Statement of Intent 2011-2014

Statement of Intent of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs

Te Pūrongo Matapaetanga a te Minitatanga mō ngā Wāhine

2011–2014

G.39 SOI (2011)

Click HERE [324kB] for a PDF version, or email the Ministry if you would like a hard copy.

Table of contents

Message from the Minister of Women’s Affairs
Chief Executive’s introduction
Our role and purpose
Our priorities for the next three years
Measuring our performance
Managing in a changeable operating environment
Our organisational capability

Message from the Minister of Women’s Affairs

As Minister I want more for Aotearoa New Zealand and more for all women of our diverse communities.

The Government has set out a vision for a stronger economy that can deliver the jobs and incomes New Zealanders need, supported by better and more effective public services, and a safer society where people have the confidence to achieve.

Women are absolutely critical to achieving that vision.

Women already make significant contributions, but we could do more if our skills and experience were better recognised and used more effectively.

The proportion of women in paid work has increased markedly over the past three decades and this has contributed to growth in the economy – but this does not mean that we are yet fully harnessing women’s economic potential.

The number of women in leadership is also increasing slowly, but less than one in ten directors of our top companies is a woman. This is despite good evidence that companies with more women on their boards are more profitable than companies with few or no women.

And we need to end the scourge of family violence and sexual violence – crimes that have a huge and negative impact on women, and on our nation as a whole.

The priorities set out in this Statement of Intent address these issues. They are my priorities as Minister, and the priorities that drive the Ministry’s work programme.

We want to see all women able to be economically independent, to practise personal rangatiratanga over their futures – to be self-determining about the quality of life they lead. This includes the ability to be fully engaged in the economy and fully rewarded for their skills and experience. Without this, women will not be able to contribute fully to the country’s economic well being.

We also want to see women’s leadership skills better recognised and more women participating in leadership roles across the economy.

And we urgently need a society where women are safe, strong and free from violence.

I expect the Ministry to concentrate on these key issues as its contribution to making a positive difference to the lives of all women. In turn, I will do my best to represent the interests of the women of Aotearoa New Zealand and to ensure that they can maximise their own success and their contribution to our nation’s future.

Ministerial Statement of Responsibility

I am satisfied that the information on future operating intentions provided by my Ministry in this Statement of Intent and the Information Supporting the Estimates is in accordance with sections 38, 40 and 41 of the Public Finance Act 1989 and is consistent with the policies and performance expectations of the Government.

Hon Hekia Parata
Minister of Women’s Affairs

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Chief Executive’s introduction

The Ministry has clear priorities to increase women’s economic independence; to increase the number of women in leadership; and to enable women to lead secure lives, free from violence.

Within these broad priorities the Ministry has developed a work programme that aims to deliver maximum relevance and impact for the taxpayer resources we use.

The Ministry is primarily a policy agency, and this Statement of Intent reflects a renewed focus on our core roles of policy advice and nominating women for state sector boards and committees.

That advice has to be practical – capable of being implemented in a way that will bring real improvements to New Zealand women.

It also needs to be rigorous – soundly based on evidence and on thorough analysis.

And we need to do it in a way that is smart – that makes the best use of the resources we have available to us. This means continually reviewing and improving our practices and processes. The economic environment has increased the external pressure to improve efficiency, but really this should be driven by our ambition, and by our impatience to achieve faster, positive change for New Zealand women.

The Ministry will also continue to develop its relationships with our partners for change. We need to work with and through others, within the Public Service, with women’s and community organisations, and increasingly with business.

The Statement of Intent provides a high-level outline of how we will go about achieving our priorities. The ultimate measure of this work will be how much difference we make to the lives of New Zealand women. Only through their success can we measure our own.

Chief Executive Statement of Responsibility

In signing this statement, I acknowledge that I am responsible for the information contained in the Statement of Intent for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. This information has been prepared in accordance with the Public Finance Act 1989. It is also consistent with the proposed appropriations set out in the Appropriations (2011/12 Estimates) Bill, as presented to the House of Representatives in accordance with section 13 of the Public Finance Act 1989, and with existing appropriations and financial authorities.

Rowena Phair
Chief Executive

Martin Sebire
General Manager Corporate

Our role and purpose

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

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs advises the government on achieving better outcomes for women, which will have positive benefits for New Zealand.

Our priorities for the next three years

This section describes what our work involves, and our contribution to the government’s outcomes.

What we do, and whom we influence, creates positive change for New Zealand women. Our work (sometimes indirectly through other agencies) seeks to improve outcomes for women. And improved outcomes for women will benefit New Zealand as a whole.

The diagram below shows how ‘what we do’ (the interventions we put in place) is directed towards achieving the goals and priority outcomes of the Government, and in particular for women. It shows the value chain from the capability and outputs of the Ministry through to the outcomes for women sought by the Government.

The following table shows the outcomes sought to achieve the priorities of the Government for women in New Zealand. For each outcome, we have described the contribution we will make and the impacts of our, and other agencies’, work.

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Our international obligations

The Ministry is the lead agency for managing New Zealand’s international obligations on the status of women and is responsible for managing the process of reporting on New Zealand’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the core international agreement for advancing the status of women.

The principal focus of the Ministry’s international work in 2011/12 will be preparing to present New Zealand’s seventh report to the CEDAW Committee and to respond to any issues raised by the CEDAW Committee prior to the presentation.

The Ministry will engage in other important international meetings, such as the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Measuring our performance

This section outlines our progress on and plans for 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.

We carefully select the vital few priority areas and develop intervention logic

Based on government and ministerial priorities, and information from monitoring key indicators, we establish high-level outcome areas on which to focus. We can show the links from the Ministry’s outputs to the impacts they will have, through to the outcomes sought by government (i.e. the intervention logic).

How strongly an issue fits within our priorities framework and the intervention logic will determine how important it is and the amount of effort or work we will put into it.

We measure the impact of our work

Over the next three years we will measure our impact by the extent to which we achieve the following:

• where we have an interest in an issue or stream of advice going to Ministers or the Cabinet, that advice draws on our advice or information
• Ministers and their agencies seek our input to key issues and policy processes
• there is increased demand for women’s governance skills
• speeches and statements by Ministers and key sector leaders include reference to our analysis or information
• we are invited to present at, and contribute to, external forums.

As each measure is implemented, we will establish a ‘baseline’ from which we can forecast and assess improvement. And we will continue to refine the measures themselves, informed by our experience of putting the processes in place and by the results.

Cost-effectiveness measures

It is difficult to measure how much impact is achieved for the money spent. We cannot determine the dollar value of change for women, or of women’s contribution to society (or even of the impact on others’ work programmes), that results from our policy analysis on any particular issue. What we can do, however, is be sure that our prioritisation and intervention logic approaches enable us to know that, out of all the many things we could be doing at any given time, we are making the best choices and doing the right things i.e. the things most likely to make the biggest difference.

Output reporting

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

The Ministry will continue to report to the Minister of Women’s Affairs regularly on the achievements against the agreed work programme to be set out in an Output Plan agreed between the Chief Executive and the Minister.

Performance improvement actions

We will continue to progressively review, refine and implement our performance measurement framework, which will allow us to assess our performance and contribution to outcomes in an increasingly robust way.

In 2011 we invited the State Services Commission to undertake a Performance Improvement Framework review. An action plan to improve our performance, based on the findings of the review, is being developed and will be implemented over the coming year.

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Managing in a changeable operating environment

This section outlines the key external forces affecting our operating environment

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs shapes its strategies, priorities and work programme in response to the external environment.

New Zealand is facing a number of pressures arising from the Canterbury earthquakes, dealing with the implications of the global financial crisis, and the enduring need to lift its productivity, performance, and economic growth. These have implications both for how the public sector operates and for the priorities for our advice.

One such implication for the Ministry is that there will be no additional budget in the medium term. In response, we will continue to improve operational efficiencies to ensure the ongoing delivery of our services.

We will continue to actively monitor the environment in which we work in order to understand the context in which we operate, to anticipate influences that may inform our strategies, and to detect developing opportunities and risks as early as possible.

Managing our key risks

The Ministry’s risk management framework brings together strategic policies and operational procedures and practices to ensure that controls are implemented to prevent or mitigate the impact of identified risks. This approach is consistent with the requirements of the Australian/New Zealand Standard for Risk Management (AS/NZS 4360:2004).

The Ministry’s Leadership Team has a process of assessing and mitigating, on a quarterly basis, strategic and operational risks for the Ministry as a whole and for each work group. This will continue.

Changes in the Ministry’s risk profile can arise when there are changes in operational activities, in senior management and key personnel, in customer and stakeholder demands and expectations, and when there are significant risk events.

Our organisational capability

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

The Ministry’s capability rests on the quality of our direction and strategy, our skills, and our systems and processes.

A new leadership team was established in 2011. It includes two new policy directors (replacing one policy manager) and promotes the Director to the Leadership Team. An immediate focus for the new team is to provide clear direction and strategies to improve the effectiveness of the organisation, which will be enhanced by the findings of the Performance Improvement Framework review.

An Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Strategic Plan and an action plan for our Human Resources Strategy were completed in 2010. We will be reviewing the Human Resources Strategy in the coming year to ensure that it is consistent with the new direction and strategies.

We have just completed a review of administrative and support services, in order to better align support services with business needs.

Assessing progress

To manage the organisation’s capability, and as part of our approach to learning and development, we continually monitor and assess a range of information sources. Some of the information is not collected regularly, and much of it is qualitative. Together, though, it gives us a full picture of our capability and allows us to learn how we might improve it.

Some key sources of information are:

• post-appointment and exit interviews
• recruitment and retention data
• the employee engagement survey and the associated action planning
• independent assessment of the quality of our written policy advice.

In particular, we measure our staff numbers (the current establishment is 36.5 full-time equivalents), our unplanned turnover rate (which, as a small agency, we seek to keep below 25 percent), and ministerial feedback – both ratings and comments.

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

Equal employment opportunities in the Ministry

The Ministry recognises the benefits of diversity in its workforce and management, and has integrated equal employment opportunities into its Human Resources Manual and associated policies and procedures.

In 2006/07, the Ministry conducted a Pay and Employment Equity Review, and agreed actions have been implemented.

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 Ministry’s planned capital expenditure for 2011/12 is set out in the information supporting the Estimates of Appropriations for Vote Women’s Affairs.

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Thorndon
Wellington
PO Box 10149
Wellington 6143