Our organisational health and capability

Implementing the strategic direction

The supporting strategies focused on people and capability, stakeholder engagement, engagement with Māori, information and evidence, and new ways of thinking. Good progress has been made towards many of the objectives identified in the strategies and we now have many extra resources that can help us in our work. Those initiatives that need continuing reinforcement, for example stakeholder engagement, have now been incorporated into normal business activities.

The second phase of implementation focuses on our mission of ‘environmental stewardship for a prosperous New Zealand’. It also builds on the advice of our Performance Improvement Framework reviewers that the Ministry ‘will need to be quite exceptional...to make the contribution New Zealand needs from it’.

We have identified four priorities under the Good to Great to Exceptional approach:

• strengthening our leadership (internally and externally)
• knowing where we are going and how we are doing (in terms of understanding what environmental impacts we want to have and being able to measure our progress towards achieving them)
• being a flexible and agile workforce
• achieving value for money.

Knowing that we cannot address all of these at once, we have chosen to work initially on the first two priorities – strengthening leadership and clarifying the medium-term direction. There is also a strong focus on engaging and listening to our staff through a series of staff forums on topics of concern to them, such as workload, and exploring what stewardship means for the Ministry.

The Good to Great to Exceptional approach is still at an early stage of implementation. Progress is monitored by a governance group and will be reported regularly to the Leadership Team.

Objectives for organisational health and capability

The following table sets out our objectives for organisational health and capability and the measures we will monitor to know if we are achieving them. Progress against these objectives is reported regularly to the Leadership Team and will be reported publically each year in the Ministry’s Annual Report.

Performance Improvement Framework review

In 2012, the Ministry had its first Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) review. The review concluded that we were well-positioned for the future and that improvements we had made to date have provided a sound foundation for further development. However, the review did note that, to successfully deliver our work programme, we could no longer settle for being good – we needed to be ‘exceptional’.

In response to the challenge to be ‘exceptional’, the Ministry has committed to a more intensive focus on the following priority areas:

• strengthening our environmental stewardship role and strategy
• enhancing our capability and culture, especially increasing long-term innovative thinking, challenge and debate
• expanding the evidence base, especially monitoring and evaluation
• improving the effectiveness of our interventions and organisational efficiency.

These will be progressed by prioritising work already underway and modifying our existing strategies, as explained further below and in the earlier strategic direction section.

Strengthening our environmental stewardship role and strategy

We have established a dedicated stewardship division to provide the capacity to develop the medium- and long-term strategy as well as to be a hub to link to the wider environmental management system. The 2013 launch of the Natural Resources Framework provides a multi-disciplinary analytical framework that will guide decision-making, inform trade-offs, and help strategic thinking.

Once the medium- to long-term strategy has been developed, we will review our Outcomes Framework to ensure resources are being directed towards delivering the highest priority activities.

Enhancing our capability and culture, innovation, challenge and debate

We acknowledge that we need to improve our capacity for leading the development of ideas and innovation as well as our level of comfort with robust challenge and debate.

We have recruited additional principal analysts to lead medium-term strategic policy; our recruitment and assessment tools and practice have been reviewed to maximise their effectiveness and to ensure we bring in the right capability; we intend to introduce a number of communities of practice (internally and across the Natural Resources Sector (NRS) to further strengthen critical and technical skills; and we will look for opportunities to share resources more efficiently across the NRS.

Expanding the evidence base, especially monitoring and evaluation

An effective environmental management system is always underpinned by knowledge of what is happening in the environment, including an understanding of behaviour and performance that affects outcomes. This requires continuous monitoring followed by comprehensive and accessible reporting which enables us to adapt our management approaches when necessary.

Access to robust evidence is critical to providing coherent and effective policy advice. We have made developing a structured approach to producing, using and publishing credible evidence, and making monitoring and evaluation of programmes and policies an ordinary thing we do as part of our work a priority. This strategy will continue to be given priority as we implement the Environmental Reporting Bill that was introduced into Parliament in February 2014.

In our operating model, the monitoring of policy implementation and effectiveness function is integrated into the same directorates as the related policy work. Connecting these functions helps promote a culture within the Ministry that concentrates more on outcomes than process.

Improving the effectiveness of interventions and organisational efficiency

Stronger collaboration across the wider environmental management system is critical to improving the effectiveness of our interventions, as is effective monitoring and reporting which helps us track our progress towards achieving our desired outcomes, enabling adjustments where necessary. This has prompted the Ministry’s shift from the edge of the environment system to the centre with a strong partnership approach to all parts. The current reforms of the freshwater and the resource management systems, as well as the changes to national-level environmental reporting, rely on successful collaboration between all those involved in environmental management.

The Performance Improvement Framework review signalled that we need to improve our financial and resource management maturity. We continue to make progress under a multi-year project to improve planning and financial management and the Information Systems Strategic Plan. We have put in place tighter accountability for budget forecasting and management. We also implemented time recording in 2013 to ensure we have better information for planning and to support resource allocation decisions.

Equal employment opportunities

The Ministry is committed to providing equal opportunities. We remain a member of the EEO Trust and we pay careful attention to ensuring procedures for recruitment and selection, career development and progression, training, and conditions of employment will provide equal opportunities across all levels of the Ministry.

The Natural Resources Framework

The Natural Resources Framework – a multi-disciplinary analytical framework – was launched in August 2013. This framework was developed in conjunction with the Natural Resources Sector in response to a recommendation made in the Ministry’s Performance Improvement Framework review carried out by independent reviewers in 2013, and provides a framework for environmental management that ensures assumption, analysis, priorities and trade-offs are explicit. It will be used to guide decision-making, inform trade-offs, and help strategic planning. This framework has been applied to the Natural Resources Sector’s marine strategy work and will be used to help develop the sector’s medium- to long-term strategy.

Risk management framework

Our risk management programme is designed to help us manage risks that could affect our ability to achieve our mission. We use this approach in our day-to-day operations.

A key element of our programme is the Audit and Risk Committee. The committee monitors Ministry performance regularly and provides independent assurance and risk management advice to the Chief Executive. It considers that the Ministry has made significant progress in managing our key risks of leadership, reputation and effective management.

We class our risks into three categories: strategic risk, business risk, and operational risk. The Ministry’s leadership team regularly reviews, monitors and identifies key strategic risks they perceive the Ministry faces over the next three to five years. This is to ensure adequate mitigation strategies are in place to manage these risks. A summary of our strategic risks and mitigation strategies is outlined below. The Directors’ Forum reviews and monitors business risks that impact on delivery of Ministry outcomes. Operational and project team management monitor and review operational risk that impacts on their daily work activities. Our risk management framework provides for a bottom-up and top-down approach to risk management.

Appropriate procedures and guidelines are in place to support all policies. We use an internal organisational policy framework to ensure all policies are written clearly and consistently. The Risk Management Policy is reviewed every two years, and a toolkit for risk management is available for staff on our intranet.

Crown risk

International climate change obligations post-2012

The Government has determined the unconditional target New Zealand will commit to post-2012. The conditional commitments are subject to international negotiations and agreements. Currently no rights or obligations are included in the fiscal forecasts for any post-2012 agreement. New Zealand’s climate change conditional and unconditional commitments post-2012 could have significant financial implications, which will need to be recognised when the commitments are considered to be binding and the Government has no discretion to avoid the liabilities.

Ministry budget and assets

Improving strategy and financial and asset management functions

We have focused on improving our efficiency and effectiveness over a sustained period of time, including introducing a new strategic direction in 2010. To deliver the most effective high quality advice and support, the Ministry has undertaken reviews of management, communications, policy functions, and administrative support while using savings to fund priorities for the Government, including establishing the Environmental Protection Authority and funding the clean up of Tui Mine.

In response to the Performance Improvement Framework review, we continue to make progress under a multi-year project to improve planning and financial management. We have strengthened accountability for budget forecasting and management. We also implemented time recording in 2013 to ensure we have better information for planning and to support resource allocation decisions. We also actively use benchmarking from Benchmarking Administrative and Support Services to improve efficiency.

Processes and technology, and physical assets

We launched a new Information Systems Strategic Plan (ISSP) in November 2011. The ISSP identifies key strategic focus areas where we will concentrate our investment to ensure our information technology enables and supports the organisation to achieve our strategic direction.

In line with the ISSP, our information, communications and technology functions transitioned to a shared services delivery model with Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) in April 2014. As this delivery model matures, it is expected that both organisations will gain increased economies of scale by joining together when considering major IT purchases, as well as being able to leverage organisational learnings on integrating and shared resources and services that can be used to support further opportunities to work across agency boundaries.

Departmental capital and asset management intentions

Historically, the Ministry has incurred capital expenditure of approximately $650,000 per annum. Following the transition to a shared services delivery model with LINZ, the ongoing capital expenditure is expected to reduce to approximately $300,000 per annum for standard capital items that relate mainly to updating our desktop infrastructure. We also allocate some funds to the purchase and development of upgrades to our core systems. For example, we continue to upgrade our Online Waste Levy System to improve our efficiency and effectiveness.

Organisational structure

The Ministry is led by the Environment Leadership Team comprising the Chief Executive and four Deputy Secretaries (including the Tumuaki). The Environment Leadership Team provides strategic leadership to our work programmes, discusses how we operate externally, and how we run the internal business.

Across all divisions, 10 directors hold collective responsibility for delivering the work programme. This includes managing the financial and people resources required to ensure we are well placed to deliver the work and advising the Environment Leadership Team.