I can’t say I was too surprised to read this Radio NZ article yesterday:
A Ministry-commissioned report last year by consulting firm The Institute of Economic Research found 21 of 60 pieces of advice to the transport minister and the Cabinet were communicated in a borderline or poor way.
While it noted the Ministry’s comprehensive technical knowledge, it said there had been lapses of judgement.
The Ministry is required to save almost $1 million a year and since the 2010/11 financial year the number of policy staff has dropped from 107 full time equivalent employees to 90.
Ministry spokesperson Gareth Chaplin says despite this they can improve their policy advice by working together.
The report cited one paper that seemed intent on embarrassing the transport minister by reminding him of officials’ advice from the distant past and his comments from two years ago. The report said this type of telling off makes officials look churlish.
Other reviewed papers were deemed pointless.
The Ministry’s ignorance of the impact of higher oil prices, their willful disregard for a seven year trend of near flat traffic volumes and the hatchet job they did on the City Rail Link business case make me very unsurprised to hear that there are concerns about the quality of MoT’s work.
You can listen to the accompanying radio piece here.
After 10,000 years of saving at that rate the government will have set aside enough to afford the current RONS programme.
You missed out the best bit:
So he doesn’t think they have problems with what they’re communicating, only with how it’s being communicated. We’re screwed.
Stephen Joyce is please transmission gully draft approval that’s a surprise isn’t it considering that the government practically controls all the environmental protection agency, and they are biased when it comes to public transport.
I think the MoT deserves more credit here: They went out off their own bat and commissioned independent advice on the quality of their policy advice. In doing so the MOT opened themselves up criticisms on areas where they had not done so well. But it’s better that our organisations are committed to continuous improvement (and accept the risk of getting ticked off), rather than shy away from it altogether.
If the general public takes a very hard line on them then we run the risk of scaring them off: That government organisations will simply stop commissioning this type of work altogether, based on fear that the results – once made public – will become a problem. We are right to point out where they have erred, e.g. CRL business case, but when it’s the MoT holding their own mirror up I say “good on ‘em.”
Fair points Stu. It is good that MoT realise the need to raise their game.
Fair enough for as far as it goes, but I’d rather that they got an international firm (McKinsey or Bain, maybe, or another consultancy that doesn’t have lots of contracts with NZ government (ruling out the usual local suspects)) to benchmark the quality of the policy advice that’s being put forward.
The problem that we in this forum have with MOT/NZTA is that they’re publicising advice that fits the political tone the government is seeking rather than being the properly-neutral public service that NZ taxpayers expect and publicising good advice regardless of whether it’s palatable to the ruling party of the day. To some extent that has been a problem for a while, pre-dating the current National government, but there’s been a lot of comment since 2008 about just how partisan and fawning the policy advice coming out of the public service has become. There’s not much policy advice coming out of Wellington that doesn’t fit with National’s views on how things should be done, and in the case of MOT/NZTA there’s a wealth of global evidence that directly contradicts National’s perspective.
Yes Matt, good comment. When I see the first words of the article – ‘a ministry-commissioned report’, a few alarm bells do switch on.
In regard to this report in particular, is the minister the poacher or gamekeeper? I would hate to see the report being interpreted as a big stick to ensure MOT/NZTA officials toe the party line. I note the policy staff job losses from ’107 full time equivalent employees to 90′.
I’m not sure if they did it on their own accord, I think they may have had to do it done as I thought I saw that other ministries have had similar reviews done.
This is the third time MOT policy work has been reviewed by NZIER – in the previous review, in 2009, 40% of its policy advice was deemed borderline or poor. MOT has commissioned these reviews at a cost of about $45,000 a piece. They have also taken part in other bench marking reviews at the behest of treasury.