Statement of Intent 2008 - Organisational health and capability
The Ministry’s success depends on having people with the right skills, abilities and commitment. This success also depends on us supporting people with the right strategies, structures, policies, systems and resources. Only once all these factors are in place can we consistently deliver the desired outcomes for clients and government.
We support the State Services Development Goals to be an employer of choice and to attract staff who are committed to service and the achievement of results. We want our work to be accessible and responsive to improve New Zealanders’ experience of State services, and to have in place the elements essential to support State servants’ trustworthy behaviour.
Attracting and retaining competent, talented people
To help attract and retain talented people the Ministry works to provide staff with challenging and meaningful work, set clear expectations, provide opportunities to apply skills, provide feedback on performance, and opportunities for ongoing learning and development.
In a tight and competitive labour market we are able to recruit high calibre people for roles throughout the Ministry. Our graduate recruitment, internships and cadetships continue to provide useful channels to capture talented people for entry-level positions. We have recruited graduates into a range of roles across policy, research, finance, human resources, and information technology. We are reviewing our graduate programme for 2008 and are likely to take a more targeted approached to meet internal business demand and vacancies.
The Ministry turnover rate continues to be stable, at between 12 and 14 per cent annual turnover over the last five years. This is consistent with public service turnover rates over the same period. The average tenure of permanent employees who left over the last year was about four years, while the average tenure of current permanent employees was around eight years.
Engaging with staff and key stakeholders, and providing attractive, competitive and equitable pay and employment conditions, are also important cornerstones in our ability to attract and retain quality people.
Partnership for Quality
We have a positive relationship with the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA). In late 2007 the Ministry and the Public Service Association renewed its Partnership for Quality agreement.
The agreement identifies a programme of work including Ministry-wide working parties and collective bargaining activity. The agreement is supported by processes and forums in which the Ministry’s management and the PSA can constructively engage and work together. This includes the Strategic Partnership Forum – a meeting of senior PSA and Ministry leaders to discuss strategic objectives. The Partnership for Quality is also supported by the engagement with PSA delegates at a national, regional and local level.
Investing in and developing our people
Our staff need to be able to learn, to respond effectively to change, and maintain a clear focus on our outcomes. We are building a strong learning culture where staff develop through ‘on the job’ experience and get to ‘learn by doing’.
The Ministry uses secondments to build the leadership and management capability of staff, fill skill gaps, and enhance relationships. Secondments provide excellent opportunities for staff to develop their skills and gain experiences while providing opportunities for transferring skills and knowledge across the Ministry and the Public Service. Around nine percent of staff are currently on secondments across the Ministry.
We also continue to support our people across the Ministry to access opportunities to achieve a range of service and leadership qualifications. The qualifications programme provides a broad base of public service knowledge, understanding and skill which engenders a culture of community service, fairness, good judgment and respect for clients and communities. These values and concepts reinforce and strengthen the specific skill and knowledge, training and development relevant to the work we do with our clients. The qualifications programme is increasingly important to developing our workforce as we work with more complex situations with clients and their families.
The qualifications available have been and continue to be reviewed and new qualifications added, to better align to business needs and provide more opportunities for staff to progress through the Ministry and into first line management roles.
Work and Income has recently augmented its capability with the appointment of regional health advisors, regional disability advisors, health and disability co-ordinators and employment co-ordinators. The new Principal Health Advisor and Principal Disability Advisor work with regional managers and contribute to community networks. Work and Income staff have a range of new training and qualifications opportunities to build on their skills and their effectiveness with our clients. Two new NZQA based qualifications programmes are now being offered to front line staff. The National Certificate in Public Sector Services and the National Certificate in Employment Support recognise and support the way in which our staff engage, and work with, clients who have ill-health or are disabled.
As at the end of January 2008, over 71 per cent of Child, Youth and Family social work staff employed in field social work held a Level 6 or greater social work qualification, an increase from 62 per cent the previous year. We also have over 800 Child, Youth and Family staff who are registered social workers (up from 620 at the same time last year). A further 250 staff are currently working towards social worker registration. Staff continue to be supported to obtain qualifications and at present 104 social work staff are being supported in their study for a social work qualification. Social work and non-social work staff who wish to progress into management roles, can attend the first line management programme which is delivered by UNITEC and is aligned to the National Qualifications Framework. Child, Youth and Family continues to work with Learning State, the State sector's industry training organisation, on the development of new Public Sector Leadership qualifications, and is investigating the possibility of offering the new National Diploma in Public Sector Services (Leadership Development) Level 6 qualification as part of its management development programme.
Developing and supporting our leaders
Strong leadership, and depth in our leadership reserves, remains vital for strong Ministry performance. To strengthen the pipeline of leaders ready to take on increased responsibility, an Emerging Leaders Programme was developed in 2007. Three groups of 12 emerging leaders have been identified and are working through a 9-12 month programme of workshops and change projects that will test their skills, raise their profile and improve the business. The workshops are part of a wider programme of ongoing engagement between Ministry senior managers and the Leadership Team. Business group leadership forums and a National Leaders’ Summit will be held this year.
Technology
Technology offers the opportunity to remove the barriers to our services and improve our responsiveness to clients and stakeholders. We are not seeking to reduce our personal contact with clients. Specifically, we use technology to build:
- connections across the Ministry
- connections with our social sector colleagues and partner agencies
- our clients’ access to other government and community services.
We are developing our infrastructure and application architecture roadmaps so that they guide the evolution of our overall enterprise architecture. The goal is to direct our information technology strategy in support of the Ministry's outcomes for clients and government.
Client Management System
We are developing our Client Management System (CMS) to reflect the Ministry’s move away from a transactions-based business approach. CMS Phase 1A supports staff assessing clients for services as well as assisting staff to automatically create and manage client service plans. CMS:
- allows our staff to more easily and consistently assess clients for eligibility to services
- assists staff to create and manage client service plans
- provides workflow to lead staff though a series of dynamically structured questions based on clients’ circumstances.
We will roll out additional CMS functionality (employment and training programmes) to all Work and Income staff as part of our 1B implementation from September 2008, and continue to extend CMS to support key policy and service delivery developments. Over time the system will draw together all information about clients’ overall situation, needs and skills streamlining administration time and supporting best practice case management.
We are planning our CMS Phase 2 implementation which will focus on consolidating core client information from a range of current Ministry systems. Phase 2 will also explore the development of enhanced case management functionality to better support our staff in providing wraparound services to clients.
Modernisation
We wish to capitalise on the investment already made and be able to respond to the challenges of changing business needs. This year we are implementing our debt management and benefit control system (TRACE). Following a successful TRACE implementation we expect to convert our primary benefit processing system (SWIFTT).
We have developed a work programme for 2008/2009 to continue to enhance Te Pakoro – The Storehouse for Child, Youth and Family, which will centralise and consolidate all Child, Youth and Family information and management reporting to support better decision making.
Upgrades to the Child, Youth and Family case management system (CYRAS) are being undertaken to bring CYRAS into line with key business initiatives. The system upgrades are designed to better align the system with social work and business practice and to support social workers in their day-to-day activities. These significant changes will improve the quality of information about the children and young people who interact with our care system; enable social workers to spend more and better quality time with children and young people in the front line; and assist in achieving better outcomes for children and young people. Nine CYRAS system changes have been confirmed and a range of further enhancements are under investigation and analysis. This programme represents the most significant CYRAS system changes in five years.
We are developing a Social Work Portal to further support our goal of increased responsiveness. Initially the portal will contain our social work practice frameworks, policies and procedures, as well as practice philosophy, research, and case studies. Future phases will look at adding capability such as video delivery and message boards.
Our infrastructure is also being modernised to ensure it supports the Ministry’s evolving services over the next five years and beyond.
Service channels
We continue to extend our service channels so that clients have greater access to our services – longer hours and greater flexibility. Last year we introduced ‘MyStudyLink’ an online tool that allows students to view and update their details online. This year we will continue to explore more self service options for our clients.
Managing technology
We comply with the State Services Commission’s eGIF framework for eGovernment interoperability, and meet regularly with fellow eGIF participants.
Identity Verification Service
Currently, governments and businesses globally have some constraints in their ability to offer online services that require an individual's identity to be verified. Cost effective online authentication will make it possible to provide a wider range of innovative and useful services online.
Identity Verification Service (IVS) will provide government agencies with a high level of confidence regarding the identity of the online user, while placing people in control of the transaction and protecting their privacy. People who use more than one government service requiring verification of their identity will be able to avoid the costs and inconvenience of repeatedly verifying their identity in-person with multiple agencies.
IVS is being built and operated by the Department of Internal Affairs with the support of the Department of Labour as part of the All-of-government Authentication Programme led by the State Services Commission. We see this as an important initiative and are actively supporting the development of IVS with representation on the both the projects steering and working groups.
Finances
We maintain a three-year rolling costed plan of our activities, and a finance strategy that identifies our financial position and management strategies in out-years. This enables us to plan our use of resources over time and to be flexible in response to changing conditions. This is crucial to supporting an outcomes approach.
The Ministry monitors Departmental and Crown operating and capital expenditure on a monthly basis. The Ministry reports budget, actual and forecast performance to all budget managers. Detailed analysis of variances, movements and extrapolations of current and year-end positions are provided to the Ministry’s Finance Committee to ensure oversight of our total financial position and refinement of our management strategies.
We will continue to actively manage our finances to ensure that we maximise value from the Ministry’s departmental baseline.
- Like many large organisations we face cost pressures. The Ministry has identified ongoing costs pressures from 2009/2010 and has commenced a further departmental baseline review (Value for Money 2) to ensure our departmental baseline is being managed effectively.
- The Ministry’s Finance Committee will ensure we maintain constant oversight of our total financial position and continually refine our management strategies to respond to changing conditions.
- We will continue to conduct re-forecasting exercises throughout the year to ensure we maintain a current and accurate picture of all forecast expenditure.
- We continue to build financial management tools and skills within the Ministry.
- We continue to develop our procurement capability, including the development of new sustainable procurement guidelines and extending the benefits of our procurement capability to other government agencies.
