Leaked Govt document adds details
WELLINGTON: A leaked Government document has revealed a new level of detail on its work programme and achievements to date, but no mechanisms for accurately measuring progress.
The document is an appendix to a Cabinet paper on implementing and monitoring the Government’s priorities.
The Cabinet paper itself was released on Sunday when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern set out the Government’s blueprint for the country at an event which drew together the leaders of Labour, New Zealand First and the Green Party.
But the appendix, which is referred to numerous times throughout the
Cabinet paper, was withheld because it contained policy that had not yet been signed off by Cabinet, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said on Sunday.
The appendix, leaked to The New Zealand Herald yesterday, con tains a list of 133 policies or actions that have already been implemented or flagged since the coalition Government took office last year.
It is a much more detailed version of information provided in a publication released by the Government on Sunday titled ‘‘Our Plan’’, which outlines the Government’s 12 priority outcomes for the economy, wellbeing and leadership.
According to the appendix, among the policies under way or expected to be advanced over the 2018 calendar year include a review of KiwiRail, which was flagged by the previous government; an overhaul of the Biosecurity Act; annual free health checks for seniors, which is a New Zealand First initiative; and the release of the ‘‘open government strategy’’.
The document also contains highlevel indicators for defining success, but not for measuring progress.
Indicators for success include ‘‘New Zealand’s prosperity grows and is shared more fairly when: The gap between the highest and lowest income and wealth deciles reduces’’.
Another is ‘‘The Government aims to build confidence in democratic institutions which can be seen in: Strong trust in government survey results’’.
The Cabinet paper says the indicators are to define success, not to measure activity.
One of the work streams is to develop a broader set of success measures, and includes the ‘‘living standards framework’’, ‘‘indicators Aotearoa’’, the ‘‘wellbeing budget’’ and child poverty indicators.
Ms Ardern announced in January the Government would be scrapping the previous government’s specifically focused ‘‘better public service targets’’, saying they did not give it the systemic change required for the big challenges facing the country.
In Sunday’s speech, Ms Ardern said the public would be able to track how the Government’s priorities were progressing, and she proposed in the Cabinet paper to regularly publish progress updates setting out what had been achieved, what had changed in key work programmes and why.
The framework will be reviewed twice a year.
The first review is due in February.
Until then, Ms Ardern is able to make minor amendments herself.
She said Sunday’s speech was more of a presentation.
‘‘It was very much verbalising what we have discussed as a Government,’’ she said yesterday.
She said it was unusual to release Cabinet papers in a speech, but she wanted to demonstrate how the Government was working and that it was working to a plan. — NZME