Statement of Intent

of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs

Te Pūrongo Matapaetanga
a te Minitatanga mō ngā Wāhine
2008–2011

Click HERE for a PDF version.

Table of contents

Message from the Minister of Women’s Affairs
Chief Executive’s foreword
Our vision: For all women – resilience, real choices, and a thriving society
PART 1: STRATEGIC CONTEXT
How does the environment affect the Ministry’s work?
PART 2: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MINISTRY
What drives the strategic direction of the ministry?
PART 3: OPERATING INTENTIONS
Our key strategies
What are our priorities for the next three years?
How does the Ministry know if outcomes are being achieved?
What capability does the Ministry need to be effective?
How will the Ministry manage its risks?
Endnotes

Message from the Minister of Women’s Affairs

It is with pleasure that I introduce and endorse the Statement of Intent (SOI) of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Within this SOI you will see a wise and experienced approach by a small agency, which relies for its impact on high-quality work and positive relationships.

I want to see women’s contributions truly valued. There are so many women with great skills in areas as diverse as governance, business, caring roles, parenting, and community engagement – in fact in every area of society. But these skills are not always recognised, by communities, employers and families, or indeed by women themselves. I want this to change.

It has to change, because if we allow women to be marginalised or held back it is not only the women themselves who miss out, but their families and New Zealand as a whole. Our entire society suffers if we do not recognise, value and use the contribution of all our peoples.

To achieve their potential, women must also be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy, because well-being is essential to active participation in the economy and society.

I support the vision of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Their priorities will drive the change we need, for women, for their families, and ultimately for all of us – including men. Everyone wins when we make the best use of the potential of all our people. The Ministry is helping us to understand and unlock that potential. This SOI is another step on that path.

This Statement of Intent has been prepared in accordance with section 38 of the Public Finance Act 1989. It sets out the Ministry’s plans for the next three years, which are consistent with the policies and performance expectations of the government.


Hon Steve Chadwick
Minister of Women’s Affairs
15 May 2008

Chief Executive’s foreword

The aspirations that New Zealanders have for their country are ambitious – socially, economically and environmentally. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs contributes to these aspirations by helping to create the conditions that enable all women to thrive.

Our vision has broadened and strengthened. We see women economically independent, but not alone. We recognise women’s interdependence with men, their families and their communities. We see men and women fully sharing paid and unpaid work, with benefits for all families. And we see all women free of fear in their own homes and in the streets of their towns.

This Statement of Intent for the next three years is in many ways similar to last year’s. Our role and purpose remain the same. We highly value our relationships with our NGOs and we increasingly reach out to women who experience the end results of our policy advice. Our public sector colleagues are as crucial as ever, and some of our policy priorities (such as working to eliminate sexual and domestic violence) continue year after year.

However, there are also changes – because the world is changing for women and because the Ministry is continually stretching its capability.

You will see greater engagement with men in our plans – some goals for women cannot be achieved without the active involvement of men.

You will see that the policy team is ever more rigorously prioritising its work to ensure impact, value and effectiveness.

You will see that the nominations service has plans for extending conversations about women in governance and leadership roles.

You will see a practical appreciation of diversity and how, in its policy work, the Ministry focuses on those groups of women who lack the basic economic and social foundations essential for resilience and real choices.

We have analysed what makes the Ministry successful (see the section on capability) and we continue to strive to do better. We face a striking challenge in the next three years as our resources cannot keep pace with demand. Our quality must never drop. So we will ever more rigorously prioritise and focus only on the work that makes the biggest difference for women.


Shenagh Gleisner
Chief Executive
15 May 2008

Our vision

For all women – resilience, real choices, and a thriving society

FOR ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS, NOT JUST SOME.

When we think of resilience we see

All women are confident and independent economically – but also interdependent, with connections and access to networks of all types. We see women in jobs they have never been in before, sought out for their skills, paid well and valued fully.

When we think of real choices we see

All women are sharing paid and unpaid work with men, valued and supported for all the caring tasks they undertake. No woman is forced to stay in a relationship that hurts her. All women, young and old, entering occupations they choose, without barriers, proud of their achievements.

When we think of a thriving society we see

All women and girls are nourished by society, communities and families – and, in turn, women are nourishing the society of which they are part. All women are reaching their potential, and fully and sustainably participating in every aspect of New Zealand society, whether through environmental action, governance, business or families.

WHAT ARE THE ROLE AND PURPOSE OF THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN’S AFFAIRS?

This section describes what we do, why we do it, and how we go about it.

The Ministry focuses on strategies to achieve the above vision: to ensure that some women do not get left behind, and also to assist those who have ‘made it’ to use their leadership skills. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs is the government’s advisor on ways to advance the well-being of women and on how to ensure women may contribute fully and equally to New Zealand. Our role and purpose remain constant.

What we do

The Ministry provides specialist expertise and knowledge to enable government to ensure the rights of women are secured and to enhance women’s contribution to New Zealand. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs is not an advocacy organisation, nor does it have an international development role.

Our Role	What it entails	Why we have this role
Policy advice to government	Leading policy development Assisting the work of other agencies Monitoring the Action Plan for New Zealand Women Conducting research to develop an evidence base Mutually sharing information with NGOs to help ensure our policy is grounded in women’s experiences	No other agency has responsibility for outcomes and impacts for women/groups of women Involving us in work can help frame advice that will enable women to reach their potential
Nominations of women to state sector boards and committees	Providing suitable women nominees for state sector boards and committees	The government wants the membership of state sector boards and committees to match the diversity of the community Women on boards is ‘good for business’ Full representation of women in leadership roles is a goal expressed in international agreements
Management of New Zealand’s international obligations	Reporting externally, in international forums, on the role New Zealand plays – in particular managing the process by which New Zealand reports on its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Providing advice on domestic policy that aligns with our international obligations	New Zealand is a good international citizen We are the ‘guardian’ of the issues and recommendations from international forums

Part 1: Strategic context

How does the environment affect the Ministry’s work?

This section notes the major forces in the environment and the ways in which the Ministry responds.

The world continues to change

The increasing achievement of girls in the education system, common in many parts of the world, is not yet flowing at speed through into female leadership in workplaces, or to a reduction in the pay gap. New and sometimes conflicting trends (such as a drop in fertility, an ageing population, and a skills deficit) are challenging governments to redefine the focus of caring and work. Some groups of women achieve less well than others. And the fact that the rights of women are still so fragile in many parts of the world is not fully appreciated.

New Zealand is also changing

Some of the biggest changes for New Zealand are demographic, with increasing groups of ethnic women struggling with disadvantage. With increasing labour market participation, many more women are, for example, having to balance their home duties, whānau responsibilities, and paid employment. There are more supply constraints for voluntary work, and yet more demand for care. There are genuine concerns about some disparities becoming wider – opportunities for women are opening up, but not for every woman.

And the State Sector in New Zealand is developing

The demand for government agencies to act in a more co-ordinated and collaborative way continues, as does the challenge to be more citizen-focused. This calls for new frameworks, approaches and behaviours. Some of the most enduring challenges require agencies to work together in quite different ways. We have a long way to go, especially in the innovative use of technology and in becoming citizen-centric.

So the Ministry is responding

The Ministry has always worked in collaboration with others and we welcome the demand for co-ordination and strive to lead and support wherever we can. The Ministry will engage more with men in their many capacities, to influence a culture change to an environment that is less defined along gender lines.

How are New Zealand women faring in 2008?

In some outcome areas women are doing relatively well when compared with men. For example, women on average can expect to live longer than men. However, simple comparisons between men and women don’t paint the full picture. Not only do many women continue to have poorer outcomes in many areas than men on average, but some groups of women continue to have poorer outcomes relative to each other. For example, Māori women have poorer outcomes than their Pākehā counterparts in many key areas, even after adjusting for socio-economic status. Women are overwhelmingly the victims of violence, are lower paid than men, and bear the greater share of responsibility for unpaid work.

There is still potential for significant gains to be made, for individual women, and for New Zealand generally. If more women can reach their full potential, and have their talents and contributions recognised, New Zealand stands to gain substantially, both economically and socially.

The median hourly earnings for those receiving income from wages and salaries in the June 2007 quarter were $19.10 for men (a 5.4 percent increase on 2006 ) and $16.78 for women (a 5.7 percent increase). This means that women’s median hourly earnings were 12.1 percent lower than men’s in 2007, compared with 12.4 percent lower in 2006.

The median hourly earnings of European/Pākehā women ($17.37) were higher than those of Māori women ($14.80) and Pacific women ($15.00).

The average weekly income from paid employment for women in 2007 was $706, compared with $1,052 for men.

Enabling women to exercise their choice to participate in the paid workforce is essential to ensure their economic resilience. For women, the issues around balancing paid work with other responsibilities have become increasingly important, with growing numbers of women entering the paid workforce while maintaining their roles as primary caregiver. Policies must help women find that balance, and support their choices. This means valuing women as mothers and care-givers, as well as ensuring that women who choose to be in the paid workforce are able to do so without unreasonably compromising their other roles.

Almost 70 percent of women’s work is unpaid, compared with 40 percent of men’s work.
Women still work fewer hours in paid work than men. The longer total hours now worked in households are due primarily to women’s increased employment rates, particularly amongst mothers of young children.

Recent Ministry of Social Development research found that just under half of households with one partner in paid work would prefer both partners to be in paid work, and around one-third of households where both partners are in paid work would prefer one partner not to be in paid work.

Well-being is essential to active participation in the economy and society, to the benefit of all. To achieve this, women must be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.

Although women on average continue to live longer than men, there are differences across ethnic and socio-economic groups. There are also gender and ethnicity differences in illness and lifestyle factors that affect morbidity and mortality.

There are marked ethnic differences in life expectancy. In 2000–2002, female life expectancy at birth was 81.9 years for non Māori and 73.2 years for Māori. Male life expectancy at birth was 77.2 years for non Māori and 69.0 years for Māori.

Māori women have higher rates of cancer than any other group. In addition, the cancer-related mortality rate for Māori women is twice that of non-Māori women.

Māori and Pacific youth are particularly at risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the rate of STIs among young people appears to be increasing. Untreated STIs can result in infertility and ectopic pregnancy. Women are nearly three times more likely than men to experience asymptomatic infections, decreasing the likelihood of early treatment.

In 2003, 21 percent of adults in New Zealand aged 15 and over were obese. Pacific women (48 percent) and Māori women (28 percent) are more likely than European/Other women (20 percent) to be classed as obese.

Domestic violence and sexual violence continue to affect a significant proportion of New Zealand women and their children.

Domestic violence and sexual violence affect women’s mental and physical health, economic status, social participation and general well-being. The effects of domestic and sexual violence may persist long after the abuse has stopped. Witnessing domestic or sexual violence also impacts on inter-generational outcomes.

Perpetrators of the most severe and lethal cases of domestic violence are predominantly male, and the victims of these cases are mostly women and children. Sexual violence is most often committed by someone known to the victim and is often experienced more than once.

The lifetime prevalence of violence by heterosexual partners is higher for women (26 percent) than for men (18 percent).
For the period 2000-2004 (inclusive), 96 percent of perpetrators of family violence related murders of women were men.
In 2001, the lifetime prevalence of violence by heterosexual partners was very much higher for Māori women (49 percent) than for New Zealand European women (26 percent) and Pacific women (23.3 percent).
One in five women (20 percent) has experienced sexual interference or assault at some time in their lives; the figure for men is one in 20 (5 percent).
In 2001, 26 percent of young women (17-24 year-olds) and 23 percent of Māori women reported that they had experienced sexual interference or assault at some time in their lives.
It is estimated that sexual violence costs the New Zealand economy $1.2 billion per annum.

Part 2: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MINISTRY

What drives the strategic direction of the Ministry?

This section outlines the value chain from the capability and outputs of the Ministry through to the outcomes for women sought by the government.

The diagram below shows how ‘what we do’ (the interventions we put in place) is directed towards achieving our outcomes in the Action Plan for New Zealand Women and our vision, as well as aligning with the government’s three themes.

What we do, and who we influence, creates change. This begins to make a difference, by reducing impacts on women, which in turn improves outcomes for, and the well-being of, women in New Zealand.

Part 3: Operating intentions

Our key strategies

This section sets out the five key strategies adopted by the Ministry to deliver its vision and the outcomes under the Action Plan.

The Ministry has a strong vision for women, clear high-level outcomes articulated by government, and an Action Plan that specifies the overall goals government wishes to achieve for women. We also frequently check back with NGOs and women in communities that our Action Plan priorities remain relevant to them. The Ministry plans to deliver these outcomes by using five key strategies:

We focus our efforts

As a population agency with high-level aspirational outcomes for women, we run the risk of trying to be all things to all people. The challenge for us is to hone our efforts to focus on the particular priorities that will help us achieve our vision and final outcomes as quickly as possible.

For us, it means that we will only be able to achieve all women experiencing economic independence, work-life balance and well-being if we can put some additional focus on increasing the potential of all women, including the groups of women whose potential is hampered by factors such as education and health status, fear and victimisation, or economic situation.

We operate purposefully as a population agency

There are two elements to being a population agency. The first is defining ‘population’. Being a population agency with a focus on women means that we look at women as a single group, and as a series of different sub-populations (for example, women of particular age groups; ethnic groups; socio-economic status groups; women who are victims of violence). Our gender analysis means that we examine women relative to men and relative to other groups of women. This perspective can enable us to identify where we might have the biggest impact.

The second element is looking at the differences in outcomes between those different groups and asking ourselves what are the patterns in the determinants of those outcomes that we need to influence (for instance, health status, educational status, socio-economic status). For example, what’s our role in relation to bringing Māori women’s life expectancy more on to a par with Pākehā women? Which agencies can we partner with? What other cross-sectoral policies can we influence? How do we improve outcomes for women who aren’t doing as well faster than we improve outcomes for women who are already doing okay?

We prioritise our policy work rigorously

We direct our effort into those areas that will have the maximum impact on outcomes for women. The Ministry’s policy work priorities are determined by applying a prioritisation framework. The framework is derived from our understanding of what it means to be a population agency, and also our value focus.

The following diagram illustrates our prioritisation framework. It is a tool we use when allocating and assessing policy work.

We strive to produce the highest-quality policy advice, nominations and international work

The Ministry is a small agency that does not usually lead major policy development, but is often in a supportive position, or leads specific projects within a much larger programme of work. The Ministry needs to be influential, not having the critical mass of resources to progress outcomes for women without working alongside other agencies. Nothing is more powerful for being influential than producing high-quality policy work and nominations that other agencies can rely on and seek out.

The quality of our nominations advice relies on attracting the best candidates to our database, and matching them to the needs of board and committee vacancies as they arise. We are continually improving our processes to be more effective.

Much of the development of policy capability planned for next year will be to stretch further beyond the basics of quality – staff, systems and processes. The policy team has been restructured to help maximise quality and engagement and the focus now is on becoming more efficient at how we undertake the core policy competencies. This will also enable us to stretch further to do more leading-edge and innovative work. The new structure will be reviewed during 2008/09.

We actively collaborate and engage with public sector agencies and NGOs and community groups

The Ministry engages early in the policy development processes with other agencies, and therefore it is essential that we make high-quality contributions and maintain high-quality relationships. We seek to identify our shared outcomes before we contribute. The Ministry aims to be very well apprised of the activities in other agencies and to be welcomed as part of all relevant policy processes.

The Ministry has an active relationship strategy involving, for example, regular meetings with key NGOs; regional public meetings; attendance at key events involving women’s groups; a set of initiatives to support Māori women’s leadership; focused work with ethnic women’s networks; and focus groups with women with disabilities. Our linkages with a range of diverse groups of women are essential to achieving our goals. A high priority is placed on our relationships with Māori women.

A stakeholder review has enabled the Ministry to refresh this engagement, so in the forthcoming year greater engagement with NGOs in work programme planning will occur. We also plan to continue the shift in emphasis for greater engagement with men and young women.

WHAT ARE OUR PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS?

This section describes what our work involves, and our contribution to the outcomes in the Action Plan. It lays out our policy work programme.

The diagram below illustrates how ‘what we do’ helps us to achieve our vision. For example, an area of focus of our nominations function is to achieve 50 percent women on state sector boards and committees by 2010. This in turn helps us achieve our objective of improving leadership for women, and our vision of a thriving society with resilient women who have real choices. Our policy work in particular has a strong link to the outcomes in the Action Plan for New Zealand Women; the advice we give, and the influence we have, helps to improve the well-being, economic sustainability, and work-life balance for New Zealand women.

We help enhance government policies and programmes

Policy advice and development to maximise the potential of women will focus on the following Action Plan outcomes:

Action Plan outcome area: improving economic opportunities and choice

Women will attain economic independence when they:

• have access to a full range of opportunities for paid work and employment
• are equitably rewarded for their work
• have access to an adequate minimum level of income
• have optimal access to, and use of, their financial resources.

The key areas on which we will be focusing over the next three years for this priority outcome are:

• asking how women can make a contribution to lifting the value of the economy
• improving the participation of women in the context of changing skills, technology and employment patterns, eg modern apprenticeships and industry training
• reducing the extent to which gender stereotypes and gaps in information limit career choices (across the age range from girls at school to young women)
• assessing whether gender-based occupational segregation impacts on wider economic performance
• considering the implications of population ageing and diversity on women’s economic and employment goals.

Across all our work relating to economic and employment outcomes, our priority focus will be to improve the opportunities and remove the barriers for the most disadvantaged groups of women and those who are lagging behind the others.

Action Plan outcome area: balancing caring roles with paid work

Women will attain their preferred work-life balance when they:

• can successfully integrate paid work into their personal and family lives
• can easily make the contribution they desire to their whānau/community
• can access support and services to allow them to meet responsibilities to others.

The Ministry’s focus in this area to date has been on improving the accessibility and quality of out of school services. We will continue to focus on that area over the next three years, particularly in relation to low income families.

However, we are now turning our attention not just to the balance of paid work with caring roles for women, but also to the balance of caring responsibilities between men and women. A significant piece of work we will be undertaking will be to explore further men’s role in caring. And in 2010 the ten-yearly survey on New Zealanders’ use of time will be completed. We will be analysing this rich set of data with a particular focus on work-life balance.

Action Plan outcome area: quality of life and well-being

Well-being could almost be said to be the overarching outcome for the other outcome areas too, given that arguably, work-life balance and economic independence are determinants of overall well-being and quality of life. Well-being is an expression of maximised potential.

Women will enjoy a quality of life that allows them to achieve their desired well-being when they:

• are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy
• are safe at home and in their communities
• can meet their social and cultural needs.

Some of these immediate outcomes are clearly beyond the scope of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The areas we have selected for our work programme focus are the areas where some groups of women (eg women with disabilities) face particular disadvantage. These are:

• reducing the impact and incidence of violence against women (sexual violence and family violence)
• finding out what interventions work for adult victims of sexual violence
• exploring issues relating to young women that may set them on a pathway of disadvantage and marginalisation (including young women and violence; young women as parents; young women as victims).

We will also be considering:

• the extent to which New Zealand’s high rate of teen pregnancy impacts negatively on outcomes for women
• how changing demographics (eg fertility, ageing, diversity) might impact on groups of women
• how to ensure women make healthy and safe transitions between different roles during the course of a lifetime (eg student, mother, working woman).

Our major piece of research over the next two years is the work on effective interventions for adult victims of sexual violence. The research will provide an evidence base for policy development and identify ways to improve service delivery.

Working with other agencies on Action Plan activity

We will continue to work with other agencies that have actions and responsibilities under the Action Plan for New Zealand Women. The focus for the Ministry is on monitoring indicators and reporting on an overall picture of the combined impact that actions of all relevant departments have made towards achieving the outcomes of the Action Plan.

We help increase women’s participation on state sector boards and committees

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ policy focus includes improving women’s participation in all spheres of leadership, such as private sector governance, and in the community and family.

We have a particular focus on increasing women’s participation on state sector boards and committees. The government aims to increase women’s participation in this sector towards a goal of 50 percent by 2010. The Ministry is not solely accountable for successfully attaining the 50 percent goal, but contributes to its achievement.

Increasing the pool of suitably qualified women from which Ministers make appointments

The Ministry continues to identify and recruit suitable women for possible appointment, particularly those who have high levels of senior management or governance experience.

The Ministry provides Ministers and requesting agencies with the details of suitably qualified women for appointment to state sector boards and committees. In doing so we will:

• rigorously target our service so that nominees who best fit the criteria are provided, in order to achieve greater success
• in areas where this is a more appropriate process, inform suitably qualified women of vacancies so they can apply directly themselves
• prioritise our efforts on sectors or boards and committees where participation of women is low.

Disseminating evidence-based research

The Ministry annually compiles a whole-of-government stocktake that measures women’s participation on state sector boards and committees. The results of the stocktake are widely circulated to government agencies, Ministers, and the public. The stocktake is a powerful driver for change as it reports on the differing levels of women’s participation across all government portfolios.

We also disseminate international research highlighting the benefits of diversity on board performance. We engage with decision-makers and leaders in the public and private sectors to share that information and to gather information to help us develop policy on increasing women’s participation in leadership.

Our international priorities

The Ministry is the lead agency for managing New Zealand’s international obligations on the status of women.

The focus of the work in 2008/09 will be supporting ministerial attendance at international meetings, including the annual Commonwealth, States, Territories and New Zealand Ministerial Conference on the Status of Women (MINCO) and the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW); and to progress work on the recommendations from the 2007 CEDAW meeting.

The Ministry will also continue to facilitate the meetings of the Caucus on International Women’s Issues, a domestic forum to encourage an exchange of information and experience among those working in international forums to address issues relevant to the well-being of women.

How does the Ministry know if outcomes are being achieved?

This section outlines our progress and plans on our monitoring and evaluative work, which will assist us to learn whether the outcomes and intermediate outcomes are being achieved, whether our interventions are working, and how we can continue to improve our effectiveness.

It is difficult to directly measure the effectiveness of the Ministry’s contribution to final outcomes, particularly where the actions or changes may take years to fully take effect, may be led by other agencies, or may relate to apparently intractable social issues. However, we have some tools we can use.

We monitor progress on the Action Plan

The Action Plan for New Zealand Women defines clear outcomes for the status of women within New Zealand, and sets out the initial tasks and actions across government that are necessary to achieve those outcomes.

It is the role of the Ministry to monitor progress on the Action Plan. The focus of the monitoring undertaken by the Ministry is on reporting on an overall picture of the combined impact that actions of all relevant departments have made towards achieving the outcomes of the Action Plan.

Considerable progress has been made to establish an initial set of indicators that can be extracted from existing data collection, and we will be using these indicators to monitor progress over the next two years. We plan to report on progress against these indicators on the Ministry’s website, continually updating as data sources are renewed.

We apply a learning and development framework

The Ministry is committed to the use of a learning and development framework. The Ministry focuses on an evaluative approach where feedback, including but not confined to tangible measures, is continually sought from multiple sources in order to assess effectiveness and make improvements.

We look at the impact of the Ministry’s nominations service

The Ministry provides agencies with nominations of suitable women for appointment to state sector governance roles. The decisions are made by Cabinet, following recommendation from the Cabinet Appointments and Honours Committee (APH). Ministers and other agencies may also make nominations to be considered by APH.

The Ministry also promotes its nominations service, the government’s outcome target for board composition, and the benefits of a diverse board membership through a variety of means. These include a regular newsletter, the measurement of gender composition of boards and committees, and the Ministry’s relationship with appointing agencies.

Measuring the impact of the Ministry’s nominations service has the usual challenges. The overall impact is seen in the stocktake of board composition. This is affected by long time lags, as existing members serve their terms before reappointment or replacement.

The Ministry’s impact is best measured by analysing new appointments, for which gender breakdown was available for the first time last year. The Ministry monitors the number of new appointments, and the percentage that were women. To measure its own effectiveness, it also monitors how many of the women appointed were on the Ministry’s database and how many were nominated by the Ministry.

We look at the impact of the Ministry’s policy advice

The impact of our policy advice is how much other government agencies’ programmes are enhanced by a gender perspective, or how much influence our advice has had in policy decisions by the government. As noted above, though, it is hard to assess the effectiveness of a strategic policy agency. It is difficult to directly attribute the impact of the Ministry’s policy advice on long-term outcomes for intractable problems. Difficulties include the long time lag between advice and improvement in outcomes and the near impossibility of measuring the impacts of individual streams of advice in a system that encourages public service collaboration, as opposed to contestable advice.

By extension, it is even more difficult to try to undertake any meaningful analysis of the cost-effectiveness of our advice, which is a measure of how much impact is achieved for the money spent.

Instead, we focus on what we can measure or improve:

• becoming more efficient at the basic competencies, in order to create some scope for more developmental, proactive, innovative or speculative work using different frameworks or methods
• independent review of the quality of our written advice
• opinions of stakeholders
• the reputation of the Ministry
• regular tracking of ministerial satisfaction.

Most importantly, we use clear, robust intervention logic as part of all policy advice and development. The intervention logic shows the links from the Ministry’s outputs to the outcomes sought by government.

Output reporting

Performance measures for the Ministry’s outputs are included in the information supporting the Estimates of Appropriation for Vote Women’s Affairs.

The Ministry will continue to report to the Minister of Women’s Affairs quarterly on the achievements against the agreed work programme.

What capability does the Ministry need to be effective?

This section outlines the capability we need to achieve our outcomes and what capability developments we will be focusing on in the forthcoming year.

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has lifted its capability over the last four years, but the challenges continue as greater collaboration is expected and complexity increases.

It is an exciting period as the Ministry has two new key managers – policy manager and nominations manager – and both groups have already attained a very high level of operational excellence around core competencies. Now is the time both to sustain this – to make what was outstanding for us last year into the norm – and to stretch the performance more to take the next leap in building capability.

It is also a challenging period. Over the next three years, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain our capability. Declining revenue will not keep pace with costs and demand.

Our quality must never drop. So we will prioritise ever more rigorously the work that makes the biggest difference to outcomes for women. And we will focus on our key capability drivers.

What are the key capability drivers?

The Ministry has recently analysed its capability drivers and notes that the following are critical in maintaining the ability of the Ministry to deliver high-quality results:

• the mindset – positive, strategic, enquiring, influencing
• high and rising expectations of quality
• recruitment and retention excellence
• active pursuit of building reputation.

Building on these drivers in policy and nominations

The capability focus for the policy group is to build a self-sustaining learning environment, with seniors and principals rising to the challenge of strategic policy leadership in a context where policy cannot be divorced from implementation, maintaining high quality but streamlining the business as usual work, with ever more rigorous prioritisation, and identification of the vital few key issues.

The nominations service will continue to focus on sectors where greatest value can be achieved. It will also seek to encourage wider and more influential conversations about the value of women’s engagement in leadership roles.

What is planned for the forthcoming year?

Dimensions	Development planned	Assessing progress through
Culture	Explicit building of a learning culture Responses to the engagement survey to improve morale	Engagement survey Post-appointment and exit interviews
People	Explicit promotion of leadership Continued investment in training to lift performance Proactive secondment programmes	Recruitment and retention data Engagement survey Ministerial feedback
Leadership	Purposeful development of seniors as practitioners, formal and informal Active external leadership approach through nominations	Feedback on staff and group performance through annual review processes Review of policy capability and performance
Relationships	Māori women’s responsiveness plan implemented Deepening of engagement with diverse groups of women Extensive engagement with groups of men and boys	Regular feedback from key NGOs Ministerial satisfaction with all aspects of our work Evaluation of engagement with men
Processes and systems	Acceleration of knowledge management developments Refining of prioritisation process Implementation of new contacts database	Engagement survey Feedback from NGO partners
Structure	No major changes anticipated	Review of the restructuring of the policy group

To manage the organisation’s capability, and as part of our approach to learning and development, we are continually monitoring and assessing all of these dimensions. Some of the information is not collected regularly, and much of it is qualitative. Together, though, they give us a full picture of our capability and allow us to learn how we might improve our capability.

In particular, we measure our staff numbers (currently 37 full-time equivalents) and our unplanned turnover rate (which we seek to keep below 25 percent). We will also be running an employee engagement survey for the first time in June 2008. This will provide a range of issues to consider and we will benefit from the opportunity to learn from the findings. The survey provides an overall score for the organisation and we would like to exceed the Gallup 50th percentile mean.

At the end of the year, we will report on our capability and the planned development based on the whole range of information we monitor.

Ministry contribution to State Sector Development Goals

The Ministry is committed to contributing to a transformed state services. Being a small, strategic policy agency leads to a focus on the goal of co-ordinated state services. However, the Ministry contributes strongly to the following development goals set for the state services:

Employer of choice	by	highly effective employment practices, strong commitment to a positive culture, the reputation of the Ministry, an excellent recruitment record, and coaching and development
Value-for-money state services	by	demonstrating value-for-money in accountability documents, using common standards, measurement techniques and tools for efficiency and cost-effectiveness and, where appropriate, providing economic and fiscal impact information in policy advice
Co-ordinated state services	by	highly co-operative relationships with all relevant public sector agencies, leadership in whole-of-government initiatives and explicit contribution to each of the government’s themes
Trusted state services	by	high standards of ethical behaviour, strong performance management systems, and highly proactive, reliable and responsive external relationships, especially with women’s networks

Pay and Employment Equity Action Plan

The Ministry has undertaken a review under the government’s Pay and Employment Equity Action Plan. The management team has agreed a range of actions, most of which have been implemented. These will be completed in 2008/09.

Capital expenditure

The forecast capital expenditure for the next three years is primarily for the routine replacement and upgrade of the Ministry’s information technology and office equipment, to maintain efficient delivery of services.

The table below outlines the capital expenditure planned for the next three years.

Departmental Capital Expenditure ($)	actual 2005/06	actual 2006/07	estimated actual 2007/08	Budget 2007/08	forecast 2008/09	forecast 2009/10	forecast 2010/11
INTANGIBLE ASSETS
Computer software	20,700	17,000	75,500	225,000	165,000	30,000	15,000
PHYSICAL ASSETS
Computer equipment	3,900	20,100	28,200	55,000	51,500	33,000	26,000
Library and office equipment	9,800	8,000	10,000	15,000	125,000	15,000	15,000
Office furniture	20,600	1,700	10,000	35,000	35,000	35,000	35,000
Fit-out and leasehold improvements	119,000	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total physical assets	153,300	29,800	48,200	105,000	211,500	83,000	76,000
Total capital expenditure	174,000	46,800	123,700	330,000	376,500	113,000	91,000

These figures have been prepared in accordance with New Zealand generally accepted accounting principles. They comply with New Zealand equivalents to IFRS (NZ IFRS) and other applicable Financial Reporting Standards, as appropriate for public benefit entities.

How will the Ministry manage its risks?

This section outlines the key risks to the Ministry and how they will be managed.

The Ministry already has a regular process on a quarterly basis of assessing and mitigating strategic and operational risks for the Ministry as a whole and for each group. This will continue.

Improvements will be made over the forthcoming year in the management of project risks, with an explicit project approach, a risk analysis and management approach, and consistent ‘lessons learnt’ practice.

The following table sets out the key risks to be managed.

What could go wrong?	What would be the impact?	How will we manage it?
Failing to prioritise	Spreading too thinly and thereby not achieving significant change	Refining the prioritisation process and applying it rigorously Never duplicating the work of other agencies
Failing to be relevant	Being sidelined by bigger agencies who do not see the contribution of women as contributing to government outcomes	Continuing to articulate the contribution of women
Resource and critical mass constraints	Our capacity and capability falling to a level where it is impossible to deliver quality	Rigorously applying the prioritisation process Increasing the focus on learning and development Continually seeking funding from a wide range of sources, such as partnerships, and research funds
Public demanding a focus only on men and boys because of the perception that women ‘have made it’	Distortion in achieving overall government outcomes and risks of failure as well as lost opportunities by losing the momentum for women	Engaging much more strongly with men, ensuring that progress for women is integrated into that for men, without competition
Failure to achieve rapid progress in numbers of women on state sector boards and committees	The progress in women in leadership falling back, and governance and leadership in New Zealand thereby suffering	Streamlining business as usual and diverting skilled personnel for high-value activities
An error or failure in any key relationships	Losing the strong reputation that enables us to exert influence	Paying continual attention to communication and relationship strategy Taking opportunities to be at the forefront of whole-of-government initiatives

Endnotes

1. Statistics New Zealand (2007) New Zealand Income Survey (June 2007 quarter). Wellington, Statistics New Zealand.
2. Statistics New Zealand (2005) New Zealand Income Survey (June 2006 quarter). Wellington, Statistics New Zealand.
3. Statistics New Zealand (2001) Around the Clock: Findings from the New Zealand Time Use Survey 1998-1999. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand.
4. Callister, Paul (2004) The Future of Work within Households: Understanding Household-level Changes in the Distribution of Hours of Paid Work, http://www.dol.govt.nz/publication-view.asp?ID-198
5. Ministry of Social Development (2006) Work, Family and Parenting Study: Research Findings. Wellington, Ministry of Social Development.
6. Ministry of Social Development (2007) The Social Report 2007. Wellington, Ministry of Social Development.
7. Ministry of Health (2006) Unequal Impact: Māori and Non-Māori Cancer Statistics 1996-2001. Wellington, Ministry of Health.
8. STI Surveillance Team, Population and Environmental Health Group, Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited, for the Ministry of Health (April 2006) Sexually Transmitted Infections in New Zealand Annual Surveillance Report 2005. Wellington, Ministry of Health.
9. Statistics New Zealand (2003) Teenage Fertility in New Zealand, http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/Articles/teen-Sep03.htm
10. Heymann, DL (ed) (2004) Control of Communicable Diseases Manual (18th ed). Washington DC, American Public Health Association.
11. Ministry of Social Development (2007) The Social Report 2007. Wellington, Ministry of Social Development.
12. 12 Morris, A, Reilly, J, Berry, S and Ransom, R (2003) New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 2001. Wellington, Ministry of Justice.
13. Ministry of Social Development (2006) Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families – the First Report, p.32. Wellington, Ministry of Social Development. These statistics were obtained from a provisional database relating to cases investigated as homicide and are not official New Zealand Police statistics.
14. New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 2001.
15. New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 2001.
16. New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 2001.
17. Roper, Tim and Thompson, Andrew (2006) ‘Estimating the costs of crime in New Zealand in 2003/04’, New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 06/04. Wellington, New Zealand Treasury.