IPANZ E-Update - September 2019

A cautionary tale of phishing

Last week, someone in Australia sent out an email from IPANZ to 400 of our members, apparently about an RFP. It was a complete scam, our email was hacked. To all of you who received the message, I do apologise. We had moderately complex passwords set for our emails but even still, one password was compromised.

Quoting the advice often given by the State Services Commissioner, we owned it, fixed it and learnt from it. It was detected very quickly, disabled, checked whether it was opened, and the potential harm was reduced, thanks to our IT service provider. We have fixed it by changing to a more secure and more complex password regime and we are also investigating whether two factor authentication is suitable for IPANZ.

It is worth noting that phishing training is available from a number of providers. One of the organisations of which I am a Director contracted an external provider to undertake an in-house phishing test. A few were caught out by scam emails, and some important lessons were learnt.

We have certainly learnt some lessons in IPANZ.

Shenagh

Event Update

Since our last e-newsletter we have held the following events, each providing attendees with important lessons/insights across the sector. If you would like to catch up with any of the lessons/insights from these events, click on the links below and you will be directed to further information.

IPANZ AGM with Guest Speaker Dr Chris Eichbaum – The 2019 Public Service ‘Reset’ - tweak or transformation?

The Axford Fellowships in Public Policy – 2019 Fellows’ Report-Back Seminars. From the Changing Nature of Work to Strategies for (Re)Building Community Trust, you can read the available reports here

New Professionals Courageous Conversations – The New Professionals launched this new event series aimed at providing a space for new professionals in the public sector to honestly and openly discuss some of the trickier aspects of the 9-5 grind. This first Conversation focused on mental health in the workplace.

We’ll be partnering with different organisations to start a conversation and bring you tools, ideas and advice on overcoming challenges to live your best work life. Keep an eye out for the next session.

IPANZ Deloitte Public Sector Conference – this year speakers considered the future of work within the public sector, reflecting on the past, looking at the present and discussing the future changes that will make the biggest impact for New Zealanders.

We have provided below a link to the presentations from our public sector conference.

To whet your appetite we attach to this email a selection of some of the slides from Len Cook’s address. We have picked out the slides where he lays out four critical issues of the public service for 2020 – definitely food for thought. We hope this prompts you to dig deeper into this and other conference presentations.

To view the available presentations go to the conference website and click the yellow 'More Info' button on each speaker to find links to her/his presentation.

Parliament in Practice – a perennial favourite in the IPANZ training calendar. We were delighted to welcome a capacity audience this week, with people from a very wide range of agencies, within and outside Wellington and beyond the core public sector. Attendees learnt all about the operations of parliament, from those tasked with overseeing the roles and functions in Parliament, including legislative, select committee and cabinet processes.

Looking ahead - we have been overwhelmed with the interest in our refreshed Effective Engagement with Māori workshop – the workshop was fully booked within 36 hours. We are sorry for those who have missed out on registering, but we plan to run this again in early 2020 and perhaps more regularly in 2020 if interest remains high. If you would like to register you interest in future workshops please email fiona@ipanz.org.nz

Handy Tip - Downloading Event Appointments

Did you know that you can add the IPANZ Events you have registered for into your outlook calendar?

When you register for an event an event confirmation is emailed to you. Included in the event confirmation email is an outlook calendar appointment (see the image below). Simply open and save this appointment and it will add all the essential event information into your calendar - including the event title, time and location of the event.

Check out the Policy Project's refreshed Policy Quality Framework!

How good is the quality of your policy advice? The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Policy Project has launched its refreshed Policy Quality Framework to help you answer that question. The refreshed framework provides the policy community with a common set of standards that specify what good quality advice looks like. The framework incorporates the best elements of the original Policy Quality Framework and other policy quality frameworks in use.

How you can use the framework

You can use the framework to help you improve the quality of your advice and ensure it is fit for purpose. The framework can be used by:

• individuals developing advice or providing peer review
• policy managers commissioning or reviewing policy advice
• panels or others assessing the quality of the advice before (ex-ante) or after it has been delivered (ex-post)
• agencies to:
• – hold themselves accountable for the quality of their advice
• – benchmark the quality of their advice over time, and relative to their peers.

All public service policy agencies are required to use the framework to report on the quality of their policy advice in their Annual Reports from 2019/20 onwards.

What is the framework?

The framework sets out four high-level standards for quality advice – Context, Analysis, Advice and Action.

Each of the four overarching standards are supported by elements that describe the high-level characteristics of quality advice in more detail. Further information is available on the Policy Project’s website, including the summary and full versions of the Policy Quality Framework, a checklist for reviewing papers in development, and a guide for policy quality review panels that are assessing papers after their delivery.

For the first time, we have a common framework for assessing the quality of policy advice that must be applied by all government agencies with a policy function. This means policy practitioners won’t need to relearn quality standards when they move from agency to agency. A universal framework promotes greater cohesion across agencies.

The quality of our policy advice is important because it supports better government decision-making and a better New Zealand.