The BIZ Unit's major role in the BIZ programme is to manage the contracts of BIZ providers. Other roles include tendering and negotiating contracts, and providing the relevant Ministers and Ministry management with information relating to the programme.

The contracts are currently managed by two contract managers, with the manager of the BIZ Unit also taking on a small contract management role. Each contract manager is responsible for his/her own portfolio of contracts.

The contract managers take an active role in liasing with providers and developing a relationship of trust. Over the course of a year, between 1,500 and 1,800 contacts are made. This includes at least two visits to each provider each year, and numerous phone calls, emails, and letters. Each provider is contacted at least once a month. In addition, the BIZ Unit distributes information to providers via BIZ News, and encourages and in some cases organises networking sessions between BIZ providers.

The contract managers see their roles as follows:

They arepoints of contact between the Government and providers, and convey the government's objectives to providers;
They arerisk managers in terms of financial and political risks to the government, and risk to the policy;
They have aproblem identificationrolein that they seek to discover providers' problems before they escalate, and provide support to curtail and control the problems;
They arebrokers between the community and the Government, communicating government polices and providing feedback on community concerns;
They have a role in disseminating useful information to providers, and in promoting information sharing between providers;
They aim to place the contracts into a policy perspective to allow the BIZ programme to meet the government objectives; and
They have anadministrativerolein terms of, for example, dealing with bill payments, feedback and reporting.

Reporting Processes

Providers report directly to their assigned contract managers. The contract managers carry out an initial audit of the contracts to ensure the providers have delivered according to their contracts. The contract managers then partially process and record this information in the manner of their choosing, but not consistently (see section 3.2).

The reports are then given to another BIZ Unit staff member for the second phase of processing. During this phase, the information is entered into a database where the reported information is matched against the invoices. The information contained in this database includes:

The name of each provider and each of the workshops, seminars and courses they are contracted to run, including the date and location of the courses, minimum target numbers and target audiences;
The actual number of course, workshop and seminar participants, including breakdowns of the sex and ethnicity of participants²¹;
The total number of sessions delivered and places filled, with overall statistics on the gender and ethnicity of participants;
Summary of the statistical data required in the reports (refer to section 2.1 for a description of these data).

This information is used for a variety of purposes including: matching against invoices when they arrive from providers; reporting to the senior Ministry management; feeding back to providers through BIZ News; and for use in external presentations.

Documentation of Systems and Procedures

The BIZ Unit has developed a Key Procedural Manual for staff to follow. This manual contains procedures and systems on how to deal with matters relating to:

Key performance indicators
Contract variation requests
Invoices
Provider compliance reviews
Milestone reporting
Relationship management
Reporting

Earlier Reviews and Surveys of the BIZ Programme

In August 1999 the "BIZ Programme Provider Review"²² was completed. This review was commissioned by the BIZ Unit in response to specific questions asked by the Minister of Business Development. Its purpose was to establish whether the appropriate SMEs were actually attending the programme, whether the programme was actually meeting their management skill enhancement needs, and whether those needs were changing over the short period of time the programme had operated.

The main findings of this review were that:

Appropriate SMEs were attending the programme;
The programme appeared to be meeting the management capability enhancement needs of SMEs;
Providers were managing the higher than expected demand for places in their programmes by using waiting lists, applications for contract variations, prioritisation, suggesting alternative courses/providers and by undertaking business needs assessments. Undersubscription did not appear to be widespread;
Future programmes could benefit from charging participants and allowing sponsorship;
The relationship between BIZInfo and the BIZ Programme providers needed to be strengthened;
A market gap for delivery of business start up assistance should be considered and dealt with;
The BIZ Unit needed to increase the level of the communication with providers and reinforce the delivery requirements of the provider contracts;
The types of organisations that the Ministry requires not to participate in the programme should be made clear to providers; and
Contract managers need to be fully aware of the policy background of the programme in order to manage providers.

A separate survey focusing on businesses' awareness of the programme was completed in August 1999 was "Assessing Awareness and Understanding of the New BIZ Programme"²³. The main findings of this review were that:

After three months in operation, there was a significant level of awareness of the BIZ programme;
There was a positive level of interest in the services offered under BIZ, and interest appeared to be greater among businesses without established support links, women and Maori; and
About half of the SMEs aware of BIZ said they didn't need its help. This was a barrier to be overcome if businesses are to benefit from what BIZ has to offer.

3.2 The Ministry's Administration and Management Systems for Contract Management and for Dealing with BIZ Providers Generally

Based on our observations of written materials and interviews with Ministry staff, we have formed the following conclusions:

Internal Systems

In order to carry out the contract management process effectively, there is a need for good staff, and for systems that support and reinforce good practice. The staff appears to be competent and dedicated, and the provider surveys have generally highlighted this.

The systems as given in the Key Procedural Manual, to ensure that BIZ Unit staff carry out a range of tasks consistently, also appear to be very thorough and robust.

In addition, the Unit maintains easily retrievable, well documented hard copies of all contacts with clients. This information is stored in a way that ensures all members of the BIZ Unit have ready access to the documents.

However, contract management may have been hampered in the past by the absence of an internal electronic contract management system. The BIZ Unit has recently implemented an interim system. This will enhance efficiency by removing the need for contract managers to refer to original documentation (primarily the providers' contracts) each time they are required to deal with a provider.

Previously, all contract managers managed certain aspects of his/her contracts differently. For example, one contract manager had developed a comprehensive database to aid the initial processing of reports, while another contract manager carried out this task manually. Given that each contract manager looks after his/her own contracts, this could have led to inconsistencies in the treatment of providers, which under a worst-case scenario could have led to unnecessary differences in performance among providers.

The computerised contract management system will not only enhance efficiency in the contract management process; it will also ensure consistency in the treatment of information by contract managers, and could be used as a tool to benchmark best practices. Furthermore, it will minimise the risks arising from potential inconsistencies in contract management processes.

A potential problem with the current contract management process is that there are weaker than desirable internal review procedures. The manager of the BIZ Unit would generally be expected to undertake this role. However, the BIZ Unit claims that lack of resourcing has resulted in the need for the manager to pursue a contract management role, restricting the amount of time available for reviewing the work of the contract managers.

We consider that in order for the contract management process to be more effective, additional staff resources need to be devoted to the BIZ Unit. One extra contract manager would free up the Unit manager's time, allowing the manager to devote more time to reviewing staff work.

Client Satisfaction Information

An important function of contract management revolves around ensuring that providers' outputs are meeting the aim of the programme in general.

A significant weakness in the system is the absence of quantified data about key aspects of the programme, in terms of service quality and costs, compared to service volumes which are monitored rigorously. Contract managers form judgements as to provider performance on quality and costs from observation of individual providers and in comparison with the group as a whole. While we have no reason to question their judgement, it would be preferable if these could be reinforced by quantified data.

Much reliance is placed on client satisfaction measurements, which many providers incorporate as a performance measure. Our view is that the current system for reporting client satisfaction is not providing a sufficiently robust measure.

Under the current system, clients fill out client satisfaction evaluation forms at the completion of a course and return the forms to the providers. Providers then analyse the forms and report back to the Ministry with the results.

However, there are a number of unsatisfactory features of this system. Firstly, the evaluation forms designed by the providers and are neither consistent nor necessarily professional. Allowing providers to decide on the content of the evaluation forms can introduce biases (accidentally or deliberately), through their being able to target questions to the areas they feel will increase their reported levels of client satisfaction. This system could also give providers opportunities to falsify the results of the evaluation forms.

Moreover, completion is generally at the end of a course, when participants are on a "high", before they have had a chance to consider the usefulness of a course in a measured way, and before they have tried to use the skills learnt for day-to-day business management.

If reliance is to be placed on client satisfaction measures, they need to be measured professionally, with providers left out of the client assessment stage as far as practicable. A standardised, professional evaluation form (possibly with additional questions tailored to meet the specifications of each provider) should be given to clients to be filled in and sent straight back to the Ministry. In order to ensure that an adequate response rate is obtained, pre-paid envelopes would need to be provided with the evaluation forms.

The forms completed by clients should, where practicable, lend themselves to computer reading to make data capture as easy as possible. Advantages of a more standardised evaluation process would include enabling the Ministry to:

compare providers;
provide consistent feedback to providers;
determine a nationwide perspective; and
determine which providers are not delivering as effectively as required.

Service Quality Information

We have more general concerns about adequate measures of service quality.

Relevant aspects of service quality are include whether service content (e.g. course materials) is:

well targeted at client needs;
competently designed and developed;
delivered in a professional manner by suitable people; and
subject to a robust system to ensure quality is maintained.

Ultimately, the test is whether the services provide the client with useful enhancements in management capability which can lead to business improvement.

The latter is difficult to measure with any confidence as a range of factors can influence the effective application of new skills (and surveys of BIZ clients undertaken during the course of this evaluation did not attempt to measure this directly, although the opinions of BIZ clients on the impact of their participation in BIZ were sought). However, the design and delivery aspects can be assessed professionally.

Client satisfaction measures can assess quality, but the value of this assessment may be limited when clients are inexperienced business people with limited awareness of their own needs and/or benchmarks against which to compare BIZ services.

The review of course materials undertaken as part of the compliance reviews is also of limited assistance, in that they only attempt a limited review of the materials, and more extensive reviews may be outside the professional expertise of the reviewers. This can at best enable a judgement to be made as to whether services are adequate or not.

We have not been able to form a confident assessment of service quality. However our general impression is that there do not appear to be services which are inadequate, but there is considerable variation in quality, ranging from "satisfactory" to "excellent".

We observed for example that some providers had developed very good materials, e.g. where the service represented an extension of existing offerings (or in one instance, where an extensive development process was undertaken involving a significant commitment of money and senior staff). Others' materials could best be described as "basic".

Clearly, the ability of the BIZ Unit to monitor this aspect has been limited by the need to implement and operate contract management systems, within the time constraints the programme has operated under. However, this is an area for future development comprising:

professional assessment of service quality;
possibly setting standards and including these as contractual performance measures; and
promoting improvements by providers by, for example, spreading "best practice" amongst providers as a group.

Unit Cost Information

The costs per unit of services delivered (e.g. costs per course, per participant or per participant-day) are a fundamental measure of the cost-effectiveness of individual providers - value for money - and of the programme as a whole. The BIZ Unit considers that some providers appear to have very high unit costs relative to the services they are delivering, but does not have any robust comparable estimates of this.

While some contracts have unit costs specified in their schedules, others do not. Providers, to a large degree, prepared the schedules themselves, so whether or not unit costs are included in the contracts depends on whether providers offered to include this information.

The absence of unit cost measures may have arisen out of the tender/ negotiation process. The Ministry would not have had information with which to estimate acceptable unit costs before receiving proposals. Comparing unit costs in proposals was one of many issues to consider in a very short space of time, and the Ministry would have had limited scope to negotiate over this when faced with limited choice amongst providers. Deriving unit cost measures has not subsequently been possible in light of other management priorities.

It must also be acknowledged that comparing unit costs is only valid when services are comparable, and with the considerable diversity in providers' services, deriving unit costs from which genuine comparisons can be made may be difficult or impossible.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the absence of hard data on unit costs is a matter of some concern. We consider that the Ministry needs to firstly examine its available data on unit costs, and determine whether meaningful comparisons can be made; and attempt to derive bands of unit costs for "comparable" services, to measure the performance of providers.

As contracts will effectively "lock in" unit costs over the contract duration, this process needs to be undertaken before new contracts are signed.

Eligibility Criteria for the Programme

The eligibility criteria do not appear to have caused major difficulties to date (recognising that any criteria will always have definitional queries at the margin). The BIZ Programme Provider Review²⁴ revealed that 98% of BIZ clients attending the programme in the period preceding the review were eligible to attend the courses.

The Ministry states that it wanted to maintain flexibility in the programme, which is why it has not provided a definition of an eligible client. Instead, it has clarified which clients are not eligible. It wants to leave it up to providers to target the specific needs of the SME community in their delivery region. The BIZ Unit communicates descriptions of who is not eligible to attend BIZ programmes to providers.

We consider that consideration be given by the Ministry to establishing a positive definition of an eligible client for the purposes of this programme. This would aid the contract management process, and would add clarity to providers' perceptions of the aims of the BIZ programme.

Another potential problem in relation to eligibility is that some providers may inadvertently be delivering to ineligible clients. A way of overcoming this would be for the Ministry to supply all providers with standardised application forms that providers' prospective clients have to fill out. The forms will contain the need for certain information that providers can use to determine whether the applicants are eligible to attend.

3.3 Overview: Programme Implementation

The predecessor to the BIZ programme was the Business Development Programme (BDP). The Cabinet agreed to a framework for the review of the BDP in December 1997 (CIE (97) M 37/8 and CAB (97) M 47/16A refer). This arose in response to a number of concerns about the BDP, including:

It was costly to deliver and difficult to administer;
There was a low level of awareness among the business sector of the BDP; and
There were overlaps between the BDP and other public and private sector initiatives already in place.

The Ministry of Commerce undertook a consultation round with interested parties, an analysis of overseas SME assistance programmes, and a large literature search on impediments to business growth and development. The Ministry also looked at other government programmes that were in place and performed a gap analysis in order to determine the needs of the market.

Based on the research and the consultation rounds, the design and operational details of the BIZ programme were finalised just before mid-1998. Its philosophy and approach was new to the Ministry, including features such as delivering services through private providers under contract, with providers themselves defining local needs and the types of services required to meet them. This policy had significant implications for all aspects of the implementation process and management of the programme.

In August/September 1998 the Minister confirmed that he wanted the programme in operation by late December 1998/early January 1999. This timeframe was substantially shorter than the Ministry had anticipated, and resulted in a very rushed tender process.

In September 1998 the Ministry of Commerce sought expressions of interest from organisations to design and deliver business development services for SMEs. All organisations that sent in an expression of interest received a Request for Proposal (RFP). This document described the tender process and the format within which proposals were to be written. Proposals were to be with the Ministry by 13 November 1998.

A committee to manage the tender process was established. This committee was chaired by the Ministry of Commerce, and had members representing Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and Local Government New Zealand. This management committee established a team to evaluate the tender proposals.

The first step in the evaluation process involved an initial look through the proposals to ensure that they complied with the mandatory criteria as specified in the RFP. Proposals that didn't comply were removed.

Next, each proposal was assessed by the evaluation team on set criteria, shortlists of "preferred providers" were produced, and reference checks were carried out on these providers.

Then, more thorough evaluations were carried out in terms of geographical coverage and target group allocations.

In terms of the geographical analysis, all proposals from a particular region were compared on a number of criteria, and based on this, preferred providers for each region were selected.

In order to evaluate Maori, Women and Pacific Peoples target group providers, the following factors were analysed:

the capacity of the proposed providers to effectively deliver to the stated target group; and
the breadth and depth of services to be delivered.

The target group proposals were also evaluated on a geographical basis to ensure that a good spread resulted.

Following this, an analysis by cost was carried out.

At the completion of the evaluation phase, a negotiation process was carried out between the Ministry and the preferred providers. This was required because the Ministry had insufficient funding to purchase the complete programme recommended by the evaluation team. The negotiation process therefore involved changing the costs, coverage and targeting of the preferred providers.

The negotiation process began in early January 1999. This was to result in signed contracts by February 1999. There was a slippage with the proposed timeframe, and BIZ services commenced in April 1999.

For a fuller description of the evaluation and negotiation phase, refer to Evaluation Report²⁵ and Negotiation Report²⁶.

3.4 The Tendering Process Through Which Providers Were Selected

The timeline of the tender process set out above was extremely compact, which we believe detrimentally affected programme implementation (notwithstanding the exertions of Ministry staff and providers).

Unsatisfactory Aspects

A number of unsatisfactory aspects resulted from this timeline.

1) An inadequate process for evaluating "need" and "demand" for BIZ services at the regional level. This is critical as a major philosophical element of the programme was to determine priorities based on local demand. However, one step in the implementation process that was initially planned, but omitted because of the tight timeframes, was a second round of consultations between the Ministry and potential providers about local demand.

The Ministry had also hoped that potential providers would work together in the proposal preparation stage to facilitate a full delivery package in response to the needs of each region. However, providers simply did not have the time to do this, given that they only had about six weeks in which to prepare their proposals.

This meant that in the time available, providers may not have been able to undertake an adequate training needs analysis (and the view of staff involved in negotiations was that many of these appeared sketchy). Nor did they have sufficient time in which to take an innovative approach to designing BIZ programmes. This probably resulted in some providers tendering for the provisions of services they had previously delivered, rather than tailoring their programmes to the specific local needs of SMEs - i.e. to define "needs" that their services could meet and disregard others.

Nor was the Ministry able to form its own assessment of local need, which was required to set priorities between competing bids in order to allocate available funds. The evaluation team had to rely heavily on what providers had stated in their proposals, and did not have sufficient time to verify the accuracy of the information provided.

From the Ministry's perspective, it faced (and will continue to face) practical issues in terms of accountability for public money - which in this instance are best satisfied through robust processes for allocating funds - and the inevitability of having to set priorities when more funds are sought by providers than are available.

2) A very truncated bidding and contract negotiation process. While this was conducted professionally, and there is no evidence of inappropriate allocations being made in the time, the risk of erroneous decisions was accentuated by the timeframe. The negotiation team was forced to make very quick decisions during this phase, and the time constraints prevented them from being able to consider these decisions as thoroughly as desired.

This point is therefore included as a risk management issue. While we have not seen any evidence to suggest that problems have arisen because of this, we cannot confidently say that this is the case. Nor can the Ministry be confident that problems would not arise if the next tender round were to be repeated in such short timeframes.

3) Inadequate contract provisions being included. In particular, critical provisions relating to performance standards and measurement were defined by the providers themselves, with considerable inconsistencies. Standard provisions would have assisted subsequent contract management, and indeed would probably have been welcomed by providers.

4)Insufficient planning for the operation of the BIZ Unit, with no management systems in place when services were being provided initially. These had to be designed and implemented rapidly as the programme was operating. Many of the subsequent changes to contract management (e.g. standardised reporting requirements) should have been in place from the inception of the programme, rather than being developed through "learning by doing".

5) Insufficient consideration of other models of contract management in the public sector. While the process of determining demand from local sources is unusual, provision of public services through contracted parties outside government is not. As the Ministry itself has had little prior experience of such processes, we would expect that it would have tapped into the considerable expertise elsewhere in the public sector - which was also limited by the tight timeframes.

However there may have been some service delivery models in existence that the Ministry could have reviewed during the planning phases of the BIZ programme. In this context we understand that the Ministry did consider the health system and concluded that there were too many differences between health and business assistance for the health model to be of direct relevance. Although this may be true, the evaluation team ask whether consideration was also given to models of delivering training services that are more similar to BIZ - for example those funded by ETSA and CEG.

6) The selection of providers. The original tendering philosophy was that only very competent providers would be selected. However, in practice this seems not to have worked entirely. The tender process appears to have favoured providers with particular contact networks who may have been less competent deliverers than those without the contacts. More specifically, the tender process was based on a "points system" where points were earned for targeting Maori, Pacific Peoples or women. Providers with the contacts and ability to target these groups were rewarded.

In addition to the above points, some providers have indicated they felt that they had too little control during the tender and negotiation phase. Indeed, many providers found that the Ministry wished to purchase only a small proportion of the services contained in their original proposals, and were not made aware of this until quite late in the process.

Providers have also been critical of the current process on the grounds that the Ministry is not close enough to clients in each of the regions to know what they will respond to in terms of assistance.

Future Tender Processes

We consider that benefits would arise if the Ministry entered future tender rounds with a clearer view of the type of services it wishes to purchase, and the amount of funding that it would expect to provide for certain outputs. The Ministry's assessment could be communicated to potential providers through a menu of possible services from which providers could choose the areas they feel best meet local needs and are best suited to their organisation.

If necessary the Ministry could undertake the consultations with local business communities (business development bodies, economic development agencies, business leaders, providers etc) to form a joint assessment of local demand. These consultations were a major omission from the initial implementation process.

We do not consider this as representing any fundamental shift in the philosophy of the BIZ programme, which was about providers determining local needs. Rather, we see this as enhancing the process in order to ensure a balance between local demand (assessed comprehensively), provider capacity and available funding.

The tendering process could be split in two, via relatively general expressions of interest, followed by requests for detailed proposals within specified guidelines (including indications of the services that the Ministry is interested in purchasing from each individual provider, and at what cost). This revision would allow providers to base their proposals around the delivery of the services that the Ministry is targeting, within available funding.

The next tender round also needs to be based on a framework that does not favour current providers and approaches over new providers and alternative approaches. There is a risk that current providers and the Ministry will develop a "cosy relationship" which could make it difficult for new providers to enter the BIZ programme (given the experience that current providers have built up in complying with Ministry and contract obligations). If this were to occur, innovation would be inhibited and there is the risk that the BIZ programme could become somewhat "stale".

We also consider that future tender processes should recognise that the provision of specialised services could substantially enhance the value of the BIZ programme, and that in order to achieve this it may be necessary to provide contracts to less experienced or less competent providers. In such cases, the BIZ Unit may be required to give additional support to these providers to help them perform to an acceptable level. The tender process will need to take into account the costs and benefits associated with this outcome.

3.5 The Adequacy and Appropriateness of Contracts and Performance Measures Used in Them

The contracts are in two parts:

a set of standard terms and conditions
a schedule of services to be provided, comprising a mixture of standard provisions and provisions specific to each provider

The contracts appear largely satisfactory. However, problems which are still apparent relate to the number of non-standard provisions. Many have been standardised during the course of the implementation process, but further standardisation is desirable.

Many of the standard provisions which we consider necessary have been outlined previously in this report. They include

standardised reporting on all aspects of performance measurement, including client satisfaction and service quality;
reporting within the timeframes required by the Ministry;
providing all information required within reports; and
satisfactory compliance reviews.

The main area where further adjustments to contracts may be required relate to the remedies when any of these requirements are not met. Contractual provisions are needed to manage non-compliance, including remedies such as suspension clauses and contingent payments, when termination would be a disproportionate response.

The BIZ Unit has indicated that it would like to see suspension clauses contained in the contracts, to enable it to suspend payment in instances of non-delivery or under-performance. When the BIZ Unit has suspended contracts in the past, this action has been somewhat ambiguous in contractual terms, and in effect it has had to rely on the goodwill of the affected provider to do this.

The situations in which the BIZ Unit may suspend payments need to be spelt out explicitly in the contracts, so both parties are clear about their obligations.

Another possible mechanism is to make part of the provider's fee contingent on meeting the reporting requirements in full. The contractual payment (or a component thereof) would then become "X+Y dollars", where X dollars (the major portion) would be paid on completion of service delivery at agreed milestones, and Y dollars would depend on timely and complete reporting and a satisfactory compliance review. This "Y" component would in effect become a contractual bonus.

Given the short time frame in which providers had to prepare their tender proposals, and the short time in which they had to carry out a needs analysis of their target audience, it is not surprising that contract variations have been required. The contract variation process is the tool through which flexibility is introduced to the contracts.

Assuming that the next tender round is not as rushed as the last one, providers will have a greater period of time in which to carry out a comprehensive needs analysis of the SME community in their region. This should reduce the need for contract variations. However, the requirement for flexibility will still exist due to the dynamic nature of business. There will still be a need (although hopefully reduced) for contracts to be flexible enough to be able to respond to the changing needs of the SME community.

The BIZ Unit's current process for dealing with contract variation requests appears to be effective, provided the Unit follows the procedures set out in the Key Procedural Manual.

3.6 What Measures Are Taken by the Ministry to Monitor Performance of Providers and the Effectiveness of These Measures

This has been extensively discussed elsewhere in this report. It would seem most useful to comment in this section on future enhancements to the relationship between the Ministry and providers.

As noted previously, performance in terms of service volumes - the number of services, clients and SMEs - is rigorously monitored; but monitoring of client satisfaction, quality of services delivered and unit costs is less satisfactory.

We should stress that this is not a criticism of practice to date; given the circumstances in which the BIZ programme was established, contract management and monitoring service volumes was clearly the key priority.

However, the emphasis for future development of the programme should now move to improving the competencies of providers. This should be addressed in a structured and planned fashion through a provider development agenda. We should stress that this approach needs "buy-in" from providers, rather than the threat of contractual sanctions.

Three factors are critical to the success of such an agenda. Firstly, the experience of providers and the BIZ Unit means that they have some understanding of how the BIZ programme could be developed.

Secondly, the relationship of trust developed between providers and the BIZ Unit means that they are now in a position to work together to develop the programme, to an extent which would not have been possible in its early days.

Thirdly, the development of better contract management systems (and possibly, an additional contract manager) should free up resources from contract compliance for this agenda.

Implementing "quality of service" performance measures will provide an important part of this agenda. The development of these measures needs to be undertaken jointly with providers, so that there is common understanding and expectations about the use of these measures.

The use of such measures will force all parties to consider service standards explicitly, and this will in itself promote improvements. In particular, supplying providers with information about their own performance relative to others in the programme (e.g. against the average and the best) will provide them with important feedback.

This feedback then needs to be complemented with actions to improve performance.

The BIZ Unit already promotes networking amongst providers in a variety of forms. Extending this would seem the best method for promoting exchange of information amongst them about "best practice" about services - course content, materials, approaches etc.

A majority of providers has expressed a desire to extend these activities further, with the BIZ Unit providing positive leadership - although ultimately the success of such activities will depend upon the providers themselves assuming responsibility and "ownership" for the outcomes. Improved quality of service and application of performance measures would provide a focus and a framework for extended networking and exchange of information.

²¹Broken down into the following categories: European, Maori, Pacific Islander, Asian and other.

²²Ministry of Commerce (1999b)

²³AC Nielson (1999)

²⁴Ministry of Commerce (1999b): see section 3.2 for a further description of this review.

²⁵Ministry of Commerce (1998c)

²⁶Ministry of Commerce (1999a)

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Printed: 25/11/2009