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13 December 2021 – EAP, CSOs and Agencies’ Meeting

Attendees

Representatives from Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission

Representatives from Expert Advisory Panel

Representatives from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)

Representatives from government agencies leading commitments under NAP3 and agencies that may lead a commitment under NAP4

Topics for discussion

  • NAP3 – Reflections on different types of commitments
  • What makes a good commitment/plan from IRM perspective?
  • Getting to commitments – how are we approaching this?

Notes

NAP3 – Reflections on different types of commitments

Example 1: “Partnership” – Stats NZ and Transparency International (TINZ) provided an overview of how they worked together

  • Key success factors: Civil society and government officials recognised the value of working together with increasing trust – made for a more comprehensive commitment
  • Willingness to work outside their comfort zone and to work with CSOs – constructive “push and pull” of providing advice and the officials deciding what to do with that advice
  • Stats highly valued the good working relationship between agency and TINZ
  • Still at foundational stage and still in process of getting the work out
  • Coming to end of the first year – review will tell us how we’ve gone and how implementation is going across different agencies. Stats keen to work with TINZ again to get civil society view on implementation challenges and lessons learnt
  • This work has highlighted a challenge for wider New Zealand public and equally for government officials in understanding algorithms
  • There is a limited pool of people with the right expertise and the capacity to share that expertise – people with this knowledge are in very high demand so Stats (and government) need to build capacity in this area
  • Suggestion that it would be great to see this session written up and use this to help grow people’s understanding - this story is “progressive and heart-warming”.

Example 2: “Leverage” – Ministry of Education provided an overview of how they included their NAP3 commitment into MoE strategic direction

  • Described the focus of this mahi
  • Key success factor was adapting as we went (e.g. added personal wellbeing to the toolkit based on suggestions and feedback that this was a gap in earlier thinking)
  • Did a big environmental scan, then went and talked to communities, teachers, and students to identify barriers and enablers to transition to life after school
  • The idea linked to the 2017 Manifesto; Hamilton Girls High School also had it as their year 13 project so this was a good starting point
  • Aim was to create something that was needed, that would otherwise not be created, and that would be a useful resource
  • Many lessons were learned, including: providing the resource in English and a directly translated Te Reo Māori version is not appropriate or accurate as this does not reflect a Te Ao Māori worldview; language initially used was not always welcoming, so adjustments were made some adjustments including adding a whakatauki and mihi videos
  • Bringing technical knowledge in-house was a helpful adjustment too, as third-party supplier requests took too much time to action
  • Ministry saw value in getting funding to make the work BAU. This was to keep it alive, to not let the work get old and stale and to get senior manager buy in, which was important
  • It is incredibly valuable to keep thinking about information needs of your audience – e.g. using memes and developing a social media and targeted marketing that is appropriate (for this project the approach was “don’t talk to them, chat with them”)
  • The project has so far reached 185,000 people in our target audience
  • Timing with election meant a soft launch was the most appropriate option, but it was not as impactful as it could have been so a “harder” launch is being planned for April 2022
  • Comment from EAP member commending the team for identifying things that don’t work in different cultural context and making changes accordingly.

Example 3: “Reach” – Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (Policy Project) - how they expanded their approach and thinking though implementation

  • Described the focus of this mahi
  • Had identified the need to increase public participation in policy development as part of NAP3
  • Level of influence was the starting point – how to incorporate IAP2 approach in Aotearoa New Zealand?
  • Approach was to start with a design tool, then understand what good looks like on the spectrum and what this means in practice
  • There was a concern about lack of diversity of groups who were involved in policy development. Engagement from diverse groups in the development of the guidance was fundamental
  • There was no additional budget – this presented early challenges
  • Even though there is some good practice occurring already, organisations are not configured well around engagement when it comes to individuals engaging on specific work
  • This work represented an investment in a part of policy practice that is not typically done well; it coalesced with broader agenda and we learned that it is possible to do more with very little
  • There is a strong demand for this work from officials – people want to learn and do it well
  • Experienced challenges around dissemination and use
  • A couple of years in, there is much better understanding and articulation of challenges around engagement understood at a senior level within government agencies
  • People should be at the heart, but there also needs to be an organisational readiness
  • Need political mandate for the work – early, during and at the end
  • Team has been working on Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch Masjidain on 15 March 2019 attacks response team
  • Now seeing the fruits of lots of people’s work and are asking themselves and others: how can we build on the bones of the guidance, and work with agencies 1:1 and across agencies?
  • Opportunities for improvement – Te Kawa Mataaho could look to embed engagement best practice in a range of ways, including through PIF reviews, CE performance and/or standards
  • A question was raised about whether there is a head of profession in public participation, as there are in other areas. Response was “not yet”. Need to raise visibility so this becomes mainstream.

What makes a good commitment/plan from IRM perspective?

  • Keitha Booth, IRM Independent Reviewer, delivered a presentation that walked through the OGP framework and explored what makes a good plan, what makes a good commitment and what good monitoring involves
  • Keitha passed on an offer of support from the OGP to help develop and test thinking for commitments for NAP4
  • Opportunity to work with similar countries who are considering working on more transformational commitments
  • Suggestion that we use the Australian dashboard as a model for presenting our progress throughout the NAP4 implementation
  • Resources to help in commitment development were suggested:

Getting to commitments – how are we approaching this?

  • TKM provided an update on the draft Roadmap that had been circulated to the EAP, CSOs and agencies in November