The proposal to disestablish the Te Aka Whai Ora  

30/10/2023

One way to see proposals to change the design of the public sector is through a lens that presents the state as fragmented whenua on which political struggles play out.

In the same way, whenua reflects the battle between settler and hapū interests, agendas, claims and rights, so it is for the state.

Through that lens, the skirmishes can be seen in two ways: as competing policy discourses that seek to articulate and legitimate different understandings of who wins and who loses in policy debates; and as the rise and fall of institutional arrangements that seek to focus the activities of the state on Iwi/Māori/Whānau outcomes.

To the first lens:

The Māori Affairs and Te Tiriti policy discourse is characterised by ambivalence and instability and a tussle between mainstream views and Māori-centred views.

In the past fourty years, the discourse has moved from mainstreaming Māori Affairs policy to the loss of Māori Affairs funding into mainstream institutions.

The discourse then emerged as Māori Development, Te Tiriti and equity policy.

This was replaced by Closing the Gaps between Māori and non-Māori.

And, when that became too difficult, it was replaced by a pakeha worldview of Māori policy via the Ministry of Social Development in the form of Reducing Inequalities and Opportunities for All.

I’ll do a blog another day about the sheer audacity of Pakeha policy advisors trying to sink Māori Development, Te Tiriti and equity policy with Opportunities for All.

Opportunities for All was replaced by the Māori Potential Framework, which itself was an extension of by-Māori-for-Māori investments.

Since then, Whānau Ora and whānau-centred policy approaches have dominated the discourse.

The problem now, of course, is that few policy advisors working for the state on Iwi/Māori/Whānau outcomes know what Whānau Ora or whānau-centred policy and design truly looks like, let alone which service delivery models work best in the context of devolution, a decentred state, and outcomes-based public management.

The other problem is it is unclear who is leading Te Tiriti public policy: Te Arawhiti or Te Puni Kōkiri or Crown Law or Treasury, or whether each and every individual entity ought to have its own Te Tiriti policy.

To the second lens:

Through this lens, the state can be seen as whenua in which the institutional agendas of particular Governments mark out the contours of the state.

For example, the Fourth Labour Government’s neo-liberal economic policies left us with commercial entities called state-owned enterprises and many crown entities – all working at arms-length from ministers.

Regarding the public institutions with a focus on Iwi/Māori/Whānau outcomes, the terrain is characterised by instability, followed by stability and some interesting developments.

Instability started with the change from the Department of Māori Affairs to Te Tai and Manatū Māori and then to Te Puni Kōkiri.

During that time, funding was lost to mainstream institutions. By lost I mean it was transferred to them, and who knows if it was invested in Iwi/Māori/Whānau outcomes – or not. Probably not. The point is we cannot tell.

Māori community development and community employment programmes were also lost. The Community Employment Group did its best to keep them going before they were subsumed and lost to Work and Income.

Institutional memory was also lost. Most of it walked out the door.

But, thanks to its inaugural chief executive Te Puni Kōkiri – as an institution – endured. And, it has performed where it has been allowed. But both the political and administrative authorising environment have limited its impact.

Positively, however, it has also enjoyed the advantage of some of the best street bureaucrats Aotearoa has seen, together with some of the finest minds leading the development of new policy frameworks.

But, while blessed with some good people, it has struggled to use its statutory powers as designed and approved by Parliament.

Recently, we have watched Whakaata Māori emerge from its start as Māori Television. Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and Te Mangai Paho have endured and excelled. All three have ground games that other agencies envy. Much like Te Puni Kōkiri, they all understand that the Crown/Māori and Te Tiriti relationship happens away and beyond the poneketanga, not in or because of it.

The recent innovations – Te Matawai, Te Arawhiti and Te Aka Whai Ora – are exciting and welcomed by public management scholars, including myself, for several reasons:

First, while Te Matawai, Te Arawhiti and Te Aka Whai Ora sit on the Crown balance sheet and are bound by its rules, all three face Iwi/Māori – with Te Aka Whai Ora, in particular, having accountability to the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards as well as the Minister. In my view, this is a mature and necessary evolution of our current accountability arrangements. Representative democracy increasingly relies on and must sit alongside deliberative democracy.

Second, Te Matawai, Te Arawhiti and Te Aka Whai Ora each have a clear purpose, defined roles, and specific functions. In the case of Te Matawai and Te Aka Whai Ora, they are independent statutory entities. That means – unlike Te Arawhiti – they are separate from the day-to-day short-term needs and dramas of ministers and politics.

Third, we know from the evidence that institutions that are designed with a clear purpose and a defined role and the functions they need, perform much better than larger agencies working across too many fronts on too many outcomes. In that respect, Te Matawai and Te Aka Whai Ora are perfectly designed institutions.

This is not to say Te Arawhiti is not a perfectly designed institution. Rather, as well as progressing Te Tiriti settlements, it has filled the gap the Public Service Commission (and the State Services Commission before it) has refused to fill. This has been important because almost each and every Waitangi Tribunal report from the kaupapa inquiry series finds weaknesses in the state’s ability to engage with and be a good Tiriti partner, let alone offer high-quality policy advice in respect of Iwi/Māori/Whānau outcomes. Te Arawhiti, through its work, at the very least, has created the space and guidance for this to improve.

Finally, the organisational culture that is reportedly being built at Te Matawai and Te Aka Whai Ora is high-trust and whānau-focused. That means they enable others rather than trying to control them, and in doing so reduce the unnecessary administrative and compliance burden on those they co-produce outcomes with.

But, sadly, those who are not a fan of such arrangements have assembled three reasons for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora.

First, they argue Te Aka Whai Ora is a crown agent. It is limited in what it can do and how far it works beyond its legislation, the health GPS and the NZ Health Plan. It is a crown creature. It draws its governance model from the Crown Entities Act 2004. To some extent, I agree with this argument, in so much, as Te Aka Whai Ora is not a rangatiratanga institution – it is a Crown one. It was always going to be a transition agency.

Second, according to a year-one review of Te Aka Whai Ora, it has failed to perform. One can argue about whether or not it should be performing in year one, but in a time of financial constraint for providers and a cost-of-living crisis for the whānau, Te Aka Whai Ora appears to have been unable to get the money out the door with the alacrity required in the current context.

The same report notes Te Aka Whai Ora has also failed to get its monitoring programme up and running. In addition, the year one review report makes it clear Te Aka Whai Ora has been unable to attract the capacity and capability it needs to do its job. That said, the same report and other reports point to the strong and focused policy game Te Aka Whai Ora has.

Those who argue against Te Aka Whai Ora also make the point that it has failed in areas where the Whānau Ora Commissioning agencies and the Iwi/Māori providers involved in the Māori Community Covid Investments are strong.

Related to this last point is the incoming Government’s commitment to social investment and devolution.

Social investment has evolved since the poneketanga tried to strangle life out of it seven years ago. It has been picked up by providers – including Whānau Ora and Iwi/Māori providers – as a way to improve the quality of their decision-making, particularly where to target their resources.

Similarly, thinking on devolution and the need for local-level solutions to drive impacts and outcomes has become korero-dujor across other Westminster jurisdictions and amoung those involved in the surge to protect and support whānau across COVID-19.

If the new Government decides to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora, it must work out where each function and power go.

For my part, the inevitable machinery of government decisions should signal a shift from Government by the state to governance by and through communities: a little bit of social investment here and a little bit of devolution there.

The Government could, for instance, retain the policy advice function but open its leadership to the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, with the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee having oversight. It could also return the policy advice function to Manatū Hauora with Hauora Māori Advisory Committee providing thought leadership.

It could place the commissioning function and investments with the Whānau Ora Commissioning agencies. It could also place the co-commissioning function with the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards to be overseen by Manatū Hauora. Of course, it would be simpler to place the Te Aka Whai Ora commissioning functions next to the Te Whatu Ora ones. That said, there is a real advantage in placing commissioning functions closer to where the work is done: compliance costs are reduced, and those who do the work are free to deliver, innovate, and work at pace.

It could also re-establish Te Aka Whai Ora as an independent crown entity overseeing performance across the system. It could ask Te Aka Whai Ora to develop a four-to-six-year programme of audit, assurance, advice and review on how the public sector is contributing to outcomes articulated in the health GPS. It could also ask Te Puni Kōkiri to step up and exercise its monitoring powers: unfortunately, TPK has never really used the monitoring functions and powers they were gifted. Its monitoring teams were strong during the late 90s and early 00s, but that was the peak.

Ultimately, however, this assumes the poneketanga can let social investment emerge from and alongside outcomes-focused public management. It will also take an incoming government being its word on devolution. This will take courage because powers and functions will need to be delegated to local levels and third-party providers. It will also take the incoming government shifting the poneketanga back to an outcomes focus: for it is only an outcomes focus that can let third parties get on with te mahi tahi, while ensuring the poneketanga cannot micro-manage the daily work.