King launches development goals report

State Services Minister Annette King says The State of the Development Goals Report 2006 will reinforce New Zealand’s international reputation for having a transparent and trusted public sector.

Ms King, launching the report at a function at Parliament today, says it conveys a picture of leadership, commitment and innovation. “The report is addressed to those working in the State Services, but it also enables New Zealanders generally to understand how well staff are performing across the State Services.”

Ms King says the Government is committed to continuing to lift State Services performance. “In March last year we agreed an ambitious set of Development Goals designed to provide a framework for the next generation of State Services.

This is the first report on progress, and it has two main purposes --- to describe what State Services might look like when the goals are achieved, and to introduce an initial set of indicators for measuring progress toward achieving the goals.

“We can never afford to lose sight of the fact that public trust is not given lightly. As the Public Service Code of Conduct notes, the strength of any state system ‘lies in the extent to which it deserves and holds the respect of its citizens’. Maintaining trust requires continuous effort from everyone working in government.

“As this report shows, the State Services is committed to continuing to improve the experiences all of us have with government agencies, and to track and measure that improvement regularly. It is inevitable, in any process of setting goals and measuring performance, that sometimes there will be evidence of practice below the high standards we want, but that should be seen as a positive outcome, not a negative one.”

Ms King also launched a second report today --- the Rotorua Research Pilot --- that complements the major report. The Rotorua report focuses on what is happening with access to service delivery in one particular region.

“New Zealand’s State Services certainly perform well overall, but, as society and expectations change, State Services must continue to implement fresh initiatives to maintain and improve that performance.”

For further information see: www.ssc.govt.nz/sdg-report06
www.ssc.govt.nz/accessible-report06

Contact: John Harvey (04) 471 9305, John Saunders (04) 470 6851.