The Statement of Intent
Document Structure
This Statement of Intent (SOI) describes what the Ministry intends to do over the next three years, and why. Specific outputs will no doubt change from year to year as agreed with Ministers and in response to our own evaluation of progress. But the broad direction of the Ministry's strategy, and its associated outcomes and strategic priorities should endure over the medium term.
Part A begins with a high level review of New Zealand's economic position, the government's economic objective and the policy approach required to achieve it. Section 2 then summarises the Ministry's strategy for growth, and illustrates our wider outcome framework. How we are putting this into practice is detailed in Section 3 for each of our five strategic priorities.
Section 4 briefly describes the broader set of outcomes that the Ministry is working to achieve, and Section 5 explains how we will evaluate our effectiveness. Part A concludes by outlining the Ministry's plan for developing its organisation and capability to achieve our outcomes.
Part B of the Statement of Intent illustrates how we will use our financial resources to achieve our outcomes. It also includes our Statement of Objectives, which describes in more detail what will be done under each Vote and its associated output classes, and the key outputs we intend to deliver during 2004/2005.
Developments from Last Year
Strategic Focus
This is the Ministry's third Statement of Intent. Most of our effort in strategic planning over the past year has gone into developing our thinking in relation to our strategic priorities (SPs). We have developed an Action Plan for each SP. This SOI provides executive summaries of each SP Action Plan and therefore reflects more of our strategic thinking than its predecessor. In parallel, the descriptive text under each outcome has been shortened. The combined effect is to make this SOI more focused on strategy than the detailed description of deliverables pertaining to each outcome.
Outcome Framework
Our overall outcome framework remains unchanged because the outcomes and priorities remain valid, and because the framework has been useful in:
- providing a narrative about the Ministry's role and how we go about fulfilling it;
- highlighting the priorities managers need to focus on; and
- providing business environment outcomes that help all parts of the organisation see where they fit in the wider picture of the Ministry's work.
The Ministry's increasing emphasis on the strategic priorities may result in some restructuring of the outcome framework in future SOIs. There may be scope, for example, to structure the Business Environment outcomes into more of a hierarchy and/or to improve the integration of the outcomes with the strategic priorities themselves. The Ministry's approach to 'managing for outcomes' continues to evolve, and we will be reviewing the potential for such changes over the coming year.
Shared Outcomes
In addition to having a stronger strategic emphasis, this SOI also focuses more on inter-agency alignment. The Ministry has an ongoing alignment work programme that is described under the section on our Alignment Strategic Priority. Part of this has involved agreeing shared outcomes with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and linked outcomes with the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MoRST). These not only provide an important signal about shared perspectives and priorities: they also provide the basis for improved collaboration, increased sharing of knowledge and ideas, and better co-ordination of work programmes.
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