PIF System Level Findings: Better at delivery of short term priorities than core business effectiveness and efficiency

15/05/2020

This post is a slight diversion.

The legitimacy of the public management system rests on its ability to demonstrate high levels of integrity and performance.

The public and their political representatives have a right to be confident that public ownership, funding, provision, and regulation do the most good while curtailing cost.

Analysis I have completed of all published PIF reviews suggests the public service has five quirks that, in my view, if left unaddressed, will inhibit improvement in the public management system no matter how hard officials work.

The first quirk of the system is that delivery against a Government priority is stronger than the effectiveness of core business, which is itself stronger than the efficiency of the core business (see graphic below). I summarise this as a public management system that appears to be better at managing issues and keeping Ministers happy than it is at building core institutional capability that adds substantial and enduring value to our communities.

Disclaimer

These are my evolving thoughts, rhetorical positions and creative provocations. They are not settled conclusions. Content should not be taken as professional advice, official statements or final positions. I reserve the right to learn, unlearn, rethink and grow. If you’re here to sort me neatly into left vs right, keep moving. I’m not the partisan you’re looking for. These in...

Waitangi Tribunal Thursdays: Wai 13 …

He Waka Tē Ai Tahuri Waitangi Tribunal Thursdays is where I return to the Tribunal’s early reports, not as history or as legal analysis, but as maps of how the state is designed and how its policy advisory, delivery, and regulatory systems work. After the Motiti Island report, we turn to three short reports in succession: Wai 13, Wai 14 and Wai 15. Read quickly and independently, ...

Loose Threads: “Dear Colleagu …

Starmer, Free and Frank Advice, and What Three Jurisdictions Reveal About One Constitutional Problem On 7 May 2026, the night before local elections in which his party faced what most forecasters predicted would be a historic rout, Sir Keir Starmer emailed every civil servant in the United Kingdom. The email was, on its face, an exercise in reassurance. He thanked officials for their service. ...

Te Rā Whakamana: What the Interpre …

This is the next post in the regular Te Rā Whakamana series. The post on Cohen’s street-level entrepreneurs closed by saying that critical traditions all argue that implementation is never neutral, and that the policy frame the public management system carries always has politics built in. Today’s post takes that on. Vaughn and Balch’s chapter on a decolonial approach to policy design ...