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Perspectives

Public and Private: A Tale of Strife and Synergy

The private and public sectors have long been considered chalk and cheese. With one prizing profit and the other service, they seem unlikely bedfellows. But is there still a gaping ideological chasm between the two or is the divide closing in interesting and heartening ways? Claire Finlayson takes a look.

  • 11 Apr 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Public Service

Overboard with Dashboards

Many in the public sector believe data-reporting methods, like dashboards, overpromise and underdeliver. Kevin Jenkins agrees but says it doesn’t have to be that way, and performance dashboards and other data-driven reporting can be much more insightful and useful than they usually are.

  • 11 Apr 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Data
  • Reporting

The State of the Core State: Is the Glass Mainly Full or Partly Empty?

The Working in the Public Service survey was conducted for IPANZ and survey partner BusinessDesk by research firm Perceptive in September and October 2022. This is the first of several articles that explore the findings.

  • 03 Apr 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Public Servant
  • Public Service

Seeing the beauty in public policy

Ruby-Ann Burgess (Ngāti Pākehā) is the recipient of the 2022 IPANZ Public Administration Prize for the top student in PUBL 311 Emerging Perspectives in Public Management at Victoria University of Wellington School of Government. Ruby shares how studying public policy has excited and changed her.

  • 24 Mar 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Public Policy

IPANZ President’s message

  • 24 Mar 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Political Neutrality
  • Public Servant
  • Public Service
  • Trust & Confidence

Public Sector Heroes

Kiri Marshall grew up in a forestry community that was wary of bureaucracy. Now she is proud to be working in the ACC Contact Centre, changing attitudes and making a difference. Kathy Ombler chats to her.

  • 24 Mar 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Public Servant
  • Public Service

POLITICAL NOUS – an experiment with CHATGPT

As an experiment, IPANZ asked a question about political nous of the AI chatbot ‘ChatGPT’.

  • 13 Mar 2023
  • 2023
  • Best Practice
  • Political Nous

The "Demand side" – Helping Ministers to be intelligent customers of policy services

A recent IPANZ/Productivity Commission round table concluded that public servants should be more courageous in their advice to ministers and more leadership was required. Sally Washington, Australia NZ School of Government (ANZSOG) Executive Director Aotearoa, unpicks the dimensions of great relationships between ministers and their departments. IPANZ and ANZSOG intend future collaboration to explore issues at the political–administrative interface.

  • 21 Feb 2023
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Policy Advice
  • Public Servant

Determination, Fashion, and Humility - a conversation with the 2022 Young Leader of the Year award at the Spirit of Service Awards

The 2022 Young Leader of the Year award at the Spirit of Service Awards went to Mary Soonaoso Tiumalu. Claire Finlayson chats with her about the kind of leader she is and the things that challenge and excite her.

  • 06 Dec 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Leadership
  • Public Service

Introducing Margie Apa, the new Chief Executive of Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand

Fepulea‘i Margie Apa is the head of the new health organisation Te Whatu Ora | Health New Zealand. It employs around 80,00 staff, having merged twenty District Health Boards and a further seven shared service agencies into one organisation. Simon Minto chats to her about her background and asks where she wants the organisation to head.

  • 06 Dec 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Health
  • Leadership
  • Public Service Reform

Navigating Indigenous relations across the ditch - Lil Anderson

Lil Anderson has been in Australia since April. In the December issue of the Public Sector journal Kirsten Rose catches up with her and asks her about her impressions of the Australian public service and other things Australian.

  • 06 Dec 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • International Relations
  • Maori-Crown Relationships
  • Public Service
  • Public Service Reform

Risk Is Not A Four-Letter Word!

It’s a way to embrace uncertainty and enable success Managing risk sounds chronically dull to many. David Nalder, who’s spent thirty years helping organisations understand and manage risk effectively, sees it differently. He views “risk” as an inherent part of success, management, performance, and decision making.

  • 04 Oct 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Public Service
  • Risk Management
  • Wellington

The Constitution is a Taonga

Our constitution is unwritten. Tyson Hullena explores the benefits of our constitutional arrangements and how its interaction with Te Tiriti presents great opportunities for Aotearoa as a whole.

The constitution of Aotearoa is in a constant state of flux. Our constitution has slowly and reactively changed to reflect societal preferences. Each reaction has added its own flavour, influencing the constitution in a different way.
The purpose of this piece is to discuss and track how our constitution continues to change...

  • 04 Oct 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Governance
  • Public Service
  • Te Tiriti
  • Wellington

Poipoia te kākano kia puawai – the power of support

Rawinia Thompson (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine) is the recipient of the 2021 IPANZ Public Administration Prize awarded to the top student in PUBL 311 Emerging Perspectives in Public Management at Victoria University of Wellington School of Government.
She began her career in the public service in 2017 in an administrative role at the Ministry of Education. After working full-time and resuming studying part-time for just over two years, she graduated in early 2021 with a degree in public policy and political science. She is now a Senior Policy Analyst at Manatū Hauora, Ministry of Health. Rawinia shares some reflections on her study and her experience in the public service so far.

  • 20 Sep 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • New Professionals
  • Public Service
  • Te Reo
  • Te Tiriti

Getting the Relationship Right: Effective Engagement with Ministers

Getting the relationship right: Effective engagement with ministers across the political/administrative interface
What’s the secret to building and maintaining great relationships with ministers? What can public servants do to effectively support ministers as they navigate both the political landscape and bureaucratic hurdles? Liam Russell reports on the key takeaways from a recent panel discussion jointly hosted by IPANZ and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), where a former prime minister, a current minister, a chief executive, and a former prime minister’s chief of staff reflected on the drivers of a good relationship – and shared their advice and insights on managing stresses and strains and building an enduring foundation of trust.

  • 07 Sep 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Parliament
  • Policy Advice
  • Public Servant
  • Public Service

Collaboration: Reflections on the IPANZ Webinar Series

Bill Ryan, Adjunct Professor, School of Government, Victoria University, reflects on the outcomes from the IPANZ webinar series on collaboration.

The IPANZ webinars held during May and focusing on moving collaboration forward were welcome.
Each webinar canvassed the following three questions:

  • What has the public service done so far to better enable collaborative work?
  • What can be done next to further reduce barriers to collaborative work?
  • What are the difficult issues for the public service and how can these complex trade-offs be addressed?


  • 07 Sep 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Collaboration
  • Public Service
  • Wellington

Public Sector Heroes and Heroines

In the September Issue of Public Sector Journal - Special Feature: New leaders in the Public Sector Enhancing Te Taiao Te Papa Atawhai has presented its first ever Matariki Awards, celebrating staff who make an extraordinary contribution towards enhancing DOC’s role as a Te Tiriti o Waitangi partner. Humble, courageous, and inclusive were words used to describe joint winners, Jeff Milham and Martin Rodd. Kathy Ombler went to meet them. Te Papa Atawhai’s Matariki Awards were introduced to recognise the first Matariki public holiday, says Huia Lloyd, Director, Kāhui Kaupapa Atawhai.

  • 07 Sep 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Leadership
  • Public Servant
  • Public Service
  • Te Tiriti

Getting to the Table: Lifting the Veil on Barriers to Allyship

In the upcoming September issue of our Public Sector Journal, Chikita Kodikal explains a hopeful new way of getting minority and marginalised communities to the table.

  • 07 Sep 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Diversity
  • Public Service

Elbowing Through the Crowd

Ihlara McIndoe wants to see women at all levels of the public service, but she’s troubled by a trend she sees among conversations about women in leadership.

  • 09 Jun 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Equality
  • Leadership
  • Public Service

What Do Network Leaders Do?

The trouble is that this increasing interconnectedness does not reduce our requirement for leadership. By creating new and tough problems and undermining the legitimacy and effectiveness of some of the traditional institutional responses to them, it actively increase it. But the question is what kind of leadership do we need?

  • 08 Jun 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Leadership
  • Public Service
  • Wellington

Systems Thinking

During 2022 and onwards, IPANZ will regularly be focussing on systems, and the thinking and actions needed to work effectively with systems beyond the boundaries of our organisations and sectors
This is a brief introduction to a definition of systems thinking and the first steps in thinking in this way. We would welcome ideas/articles/blogs or the work of great thinkers in this area, just contact us with your recommendations.

  • 08 Jun 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Public Service
  • Wellington

Legislation You Probably Didn’t Know About

You may have heard that when Russia invaded Ukraine, some New Zealanders decided to travel there and take up arms to help defend Ukraine. But, in fact, it was actually illegal. Under the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Act 2004, being a mercenary in foreign conflict is not allowed. At the time the Act was passed, the minister Phil Goff said that mercenary activities are “effectively paid murder”.
To many people, this came as a surprise. But what other pieces of legislation might surprise you?

  • 02 Jun 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Governance
  • Legislation
  • Wellington

Panama Legislates to Give Nature Rights

“In Panama, scientists, lawyers and politicians are working together to dismantle current legal systems and popular mindsets about Nature. And, they’re collaborating to build it back better for the future of their country and the planet.

  • 26 Apr 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Collaboration
  • Public Service
  • Science

Brief Deep Dive - Outsourcing by Max Harris

A really fascinating paper came out this week on outsourcing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (thanks to Wilbur Townsend for flagging to me - who’s worth a follow on Twitter for good tweets, especially on economic policy). It compares private and public ambulance performance in Sweden. It found a few things. First, the evidence on the merits of ‘outsourcing’ - the process where the state contracts out key services to private (often for-profit) providers - is very thin. Second, private ambulances perform worse than public ambulances in Sweden on mortality outcomes. Thirdly, private ambulances “cost innovate” by driving down labour costs, resulting in the employment of staff with less experience and less training, who work longer hours with greater use of overtime.

  • 26 Apr 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Public Service

Working Jointly in the New Zealand Public Sector – We Have Come a Long Way and Not Got Very Far

Working jointly across public agencies has been described as the holy grail or the philosopher’s stone of public management. Joint work is particularly important in New Zealand where, by world standards, there are a relatively large number of small public agencies. The Public Service Act 2020 has introduced a legal mandate for public joint ventures, and the Office of the Auditor-General recently reported on the difficulties experienced in the operation of one of the new joint ventures focused on family violence. IPANZ therefore decided to focus attention on this important set of developments.

  • 11 Apr 2022
  • 2022
  • Best Practice
  • Collaboration
  • Public Service