Chief Executive's Overview
The Ministry of Commerce has an important role in improving the performance of New Zealand business - through advice to the Government in key policy areas and through the delivery of a wide range of services to New Zealand business and consumers.
To fulfill this role we need clarity of purposeand success in performance in all aspects of our work. We need to be clear about what we do and why, particularly as we perform a diverse range of functions and manage a portfolio of an estimated $16 billion of the Crown's assets and liabilities. And we need to develop a culture of success that ensures we achieve our goals.
Clarity of Purpose and Success in Performance
At the highest level, our strategic objectives need to be clearly aligned with the Government's objectives. Its high-level goals were revised in December 1998, and other new policy initiatives have been announced since then. Some of these, and particularly the five-point strategy to improve the knowledge base and competitiveness of New Zealand business, have a direct impact on the work of this Ministry, which has been assigned the lead role in implementation. The key results and milestones in this plan set out the major elements of our response to these challenges, and ensure our alignment with them.
New directions from Government, and our assessments of our working environment, tell us we must continue to develop as an adaptable organisation. This is essential if the Ministry is to respond to the potential range of new roles, tasks and challenges ahead
The Way Forward
The work of the Ministry can be divided into three broad areas: policy, operations and servicedelivery, and corporate support. In each area, we have set ourselves broad goals to be achieved over the next three years.
In Policy we will:
- achieve the results which have been agreed with Ministers;
- enhance our capability to provide high quality policy advice;
- strengthen our ability to consult and communicate with a wide range of businesses and interest groups, so that information flows and understanding is improved; and
- establish a policy development process that is flexible enough to identify and allocate resources to key emerging areas.
In our Operations and Service Delivery we will:
- achieve the results which have been agreed with Ministers;
- pursue operational excellencebydeveloping robust business plans that ensure clarity of purpose and promote best-practice in all activities;
- achieve enhanced performance by strengthening monitoring and reporting processes; and
- improve the management and governance regime of operational areas by strengthening commercial disciplines.
In the Corporate Branch, we will help create the environment in which policy and operations succeed through:
- exercising leadership, in developing our strategic planning processes and achieving our ownership responsibilities;
- adapting our services to priority needs, and providing these to best-practice standards; and
- improving capability for measuring achievement.
Commerce will achieve in its key areas of removing barriers to business growth and innovation, lowering costs to business, improving regulatory regimes, promoting contestabilty and in other ways enhancing service delivery to business and consumers. The commitmentof staff at all levels will be essential. Leadership from senior management, both in direction - the clarity of our purpose, and in the quality of our work - the success of our performance, will be another key factor. And we will ensure that management is enhanced, particularly in respect of staff and financial management.
This plan is the outcome of a year-long process involving close consultation with Ministers, and particularly the Minister of Enterprise and Commerce as leader of that Ministerial Team; with the agencies represented on the officials' supporting team; with the central agencies led by the State Services Commission; with client and interest groups who have a stake in our achievements; and with the branches and staff of Commerce, who "own" the milestones and much else in this plan.
For all this input, we must hold ourselves accountable for success in implementing the Ministry of Commerce's 1999/2000 Strategic Business Plan.
Paul Carpinter
Secretary
Back to Top