Statement of Intent 1 July 2008 - 30 June 2011
Organisational health and capability
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.
People
The Ministry 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 57 permanent staff 1 , must ensure it has the right people in the right job at the right time.
We will continue 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 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 maintaining links with 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 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 regularly monitored to identify any trends.
The Ministry is progressing the use of Lominger methodologies to describe role competencies, so Ministry employees know what it takes to be successful in their role and what the demonstrated behaviours are, to deliver improved performance.
We recognise that employee engagement with the Ministry has a strong correlation to performance. The Ministry measures employee engagement through employee surveys to discover and act on opportunities to further improve this engagement.
Human Resources policies, processes and staff development plans are developed in consultation with staff, agreed and regularly monitored, to ensure the most efficient and effective use of budget and resources in capability development.
Continual improvement
Our capability to persuade and influence, to ensure that we are credible and respected, must continue to be monitored to ensure we maintain continuous improvement. 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.
Commitment to sustainability
The Ministry contributes to the Government's sustainability initiatives through membership of the Govt3 programme. We have completed our inaugural carbon emissions inventory and a carbon emissions reduction plan is now in effect. Further work will result from these strategies. The Ministry is actively engaged in maximising energy efficiency, minimising waste and progressing sustainable departmental procurement practices.
Equal employment opportunities
We have commenced a Pay and Employment Equity Review. Pay and employment equity recognizes the relative position of men and women in the workforce and is an important issue for the Public Service. The Ministry's review will be completed by 30 June 2008 when we provide copies of our review report and response plan to the State Services Commission and the Department of Labour.
The Ministry is committed to the State Services Commission's Equality and Diversity: New Zealand Public Service Equal Employment Opportunities Policy.
Departmental capital intentions
The Ministry's forecast capital expenditure for 2008-2011 is:
2007/08 |
2008/09 $000 |
2009/10 $000 |
2010/11 $000 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property, plant and equipment | 122 | 300 | 125 | 50 |
| Intangibles | 116 | 75 | 120 | 40 |
| Total appropriation | 238 | 375 | 245 | 90 |
The Ministry's assets are office furniture and equipment, leasehold improvements, IT equipment and computer software.
A capital expenditure plan will be maintained for the full period covered by this SOI. The plan will identify new and replacement capital items required by the Ministry to deliver its stated outcomes and outputs. The need to incur capital expenditure will be considered from a business case justifying a necessity to purchase, identifying proposed costs and benefits, the depreciation effect on Vote Defence and affordability within the capital appropriation.
The Ministry's operating intentions are to physically check all capital items at least once in the 12 months ended 30 June, to review at regular intervals capital items reaching a zero book value and consider their need for replacement in order to maintain a consistent annual level of depreciation that provides an effective asset base to allow the Ministry to function as planned.
- Source, SSC Statistics based on 2007 HRC survey of all Government Departments.
