Browsing by Author "Gill, Derek"

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Open Access
Future state: directions for public management in New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Ryan, Bill; Gill, Derek
"In 2009 the chief executives of several public sector organisations commissioned a group of researchers associated with the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington to undertake a project looking at the 'future state' - to consider present trends that would impact on public management in coming years. Future State pulls together the results of that work, covering emerging trends in governance, from both New Zealand and international perspectives; issues, options and policy implications of shared accountability; experimentation and learning in policy implementation; agency restructuring; skills and capability; the authorising environment; and e-government. It contains valuable insights into how New Zealand's public sector currently operates, and how it might operate in the future"--Back cover. Contents: Future State Project: meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century / Derek Gill [and others] -- No reform left behind: multiplicity, integrating frameworks and implications for New Zealand's centre-of-government and public sector improvement / Evert Lindquist -- Signs are everywhere: 'community' approaches to public management / Bill Ryan -- Public management heresy?: exploring the 'managerial' rose of ministers within public management policy design / Michael di Francesco and Elizabeth Eppel -- Affordability and sustainability: tweaking is not enough / Bill Ryan -- Complex policy implementation: the role of experimentation and learning / Elizabeth Eppel, David Turner and Amanda Wolf -- Working across organisational boundaries: the challenges for accountability / Jonathan Boston and Derek Gill -- 'E-government is dead -- long live networked governance': fixing system errors in the New Zealand public management system / Miriam Lips -- Restructuring: an over-used lever for change in New Zealand's state sector? / Richard Norman and Derek Gill -- Skills and people capability in the future state: needs, barriers and opportunities / Geoff Plimmer, Richard Norman and Derek Gill -- Past, present and the promise: rekindling the spirit of reform / Bill Ryan and Derek Gill.
Open Access
The Iron cage recreated: The performance management of state organisations in New Zealand
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Gill, Derek
Recreating the Iron Cage explores the results of a major three-year research project on the use of performance information in the New Zealand state sector by a team of academic researchers and public officials. It examines the formal design of the performance management system, how this system has evolved over time, and uses survey and case study evidence to show how performance information has been used in state sector organisations. The title of this book reflects the surprising research finding that while there is much dull compliance, performance information of various kinds is actively used by decision-makers at all levels of executive government. This information is not, however, used in the ways envisaged by the designers of the formal system. The book concludes with proposals for ongoing development of performance management in New Zealand. Contents: Tables -- Figures -- Foreword -- Preface -- Contributors -- 1 Part One: Organisational performance management concepts and themes from the literature -- Introduction to Part One -- Derek Gill 2 Organisational performance management: concepts and themes -- Derek Gill and Tyson Schmidt -- Part Two: The formal system for organisational performance in the state sector -- Introduction to Part Two -- Susan Hitchiner and Derek Gill -- 3 The formal system as designed -- Susan Hitchiner and Derek Gill -- 4 The formal system as it evolved -- Susan Hitchiner and Derek Gill -- 5 The formal system: themes and conclusions -- Susan Hitchiner and Derek Gill -- Part Three: research: case studies and survey results, findings and themes -- Introduction to Part Three -- Derek Gill -- 6 Findings and cross cutting themes from the case study research -- Rodney Dormer -- 7 Case Study -- child, youth and family: drivers of the need for information -- Rob Laking -- 8 Case Study -- Department of Conservation: moving from measuring outputs to managing for outcomes -Bill Ryan -- 9 Case Study -- Department of Corrections: how the department defines and assesses performance and how its operational arms regards performance information -- Bill Ryan. Derek Gill and Rodney Dormer -- 10 Case Study -- Work and Income: how staff define their role and the performance information they use -- 11 Case Study -- Ministry of Women's Affairs: from poor performer to award-winning public sector organisation -- Lynley Hutton -- 12 Working across Organisational Boundaries: network policy-making in the transport and justice sectors -- Rob Laking -- 13 Case Study -- Justice sector and effective interventions: use of performance information by a cross agency network -- Derek Gill -- 15 Information that managers use: results from managing organisational performance survey -- Derek Gill, Lucas Kengmana and Rob Laking -- Part Four: Breaking open the iron cage: improving performance management of state organisations -- Introduction to Part Four -- Derek Gill -- 16 Conclusions: how public organisations are controlled and governed -- Rob Laking -- 17 Getting in the road: why outcome-orientated performance monitoring is underdeveloped in New Zealand -- Bill Ryan -- 18 Achieving a step change -- Derek Gill and Susan Hitchiner -- References.
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Joint or Shared Accountability: Issues and Options
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Boston, Jonathan; Gill, Derek
Responsible and responsive government depends on effective accountability – at all levels within the state. To this end, democratic governments have typically established strong vertical or hierarchical accountability relationships. New Zealand has been no exception. Indeed, the state sector reforms introduced in the late 1980s emphasised formal, vertical, straight-line accountability. Yet some of the work of government involves collaboration or joint working across multiple agencies. This implies the need for shared and horizontal accountability. It also casts doubt on the wisdom of relying too heavily on vertical accountability, not least because this may undermine joint working. How, then, should accountabilities be managed in the context of shared or joint working across agencies and what principles and considerations should guide policy makers when designing such accountability arrangements? With these issues in mind, this paper begins with an exploration of certain key concepts – vertical and horizontal accountability, responsibility, answerability and blame – and considers the limitations of vertical models of accountability within a Westminster-type parliamentary democracy. It then explores the nature and problems associated with joint working in the state sector where accountability for particular activities or outcomes is shared between two or more organisations. The paper argues that there are certain ‘hard’ factor and ‘soft factors’ that must be addressed to enable joint working. It is also argued that four key issues need to be considered when designing the institutional and associated accountability arrangements for joint working: depth, co-ordination and alignment, complexity, and separability. The paper concludes by exploring the ‘levers’ available to accommodate new ways of working across public agencies.
Open Access
Restructuring – an over-used lever for change in New Zealand’s state sector?
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2011) Norman, Richard; Gill, Derek
Is restructuring the hammer of organisational change in New Zealand’s state sector? A State Services Commission (SSC) survey of state sector employees in 2010 identified that 65 per cent of the 4,600 staff sampled had been involved in a merger or restructure during the previous two years, a sharp contrast with a similar survey of the federal government of the United States, which found that only 18 per cent were affected. These statistics raise questions which form the basis of this paper: why, how and to what effect are state sector organisations restructured in New Zealand? Our research started with a review of empirical data on restructuring and of perspectives from the literature on restructuring in the public and private sectors. We then explored these perspectives in three separate focus groups in May 2011, with chief executives, human resource managers and Public Service Association (PSA) delegates and organisers. Not surprisingly, chief executives (CEs) who initiate restructuring have a considerably more optimistic view about its role and impact than those who are affected by it. Annex One is a reflection piece written by one of the most experienced New Zealand public service chief executives, Christopher Blake, Chief Executive of the Department of Labour, (and Chief Executive of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra from 2012), provides a balance to the more sceptical argument presented in this paper. We conclude that restructuring has indeed become the ‘hammer’ of organisational change in New Zealand, a result of the ‘freedom to manage’ formula adopted in the late 1980s to break up a unified and ‘career for life’ bureaucracy that was seen to respond to slowly to the economic crises of the 1980s. Restructuring has become almost an addiction, reinforced by short, fixed term contracts for chief executives and a belief by those chief executives that their employer, the State Services Commission, expects them to be seen to be ‘taking charge’. Restructuring is a symbol and sometimes and substitute for action. It treats organisations as though they are mechanical objects with interchangeable parts rather than as living systems of people who have choices about the extent to which they will commit to their work. Organisational change receives considerably less scrutiny than funding proposals for major capital works. We advocate that restructuring should be subject to such scrutiny and chief executives need to act more like stewards of their organisations and less like owners.
Open Access
Social investment: a New Zealand policy experiment
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2017) Boston, Jonathan; Gill, Derek
"For almost a decade, the idea of social investment has been a major focus of New Zealand policy-making and policy debate. The broad aim has been to address serious social problems and improve long-term fiscal outcomes by drawing on big data and deploying various analytical techniques to enable more evidence-informed policy interventions. But recent approaches to social investment have been controversial. In late 2017, the new Labor-New Zealand First government announced a review of the previous government's policies. As ideas about social investment evolve, this book brings together leading academics, commentators and policy analysts from the public and private sectors to answer three big questions: How should social investment be defined and conceptualized? How should it be put into practice? In what policy domains can it be most productively applied? As governments in New Zealand and abroad continue to explore how best to tackle major social problems, this book is essential for people seeking to understand social policy in the twenty-first century"--Publisher information