Managing the performance of our departmental assets
Asset services and their management
Our client services are supported by many assets that assist ourselves and our shared service partners to deliver services including visiting clients, communicating, facilitating face-to-face discussion, and meeting together online. Maintaining the fitness for purpose and availability of assets through strong asset management practice and performance monitoring is essential to optimising the value of the significant investment in our asset services.
Asset performance measures
Our asset performance framework groups monitoring and reporting into Property and Technology asset portfolios. This breakdown, as further described below, reflects the different management approaches required to manage and monitor our significant assets. Performance indicators further focus monitoring effort on the areas of significant impact to asset condition, utilisation and functionality. Asset performance measures and standards are approved at the start of each financial year by our Investment Committee.
Asset portfolios
Property
These assets provide more than 222,000m² of commercial office space (the majority of which are located within leased rather than owned premises) to house Ministry and shared service staff across New Zealand. These assets are key to enabling us to facilitate face-to-face engagement with clients.
We actively collaborate with the Government Property Group and other government agencies to provide effective and safe office accommodation.
Our asset performance results and standards for 2018/19 are set out in the table below. Comparative data and targets have been provided wherever possible.
Technology
We monitor asset performance within two broad categories: internally generated software and computer equipment. These categories together play a critical role in ensuring we can provide services in a timely, reliable and efficient way, and in accordance with current government policy and legislation. The services provided through these assets are significant, with over 300 software applications currently under management. More recent investment has expanded into enabling client engagement through online digital channels.
We continue to work with the Office of the Government Chief Digital Officer, which leads and assists agencies in meeting their goals for the effective use of technology.
Property assets
| 2017/18 Actual Standard | Measure | Indicator | 2018/19 Approved Standard | 2018/19 Actual Standard |
| Work -point density (area per work point [m2]): | Utilisation | |||
| 26.0 | - Client-facing service sites [52] | <28 | 25.4 | |
| 12.6 | - Regional/National Offices [53] | <15 | 12.6 | |
| n/a | Percentage of leased commercial premises at a moderate or better condition [54] | Condition | n/a | 84% |
| n/a | Percentage commercial leased premises with moderate or better site suitability [55] | Functionality | n/a | 84% |
Technology assets
Intangible - internally generated software
| 2017/18 Actual Standard | Measure | Indicator | 2018/19 Approved Standard | 2018/19 Actual Standard |
| 99.73% | Percentage of time core applications are available for use [56] | Availability | >99.00% | 99.57% |
| n/a | Percentage of available CMS licences allocated to staff [57] | Utilisation | n/a | 96.9% |
| n/a | Percentage of Tier 1 software applications that are in support [58] | Condition | n/a | 85.2% |
Technology assets
Computer equipment
| 2017/18 Actual Standard | Measure | Indicator | 2018/19 Approved Standard | 2018/19 Actual Standard |
| 99.99% | Percentage of time the vendor managed network is available for use | Availability | >99.96% | 99.99% |
| 84.71% | Percentage of IT disk storage capacity utilised [59] | Utilisation | <85% | 50.47% |
| 40.75% | Percentage of IT infrastructure hardware assets under five years of age [60] | Condition | >38% | 38.22% |
Footnotes
[52] This measure includes both leased and owned MSD sites that have the primary purpose of delivering face-to-face services to clients. Targets have been based on historic averages and take into account proposed changes to operating models.
[53] This measure includes both leased and owned MSD offices for back office functions. Performance under this measure is managed using the utilisation standard as set by the Government Property Group, which indicates office space utilisation should be between 12 and 16m 2 per FTE.
[54] This new measure provides an assessment of office condition calculated from rating several office components: site and building exterior, building design, building systems, and fitout and furniture.
[55] Suitability is a new measure that calculates an overall assessment rating from scoring office components that cannot be improved via capital investment alone, such as site location, size, floor shape, and natural light.
[56] Core applications are defined as systems the criticality of which is such that any issue that occurs is resolved as a high priority. The result reflects applications availability during core operational hours (7.30am – 7.30pm Monday to Friday and 8am – 2pm Saturday).
[57] CMS is our key client case management system. This new measure shows that available (purchased) licences are being efficiently utilised.
[58] This new measure is a proxy of the condition of Tier 1 software applications, as the support provided through regular upgrades, defect and security fixes is vital to enabling software applications to function correctly and securely. Remaining in support is also vital to ensure applications remain fit for purpose. Tier 1 applications are those that are critical for the support of our services.
[59] The 2018/19 disk storage measure target was set at 85 percent to ensure sufficient headroom capacity (15 percent) to accommodate any unplanned or unexpected demand.
[60] The age of hardware is a proxy indicator of condition, as the risk of outages in storage, server and network hardware is generally higher as hardware ages and after vendor support is withdrawn. The 2018/19 target was set at a level that managed the areas of highest risk while balancing the funding available.
