#strategic co-ordination of the system and why it matters

15/6/2023

In 1994, ten years after we enthusiastically and somewhat naively implemented the 80s reforms, Professor Allen Schick came to town to check in on what we had done.

In his evaluation, he made a couple of critical comments.

Firstly, there should be no going back to the not-so-good old days of managerial addiction to inputs, input controls and compliance. He thought it was important that Ministers and senior officials in Aotearoa’s public governance system were free to manage and be jointly accountable for performance. 

Secondly, he made it clear that to hold both Ministers and senior officials accountable, there needed to be arrangements for the strategic coordination of system results and impacts.

Thirdly, he hinted that unless our system was driven by strategic coordination of outcomes or results, with transparent reporting on how the system contributed to said outcomes or results, there was a strong probability that as time went on, new leaders would not know “why” the reforms and the coordination of results would be dismantled: by mistake or on purpose.

He went so far as to say that an indifferently managed system would collapse internally on itself.

Others have written about how strategic coordination of outcomes and pressure on input cost are the few ways to stop the monopolistic behaviour of the state.

The SRA and KRA framework was the first example of strategic coordination. It was an essential addition to our public governance model and added value: for the short time they were around.

And a reminder for a few politicians on the right that one of those SRA/KRA areas was focused on closing the economic and social gaps between Māori and non-Māori. Oh, how times have changed.

While they were a potent political tool in the right hands and excellent strategy development signal for officials, Ministers who did not understand them could not use them.

They disappeared for five years or so and emerged as the Families, Young and Old framework. That framework proved to be an excellent communication device for an administration that wanted to explain its budget investments and help coordinate the efforts of two junior coalition partners.

Like it or not, the BPS result areas were a high point. I know this will upset the public servants who don’t like Ministers issuing lawful instructions and the “online-left” who prefer a personal political attack as opposed to the facts.

But like it or not the BPS result areas created collective accountability between the political and administrative executive. Progress was reported publically every quarter.

But also – and this is the secret sauce – the result areas they were ground-into into all soft and hard accountability tools owned by the PMO and the central agencies.

• From the performance expectations of Ministers themselves and the reportedly regular conversations between individual Ministers and the then PM to chief executive performance agreements.
• From the PIF – which judged the link between capability and results, alignment to targets and effectiveness and efficiency in institutional core business – to the Four-year plans – which ensured in and out-year investments were aligned with the targets and the funding and pricing assumptions were made clear.
• To the BASS tool which kept an eye on input costs to the workforce development plans – which kept an eye on personnel costs.

It was a system of accountability and information that enabled a shared understanding of institutional performance between the political and administrative executive and a way for Parliament to engage in where progress was being made and where strengths still needed to be built.

The focus in the PIF on core business efficiency and effectiveness also enabled conversations about why, for example, Whānau Ora was a better delivery model than anything the state could offer.

Many have observed that this system has fallen away. I have been one of them.

So, what do I think the lesson is?

The lesson is that an indifferently managed bureaucratic system will not work effectively on cross-cutting issues, in fact, if it is not strategically coordinated with all the tools, it will simultaneously collapse internally on itself.