Lecture: The importance of the Public Service Act 2020

01/04/2021

Mātai Tōrangapū, Hononga Tāwāhi | School of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Canterbury asked me to give a guest lecture on the importance of the Public Service Act 2020. I begin with the State Sector Act 1988, which made chief executives accountable to ministers through purchase agreements and fixed-term contracts. Drawing on the aggregate findings of the Performance Improvement Framework reviews, I argue that the 1988 Act produced a public service that was very good at serving ministers’ immediate priorities but less good at core business effectiveness and efficiency, and that ministers became very powerful, possibly too powerful. I then consider what the 2020 Act adds: Long-term Insights Briefings, a regular briefing on the state of the public service, five principles that reassert the independence of the public service, new organisational forms, and a role in supporting the Crown’s relationships with Māori under te Tiriti o Waitangi. I suggest that the standard the Act sets for that relationship falls short of what a diplomatic relationship between kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga requires, and that only time will tell whether the Act is enough to address the problems the 1988 Act created.

Reference
Te Kawa, D. (2022, April). The importance of the Public Service Act 2020 [Guest lecture]. School of Political Science and International Relations, University of Canterbury.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5129-5218

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