He riri anō tā te tawa uho, he riri anō tā te tawa parā

23/10/2023

The whakataukī above reminds us that different emotions can be more useful than others, especially in a time of conflict. I think about this whakataukī, especially when it comes to public service reform and the endless round of working group reports on state sector productivity and effectiveness.

I mean, can we jump to devolution now? Can we just ask Whānau Ora and Iwi/Māori providers to deliver to those whānau the state has absolutely no hope of reaching? I can see another Better Public Services report coming.

And the emotion rising in me is a mix of anger and hopelessness.

Why am I so cynical? Well, no reform programme has made the dent we need it to.

Let’s make this safe and look at Lord Francis Maude in the UK.

In 2010 Lord Francis Maude began an ambitious programme to reduce civil service numbers from around 481,000 to around 375,000 over five years.

Guess what? Beyond the rhetoric, it became apparent – very quickly – that he had no implementation plan. This came to light when Maude’s key private-sector-hero-hire accidentally disclosed to Parliament that he did not have a pesky plan because there was no need for a plan. Suffice it to say that the round of reform failed. Millions were wasted.

So, they reset the reform and had another go in 2012. This time they had a plan. Unfortunately, that plan did not account for Brexit or the abolition of the pipeline for training senior officials.

The result? While they decreased their number of public servants significantly, because of the demands of Brexit, they had to hire all those FTEs back – plus more. And because they underfunded their fast-stream pipeline and abolished their school for training senior officials, they had to turn to consultancies to do the additional work.

How do I know this? Well, a consultancy wrote a report about it.

I’ll be honest, to rise to the challenges facing our nation, every incoming government must embark on and deliver a reform programme. These are the days we live in. If they don’t, they will be delivering outcomes and results that are not informed by the problems they campaigned on. It is always good to recheck the fitness of the purpose of the administrative procedures and structures one inherits. But the key is to do it well without doing harm to a future government’s ability to deliver. I look forward to the next reform – I hope whatever it is, that it sticks.