Chief Executive’s introduction
This Statement of Intent outlines this Ministry’s goals and the wide range of work we will undertake over the next four years.
We work for the good of New Zealand and its diverse communities. Our aspiration for New Zealanders is that they can be safe, strong and ultimately independent and able to succeed on their own. Our purpose is to help them get there.
Over the next four years, we must continue to deliver high-quality, critical services to New Zealanders in a significantly changed environment.
Over the past two years, the Ministry has driven significant and wide-ranging reform with the Children’s Action Plan, Welfare Reform, Social Housing Reform, and Investing in Services for Outcomes.
We are building on those changes, focused on supporting New Zealand’s vulnerable children and young people, reducing long-term welfare dependence, and achieving those goals with better investment and partnership with community services.
We are working with stronger expectations for public services to be more connected, accessible and centred on people’s needs, and for public money to be used where it will make the most difference.
Both within the Ministry and across the social sector, we are making it easier for people to access the full range of services they need.
Through the Social Sector Forum, the Ministry will continue to lead and collaborate across government agencies for collective impact. We are working across the sector to better align our programmes, resources and services around people’s needs. We are building on our learning from innovative cross-sector approaches, such as the Social Sector Trials and Children’s Teams, with a focus on ways to scale up the approaches that work.
We are enhancing the way we use data to understand the needs of the people we work with. Both within the Ministry and across the social sector, this evidence is helping us to better target services that work to those who need them most.
Within the Ministry, we are driving significant changes to the way we work. To achieve our goals, deliver Government priorities and meet expectations for public services, we need to operate as a streamlined, single enterprise with services arranged around the needs of the people we serve, instead of around business units.
Several programmes of work will contribute to this.
We are simplifying and streamlining our business processes and systems across the Ministry.
We are trialling new approaches to connected service delivery in Christchurch.
We are strengthening our corporate systems to support a more connected enterprise focused on the needs of the people it serves.
We are connecting our data and boosting our ability to create insight to improve our services. As a Ministry that deals in public trust, we are also strongly focused on protecting people’s information.
We are building an open, constructive and collaborative work culture that allows the Ministry and everyone in it to contribute their best as we find better ways to deliver services to the people who need us. When they succeed, we succeed.
Brendan Boyle
Chief Executive
Ministry of Social Development
