Statement of Intent 1 July 2007 - 30 June 2010
Part 1: Strategic framework (continued)
Capability within the Ministry
The Ministry of Defence aims to have top-quality people, relationships, and processes that will enable us to achieve our intermediate and high-level outcomes.
While we continue to have areas of strong capability, and areas where capability is improving, we also have areas that need further improvement, and will continue to test us.
People
The Ministry of Defence aims to attract and retain people for the following roles:
- high-quality policy analysts and advisers
- project managers who can manage military equipment procurement
- evaluation analysts who can assess and audit defence activities and functions
- corporate roles with a technical focus.
In a tight labour market the Ministry, with only 61 permanent staff 1, must ensure it has the right people in the right job at the right time.
We want to play our part in upholding and reinforcing the ethical standards that will ensure the New Zealand public service deserves and holds the respect of its citizens.
Policy analysts and advisers
The Ministry attracts highly qualified graduates with a real interest in defence. We ensure we have the right human resources policies to recruit, develop, train, and retain high quality policy analysts. We want to develop further the depth of knowledge of defence issues held by our analysts and expand their breadth of knowledge about Government processes and practices.
To help achieve this, we maintain a comprehensive training programme as well as an active secondment policy. Mutual secondments of policy analysts with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade are extremely beneficial in enabling our staff to gain a broader understanding of how New Zealand’s security and prosperity is advanced and protected abroad.
The Ministry’s policy capability has been strengthened by the recruitment of a number of highly qualified and experienced advisers with particular expertise in relevant kinds of technical analysis. These advisers work within the Ministry’s Policy and Planning Unit to provide a sound base of technical and financial analysis on which the Ministry’s policy advice can be developed.
Acquisition project managers
We require people with expertise in the acquisition of military capability. This is a highly specialised area that requires capable people who operate to public service standards in a highly competitive commercial environment.
Project managers and project officers may be required to live overseas for extended periods to supervise an acquisition project. The Ministry is too small and specialised to train and retain people in the full range of skills required. The Ministry of Defence must therefore recruit project managers and project staff who have already developed the necessary skills and experience.
A project manager may lead a team of up to 10 project officers (usually seconded from the New Zealand Defence Force) and manage a number of external providers of services, for example: consultants who provide independent verification and validation of specifications; lawyers to prepare contracts and provide support on contractual issues; risk management consultants, independent project specific advisors and specialist auditors. We need project managers who can protect the Crown’s interests through complex and multi-faceted projects.
Evaluation analysts
In our Evaluation team we seek to maintain a broad range of skills, disciplines and backgrounds. We undertake training with our Australian counterparts to facilitate continuing professional development. We are also establishing closer links with the Performance Audit Group of the Office of the Auditor-General.
Corporate roles with a technical focus
The Ministry aims to attract and develop skilled professionals in the areas of Information Management, Information Communication and Technology, Human Resources and Finance. The Ministry also provides the practical experience requirements for admission to the College of Chartered Accountants.
Organisational health
The compact nature of the Ministry of Defence helps to ensure that staff views are given the high level of importance they deserve. In addition to informal communication pathways, the Ministry runs a system of both exit and post appointment interviews with staff. This provides a confidential mechanism for staff to deliver feedback and suggestions for improvement of processes and practices observed within the Ministry. Human Resource indicators such as turnover, absence and performance are also reguarly monitored to identify any trends.
HR policies, processes and staff development plans are developed in consultation with staff, agreed and reguarly monitored, to ensure the most efficient and effective use of budget and resources in capability development. Formal reviews such as the upcoming Pay and Employment Equity review (to be completed with representation from staff and with assistance from the Department of Labour’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit) will assist the review of HR Policies and practices to ensure fairness and equity among employment and reward for all Ministry employees.
Continual improvement
Our capability to persuade and influence, to ensure that we are credible and respected, must continue to improve. We will assess whether our capability development is delivering the outcome we need. This will be measured by periodic internal review, drawing on the stakeholder feedback we receive on our effectiveness.
- Source, SSC Statistics based on 2006 HRC survey of all Government Departments.
