Maintaining and Monitoring the Quality of our Policy Advice
The Treasury revised its Quality Standards for Policy Advice in 2008. The revised Standards (refer pages 116 and 117) have been used since then as the basis for measuring our performance. An external desktop quality review was commissioned in April 2009 to provide an independent assessment of performance against the Standards.
The objectives of the review were to:
- benchmark the quality of our written advice against the Quality Standards, as the basis for tracking progress over time
- follow through on our commitment to deliver high-quality policy advice, and to report on our performance in the Annual Report 2009, and
- foster “continuous improvement” in our performance: the external review would help in building a picture of the quality of our advice allowing us to learn from our successes, and identifying areas for future improvements.
Key Findings
Fifteen streams of policy advice were reviewed. All were rated as being “satisfactory” or better.
In the opinion of the reviewer, the Treasury's advice displayed the following strengths:
- A breadth of institutional knowledge in many areas of policy and spending.
- A robust approach to identifying and defining problems and issues.
- Advice was contextualised with strong understanding about the role of the Minister of Finance, the Government and the processes of government.
- Advice was supported by analysis, clear reasoning and evidence.
- Advice was communicated concisely and clearly.
- A clear sense of the long-run consequences of current trends such as spending pressures or a continuing relative decline in New Zealand's productivity performance.
The reviewer identified that there was scope for lifting the quality of our advice by having greater emphasis on broader decision-making frameworks, a stronger results orientation, wider and more forward-looking approach to evidence and a greater emphasis on systemic factors and change management.
We are sharing the review findings with Treasury managers and teams, and working with them to address those areas identified as offering the greatest scope for lifting performance.
