A government that relies too much on anecdote, doesn’t have enough specialists in top positions and isn’t properly held to account. That was the disagnosis from Len Cook, who used to be head of statistics for both the New Zealand and the UK governments, and who gave a very entertaining – but also worrying –...
Read more →The recent fate of UK leaders in New Zealand highlights the difficulty of parachuting in managers from one country to another. Every country has different rules for its public services – which is why UK civil servants aren’t always a hit overseas. “An unexpected journey” is the subtitle of the first Hobbit film, New...
Read more →Unions fear government spending on consultants could skyrocket after it was revealed that the bill hit $375 million last financial year – and John Key warned of “significant” restructuring to come. The Government spent more than $375 million on consultants and contractors in 2010-11 as a series of government restructurings made thousands of public...
Read more →Government funding cuts could see struggling district health boards (DHBs) go further into deficit, the Treasury has admitted. In a briefing paper, officials say the boards will have find an extra $258 million over the next four years because the government no longer subsidises their Kiwisaver and pensions contributions. “If an individual DHB is...
Read more →A belief that there shouldn’t be profit in public service has led one former council chief executive to pledge a £100,000 redundancy payout back to the public, but it’s also a break with the past, he says. Jim McKenna is not, he insists, a saint. He is, in his own words, an “ordinary” guy...
Read more →A pioneering project in north London shows the value of getting public agencies to work together. But having one person ‘go into bat’ for vulnerable families is just as important. Angela, a cute one-year-old with tight pigtails, plays placidly amongst the scattered toys in the Packington Estate’s children’s centre in north London. A year...
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