori Potential Fund and Whānau Ora.

Within its profile of departmental expenditure the Ministry’s main input cost driver is personnel related costs, which represent some 52% of expenditure and is the major determinant of other operating costs.

Risk Management

Te Puni Kōkiri has an established risk management framework. The Ministry’s Executive Leadership team is responsible for establishing policies and procedures relating to risk management, the primary aim of these being to manage, rather than eliminate risk and to minimise any adverse impacts.

We have worked to ensure our overall approach to managing risk has become embedded in our day to day operations. This has resulted in risk management discussions as an integral element to all management activity, with risks continuously identified and assessed with risk treatment plans put in place. The Ministry’s Audit and Risk Management Committee oversees risk management and audit activities and provides independent assurance and risk management advice to the Chief Executive.

Cost Effectiveness

The Government is committed to delivering high-quality public services in a challenging fiscal environment. To this end, the Ministry is committed to:

• ensuring value for money across all areas of expenditure;
• progressing a demonstrably results-focussed work programme; and
• developing and maintaining the capabilities, systems,innovation and flexibility to achieve these objectives.

Our participation in the All of Government purchasing initiative has begun to deliver significant savings to the Ministry. Within the Ministry we have also implemented a number of additional measures including the proposed reduction of our filing footprint, and a review of our approach to print-based publications.

This is the third year Te Puni Kōkiri has completed the collection of data for the BASS programme. The summary results from the 2011/12 BASS benchmarking (published in April 2013) are illustrated in the table opposite.

These show:

• improvements across all Administration and Support
functions for the past three financial years; and
• Administration and Support costs are below or within 1% of those of our colleague agencies.

Capital and Asset Management

Te Puni Kōkiri’s forecast capital expenditure reflects the four to five year cycle of replacement or upgrading of assets to maintain and develop capability. Our capital asset strategy is designed to ensure we meet acceptable business standards for condition, availability and functionality. The most significant component of our capital programme relates to maintaining suitably equipped leasehold premises, motor vehicles and generic IT hardware/software.

The Ministry monitors the performance of its physical assets to ensure effectiveness and efficiency and replaces these assets as appropriate to ensure that acceptable business standards are maintained. All capital purchases are largely part of the routine asset replacement programme.

Overall Efficiency

Measuring the use of resources to minimise cost, effort and time

Te Puni Kōkiri recorded an increase in efficiency of 13% (from 54% to 67%) from the 2010/11 financial year. The improvement in efficiency ratings are mainly reflective of the following changes that have occurred within Te Puni Kōkiri in the last 12 months:

• finance and payroll restructuring in late2011;
• automation and strengthening of systems; and
• proactive review and analysis of key expenditure area.

Overall Effectiveness

Measuring the extent to which activities achieve results.

Te Puni Kōkiri recorded an increase in effectiveness of 9% (from 45% to 54%) from the 2010/11 financial year.

The improvement in effectiveness ratings are mainly reflective of the following changes that have occurred within Te Puni Kōkiri in the last 12 months:

• increased participation in All of Government (AOG) initiatives and syndicated contracts;
• strengthened management practices, especially in property 9/10 (Peer8/10) and legal 8/10 (Peer 5/10); and
• ICTsupport ability and commitment to a15 minute response time (compared to Peermedian 48 minutes and NZ median 60 minutes).

 

 

Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Puni Kōkiri House 143 Lambton Quay, Wellington 6011, New Zealand PO Box 3943, Wellington 6140, New Zealand PHN Waea 04 819 6000 FAX Waea Whakaahua 04 819 6299 www.tpk.govt.nz

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