Statement of Intent - Organisational health and capability

The context of our changing environment

Since the creation of the Ministry, we have successfully managed significant organisational change. We have merged new functions and created new Offices while continually improving business processes and reducing overhead costs.

We will continue to constructively and carefully manage change - by improving systems, redesigning business processes, and further reducing overhead costs. One of the ways we are doing this is by developing technology to improve our clients' ability to help themselves, with online tools designed to provide information and resources for effective self management and decision making. This will free up resources to provide the same level of service to clients with fewer staff. Staff reductions will occur where work can be taken out of the system. We will also increase resources to meet a growth in demand.

By capturing savings through successive Value for Money Reviews we are able to meet the cost of our core processes without additional resources for the next three years. We have created the capacity to manage up to 60,000 Unemployment Benefit job-seekers. However, we have signaled we may need extra resources if Unemployment Benefit job-seekers exceed the numbers forecast.

At March 2009, there were 37,000 people receiving an Unemployment Benefit. While this is up from 19,000 last year, it represents 1.4 per cent of the workforce. The Ministry's strategies to manage increased work volumes include redeploying case managers to do job search and recruiting additional staff. We continually monitor staffing levels at our regional and frontline sites to ensure we are managing our work volumes. We also expect flow-on volume increases in other Ministry service lines, such as StudyLink and Child, Youth and Family.

Our case management approach to getting people into work is the core element of our effectiveness. Partnering income support with employment services gives us an advantage. New Zealand is more successful than other comparable OECD countries in placing people into and holding people in work, particularly people from vulnerable groups. Case managers assess each client's total range of needs when they first register for a benefit. The case manager sets out the requirements the client needs to meet, where necessary helps them to meet them, and monitors the client's progress.

Our people

The Government has released its expectations that pay and employment conditions across the State sector will be fiscally sustainable within baselines, responsible, and demonstrate value for money. We will make sure these expectations are met.

The Ministry provides staff with challenging and meaningful work, sets clear expectations, gives them a chance to apply their skills, issues performance feedback, and offers opportunities for ongoing learning and development.

The Ministry's staff turnover has been in line with the public service average, currently sitting at around 10 per cent. Incidences of personal grievances sit below the public service average. We have 6,140 staff on six separate collective employment agreements, including four with the New Zealand Public Service Association.

Developing our people

Our staff need to be able to learn, to respond effectively to change, and to maintain a clear focus on results. We help people to develop their skills through 'on the job' experience and 'learning by doing'.

To provide our staff with the broad skillset required for working with individuals and families, and with other organisations, we have introduced NZQA-recognised qualifications. Our qualifications programme gives our staff access to a broad range of training material to enable them to work through complex situations with clients and their families. Work and Income currently has 480 staff working towards NZQA qualifications such as National Certificates in Employment Support and Public Sector Services.

We support our social workers through education and registration. More than 75 per cent of Child, Youth and Family field social work staff have a level six or higher social work qualification. Around 850 of our Child, Youth and Family staff are registered social workers, with a further 300 currently working towards social worker registration.

The Ministry's demographic profile reflects that of the New Zealand population and our client base. Half of all the Ministry's senior managers are female, 25 per cent of our staff identify as Maori, 12 per cent as Pacific peoples, and 7 per cent as Asian.

To contribute to demographic diversity, staff with the potential to be Maori and Pacific leaders are asked to participate in our Te Aratiatia programme. The programme is designed to prepare them for management roles. Te Aratiatia has been very successful to date: since 2002, almost 80 per cent of participants have been appointed to manager or more senior roles. Sixteen Ministry staff are currently participating in the programme.

Developing and supporting our leaders

We identify and develop employees who will make great leaders. The newly introduced Emerging Leaders programme provides selected staff members with a 9-12 month programme of training and practical work to build on their skills and knowledge. Up to 36 Ministry staff will work through the programme this year. This forms part of our wider management and leadership development programme.

Our technology

Effective technology is important to support our clients. It allows them to help themselves. It reduces our overheads and operating costs.

Improving services through the technology

We will improve technology systems to support the work of case managers. We are digitising client records to reduce the time spent working with paper-based files. Over the next few years we intend to introduce new online services for working age and older clients so they will be able to:

• update personal details, declare income, and view payments and debt balances online
• work out their entitlements, apply for many types of assistance over the internet, and receive correspondence electronically
• apply online for job vacancies listed by employers we're working with.

Our online tools will help students to make informed decisions about their study and its funding.

We have a new client management system (CMS) to better support Work and Income. We completed our CMS phase 1 implementation last year. This phase gives staff the ability to automatically assess clients' individual circumstances and to direct them to employment and training services. Plans for future CMS phases are in development. This year we will complete the conversion of our SWIFTT system to a modern IT platform.

Child, Youth and Family has recently launched the Practice Centre, a repository of current, straight-forward, and accurate information for social workers to quickly and easily get answers to their most pressing questions and concerns. We will continue to develop our Child, Youth and Family data-warehouse 'Te Pakoro' and case management system CYRAS to make sure they are continually fit for purpose.

Our property

The Ministry operates out of about 300 locations nationwide. Around 80 per cent of our staff work in frontline delivery. This makes us the biggest branch office network in New Zealand, with offices in nearly every community. This enables us to provide face-to-face delivery of a broad range of social services.

We have, in several cases, joined up with other government and non-government agencies to use the same workspaces. It is both more effective and more efficient to share facilities when we are often working with common clients. Over the next few years we will look to share our facilities with other agencies to enhance our services to common clients.

We have a property maintenance plan to ensure our property is prudently managed. We will continue to review both our national office and regional accommodation needs to ensure all our spending provides value for money and is linked to the delivery of effective services.