3. How We Do It

Maintaining an Overview of Government Policy

One of the most challenging roles for Te Puni Kōkiri lies in maintaining an overview of all government policy initiatives and their likely impact on Māori well-being. The ability of Te Puni Kōkiri to carry out its role of advising the Government rests on its capacity to inform, and be informed by, and relevant to, its Māori stakeholders. This means Te Puni Kōkiri through its regional offices works with Māori and the wider community to identify priority areas, and to communicate these effectively to other Ministers and government agencies. These priority areas will target opportunities for better use of Māori-owned assets and address known barriers to Māori succeeding as Māori.

Te Puni Kōkiri also plays a role in ensuring the policy advice provided by other Ministries addresses Māori issues, and attempts to influence other government agencies regionally and nationally to improve outcomes for whānau, hapü, iwi and Māori. Te Puni Kōkiri has prepared the Māori Potential Framework which is an outcomes-based tool for identifying where and how to support the realisation of Māori potential. It provides a frame of reference that helps expose priorities for intervention, and measure, track and report the sustainable development of Māori over time.

Policy Influence

Te Puni Kōkiri has been investigating ways of enabling Māori to have greater involvement in the development of policy that affects them. From Te Puni Kōkiri’s perspective, the unique interactive flow between Head Office and the regional offices ensure government policy reflects the concerns of Māori at all levels. Te Puni Kōkiri optimises the use of this intelligence throughout the state sector.

Relationships and Information

The Relationships and Information wāhanga provide Te Puni Kōkiri with a direct link to whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori communities through its 10 regional and 8 satellite offices. This link enables Māori Policy to:

• inform its provision of policy advice with the unique references of whānau, hapü, iwi and Māori;
• be informed about local Māori priorities and plans;
• connect with the stakeholder relationships already existing in the regions; and
• support the role of Te Puni Kōkiri regional staff in facilitating, brokering and coordinating ‘whole of government’ responses when appropriate.

Outcomes Monitoring and Agency Liaising

Part of our role, enabled through the Ministry of Māori Development Act, is to monitor and liaise with each government department and agency that provides services to or for Māori. At various times over the last decade, we fulfilled our monitoring responsibilities through effectiveness audits, agency reviews, and programme evaluations. We also invested in information and publishing programmes that collated, synthesised, and reported on Māori statistics and research.

Since 2003 there has been a shift in the way that we fulfil our obligations under the Act, partly determined by other government agencies becoming more adept at the design, delivery and evaluation of interventions to raise Māori achievement, and in the collection, analysis and reporting of relevant data. Overall, we have developed constructive relationships with state sector agencies to influence associated outcome targets.

We are now developing a new programme of outcomes monitoring and agency liaison that will build on previous work. This programme will be phased in over time according to prioritised outcome areas that reflect the high-level outcomes in this Statement of Intent and include analysis of regional office trend reporting. An outcomes monitoring and agency liaison approach, rather than an agency review focus, maintains Te Puni Kōkiri’s current position of being a ‘critical friend’ rather than taking on a pure monitoring role. Figure 1 summarises the new outcomes monitoring and agency liaison approach.