This is the fourth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s institutional arrangements. Having traced the public service bargain and its fraying, I turn this week to the institutional space where political and administrative authority actually meet. Alex Matheson and Howard Fancy (1995) named this “the purple zone”: the…

More heat than light: IPANZ contributions to the free and frank advice discussion (2024) In this 2024 analysis for Public Sector, I trace the contribution the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand has made over a decade to the discussion of free and frank advice, a subject that attracts considerable commentary but little empirical work…