New Zealand needs a Country Plan

New Zealand needs a country plan. We have an election coming up next month. As a country, we are in the 20% globally of countries (Chimhowu, Hulme & Munro (2019)[1] that does not have a country plan - 80% of countries do have a plan. Like many, I am tired of flip-flops on direction and costs, particularly with changes in government (NZ has 3-year election terms), and the impacts of multiple parties are evident. One advantage of a country plan is that it drives longer-term thinking, planning, actions and outcomes. Having it published, with relationships between sectors (i.e. transport, infrastructure, health, education, etc.), public and private sectors, and regional development evolved, means incoming/ongoing governments do not need to develop entirely new plans & policies; they can build on informed, evidence-based approaches and evolve. 

This situation has arisen from NZ’s devolved strategic approach to agency planning, funding, measuring, and reporting and a limited coordinated approach to country-level cross-sectoral planning, prioritisation, measuring and reporting of progress and outcomes.

In 2012, Hughes and Smart (2012)[2] noted that “over the past 30 years New Zealand’s system of public management had seen a number of positive changes, both systematic and incremental” (p. 203). Yet, they noted that “previous attempts at establishing an outcomes focus, such as Managing for Outcomes, were not sustained because of the focus on producing outputs.” A new way for New Zealand’s government performance management “will require the public sector to develop strategy across sector groups, describe outcomes so they can be reliably measured, improve the use of evaluation as a tool to inform performance frameworks, and measure success” (p. 7). Some countries include the private sector in their plans to assist development and innovation.

A Focus on Outcomes is advocated and this could include the use of existing key (i.e., Justice, Education, Ministry of Business, Immigration and Employment (MBIE), Housing and Infrastructure) government agencies’ Statement of Intents (SoI) and Annual Reports (AR) as an initial basis for strategic discussions between coalition partners, Chief Executives, and the private sector. This can provide a structure to document actions taken, measure progress, and report in a 100-day progress report. A Focus-on-Outcomes way of working can then evolve into a country plan approach for this next government and beyond.


[1] Chimhowu, A. O., Hulme, D., & Munro, L. T. (2019). The ‘new’ national development planning and global development goals: Processes and partnerships. World Development, 120, 76–89. https://lnkd.in/euE-p5YS.
[2]  Hughes, P., & Smart, J. (2012). You say you want a revolution: the next stage of public sector reform in New Zealand. Policy Quarterly, 8(1). https://lnkd.in/eGW8mwQC