Organisational development and Capability
The Treasury has a continuous focus on maintaining and developing capability, ensuring we deliver optimal performance and can respond to both present and future challenges.
Through the Stepping Up change programme, work was undertaken over the period to ensure that our capability delivered maximum impact in the areas where we could add the most value. A key part of that was establishing the Organisational Performance Group (OPG) to support the Chief Executive, the Strategic Leadership team and the three policy groups to achieve their three-to five-year direction and associated results.
In our Statement of Intent 2006-2009 we grouped our capabilities around the “TIME management objectives” (see below). The framework we now base our capabilities on has changed and the elements are more detailed. The table below demonstrates the shift from TIME objectives to the current results focus. For more detailed information on these results-focused capabilities, please refer to our Statement of Intent 2007-2010, available on our website at [www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/abouttreasury/soi/2007-10/02.htm]
| TIME Objective (SOI 2006-2009) | Results Focus (As of February 2007) | |
|---|---|---|
| Take the lead |  |
- Maximising our impact – focusing on results - Developing leadership and management |
| Invest in our organisation and its people |  |
- Changing the way we operate – our behaviours - Improving the way we organise ourselves – our structure |
| Manage for outcomes |  |
- Improving our organisational performance in planning, prioritisation, capability and resourcing - Improving our cross-Treasury decision-making - Focusing on quality |
| Engage effectively | |
- Focusing on customer need - Developing effective external engagement |
Capability to deliver on our results
The Treasury’s human resource policies, organisational arrangements and staff development initiatives are designed to help us recruit and retain the best staff possible and to ensure we can deliver on our current and future results. Over the 2006/07 period, an Organisational Development and Capability team (formerly Human Resources) was established to help achieve this.
Our people
Overall staff numbers at the Treasury remain stable. The Treasury employed 308 staff as at the end of June 2007 with a further 13 staff on secondment to various agencies and Ministers’ offices and four seconded to international institutions.
| As at 30 June | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staff Numbers | ||||||
| Full-time staff | 262 | 253 | 275 | |||
| Part-time staff | 46 | 50 | 45 | |||
| Total staff | 308 | 303 | 320 | |||
| Gender distribution | All Staff | |||||
| Women | 50% | 47% | 48% | |||
| Men | 50% | 53% | 52% | |||
| Ethnicity distribution | ||||||
| NZ European | 71.8% | 72% | 70% | |||
| NZ Māori | 4.6% | 5.3% | 6.2% | |||
| Pacific Islander | 2% | 1.6% | 2.2% | |||
| Asian | 4.6% | 3.6% | 3.5% | |||
| Other European | 13% | 13.5% | 15% | |||
| Other ethnic groups | 1% | 1% | 0.6% | |||
| Undeclared | 3% | 3% | 2.5% | |||
| Management staff (male/female) | M | F | M | F | M | F |
| Tier 1 | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| Tier 2 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Tier 3 [*] | 8 | 4 | 20 | 10 | 20 | 11 |
- [*] Tier 3 is defined s reporting to the Deputy Secretaries. The figures for 2006/07 show the shift resulting from our Stepping Up change in management structure.
Staff training and experience
As a knowledge-based organisation, our success in contributing to our outcomes depends on maintaining and developing a talented workforce and making full use of its experience and expertise.
| As at 30 June | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average length of service (years) | 6.17 | 6.6 | 6.2 |
| Proportion of staff staying more than 1 year | 81.5% | 86% | 84% |
Organisational health
Overall the Treasury’s organisational health is at an acceptable level. Staff turnover was 18.9%, compared with 15.4% last year and 13.2% the year before. This increase of 3.5% on last year is reflective of the current tight labour market.
In 2006 we commissioned our biennial staff climate survey for the fourth time. The Treasury’s overall score was 63% positive, which was the same as the overall score in 2004 (63%) and compares with 61% in 2002 and 59% in 2001. Compared with the New Zealand benchmark score of 53%, Treasury staff are significantly more positive than their peers in other New Zealand organisations.
The table below shows various indicators of our organisational health, as measured by our biennial climate survey, compared with our rankings in 2004. The areas that have shown a decline are being addressed through Stepping Up initiatives.
- Figure 3 - Organisational Health and Staff Satisfaction
Management and leadership
A clear Stepping Up priority is the need for a more consistent and focused approach to leadership and management, including the development of future Treasury leaders. As a central agency, we also want to actively shape the agenda and provide more leadership across the wider public sector.
Over the 2006/07 year we:
- created a new position of Deputy Secretary Central Agencies to provide extra focus on working across the three central agencies (State Services Commission, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Treasury) and on implementing the outcomes of the central agencies review
- created new Assistant Secretary (AS) positions to work with the Deputy Secretaries in providing internal leadership and management within the Treasury groups and in engaging with external stakeholders.
Relationships
A critical part of our results specification process was making sure we understood the needs of our customers. In particular, this relates to the Minister of Finance, but also includes key stakeholders and influencers in media and business audiences, as well as colleagues in key government departments and agencies.
Over the 2006/07 year we:
- established an Office of the Chief Executive to undertake specific work around identifying and meeting customer need
- identified potential issues of interest to governments in the future and began to position ourselves to be able to respond to these issues if the need arose
- actively identified and promoted opportunities for external engagement by senior management with key stakeholder audiences, both formal and informal, centred around the Treasury’s work priorities
- proactively and regularly communicated with key media, particularly those with an interest in the economy and in the Treasury’s work, and monitored the organisation’s media coverage and profile
- used the Treasury’s website/s to more effectively meet the needs of all key external audiences and customers, by creating more accessible navigation systems and content.
Being an environmentally sustainable Treasury
The Treasury is one of six public service agencies pioneering the Government’s goal of a carbon neutral public service.
We are required to produce an audited carbon emissions inventory annually from 2006/07, and to have an emissions reduction plan in place by February 2008. Carbon emissions arise from our energy use, business travel and the waste we send to landfill. Our emissions reduction plan will outline the actions we are taking to reduce emissions. These are to be reasonable and cost effective and must not result in reduced departmental performance. The inventory lets us measure our emissions over time, and will track the effect of our reduction efforts. Emissions that can’t be avoided will be offset using New Zealand forestry projects, so that we become carbon neutral by 2012.
As well as becoming carbon neutral, the Treasury has maintained its commitment to the ongoing Govt3 sustainability programme. We implemented an organisation-wide recycling scheme in 2005. Prior to this, our landfill waste “footprint” was around 90 kg per staff member over the whole year. In 2006/07 this has been reduced to 18 kg per staff member. This significant reduction was recognised in October 2006 when the Minister for the Environment presented the Treasury with a Govt3 award for minimising the waste it sends to landfill.
Other steps we’ve taken towards environmental sustainability over the past year include:
- using office paper that has a 50% recycled content
- printing on both sides of each page to reduce the amount of paper used
- setting computer screens to power saver mode after 10 minutes of inactivity, and automatically reminding staff to turn their computers off each night if they forget to
- putting sustainability clauses in supplier contracts as they come up for renewal
- including environmental impact statements in new business proposals, to ensure decision-makers are aware of the consequences of new initiatives, and to identify the likely impact on the Treasury’s carbon emissions inventory
- using an energy-efficient office lighting system.
We have a number of other initiatives underway to further reduce our carbon emissions, and we expect some of these will also create operational efficiencies.
