Research Projects

Better Services for Kiwis

Introduction
Public Service Chief Executives have commissioned Victoria University of Wellington, under the Emerging Issues Programme (EIP), to lead some work on more joined up citizen focussed services. This section will briefly background the project and set out the key details.

• More details on the trends emerging from the literature review can be found here.
• The initial issues emerging from the field work can be found here.
• The letter to Public Service Chief Executives and more details on the project can be found here. This note summarises the details of the project on 'joined up citizen focussed services'.
• Initial findings can be found here.

Work in this area was first proposed when the Emerging Issues Programme (EIP) was established in 2005 by Public Service Chief Executives and Victoria University of Wellington.  A key challenge was to address how an EIP project, lead out of the VUW School of Government, would add most value given the extensive work already undertaken or well advanced on more citizen/user focussed approaches to government. This proposal has been guided by the principles of avoiding duplication, focussing on cross cutting issues, leveraging the links between the academic and practitioner's worlds, and going to the cutting edge of public management.

Background
The Review of the Centre identified the need for greater focus on citizen/users and a number of deliverables were produced including a practitioners guide -- Mosaics -- and on-the-ground experiments with Circuit Breaker Teams.

Subsequently the State Sector Development goals have put greater emphasis on citizen/users with goals focussed on accessible, networked and co-ordinated services. SSC is currently reviewing the milestones to drive the development goals out to 2015, and is undertaking a range of work on measurement and qualitative research on citizen/user's experience of state services; see the latest report here.

The better connected services for 'kiwis' project being lead by VUW is leveraging the link between the academic and practitioner worlds. It is being informed by the research underway in VUW on governing through networks and the E Government Public management work-stream being developed by the new chair of e-Government, Miriam Lips. It compliments the work underway in SSC on the development goals by focussing on systemic enablers and blockers to more citizen/user focussed services

Key details
The central focus of the project is on three research questions:

• What are the preconditions for more joined up user/citizen centred services?
• What are the characteristics of policy areas where more joined-up user/citizen centred services are found in NZ?
• What helps and what hinders the diffusion of more joined up approaches to user/citizen centred services?

In consultation with a Reference Group (comprising a staff from VUW, central agencies, delivery departments, local government, NGOs and the PSA), a project plan has been finalised. The plan has clarified the project scope as follows:

In order to deliver on this scope, a literature review has been completed and intensive interviews have been conducted for a number of examples of joined-up working:

• Integrated Case Management – Papakura;
• Recognised Seasonal Employer/ Pip Fruit- Hawkes Bay;
• National Maritime Coordination Centre – Trentham;
• Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara – Manakau;
• Autism – national;
• Mayors Taskforce on Jobs – national.

A series of eight focus groups have been convened to test the propositions that emerge from the literature and the intensive interviews. The focus groups were stratified so that some contained front-line staff only, some managers only, and some were mixed groups. They were held in Auckland, Christchurch, Napier and Wellington in late October and early November.

The remaining stages of the project involve:

• Data analysis, proposition evaluation and issue identification;
• Commissioning a series of issues papers for an IPS workshop scheduled for 22 February 2008;
• Finalisation of the issues papers and learning aides for publication in May 2008.

Key issues
The key issues papers will be discussed under Chatham House Rules in a workshop scheduled for 22 February 2008. This discussion could involve a cross section of agency staff (including front line staff), as well as range of other stakeholders including NGOs, unions, & local government as well as the academic community. While the issues for discussion will come out of the next phase of the project, they could include:

• Governance – is collaboration more likely to succeed when lead by an agency with a formal mandate or with a self organising network?
• System factors – does more connected user focused services occur despite the formal system rather than because of it?
• Diffusion – do networks, which are based on trust and quality relationships, often irrevocably break down when key players move on?
• Critical success factors - do soft systems factors, such as the culture of organisation, the way mandate is defined dominate hard systems factors (hard formal accountabilities, Votes and Budgets) in determining whether service improvements succeed?
• Accountability - does the soft accountability of front-line agency staff to clients or co-workers dominate the hard formal hierarchical accountability in the state sector as it appears to in the voluntary sector? <Jo Cribb: IPS: 2006: p. 88>

This phase of the work will be completed when papers and deliberations from the discussion are be published by the IPS in May. Work on any subsequent phases will focus on action learning.

The emphasis throughout the project is on generating a dialogue between the themes emerging from the literature and practitioner's practical experience to promote learning. We are exploring the scope to use the propositions developed in the project to form the basis of a self-assessment tool which could be deployed electronically.

If you want to find out more, or contribute to the project, contact:
derek.gill@vuw.ac.nz

Downloads

Flyer :Better connected Services for Kiwis

Literature Review: Integrated Government Services

EIP project: Better Connected Services

Policy Quarterly Publication