MBIE struggling

Radio NZ reports:

The State Services Commission has delivered a scathing report on the performance of the government’s ‘super ministry’ two years after it was created by merging four government departments.

The commission’s first performance review of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says the ministry has significant external and internal problems.

It says the ministry needs work, its human resources (HR) systems are an irritant to progress and it has weak leadership and governance.

Out of 32 areas of review, the commission dished out 27 ratings of ‘weak’ or ‘needing development’. …

The review said MBIE’s policy creation was not coherent, that its advice was not consistently meeting ministers’ expectations, that its Senior Leadership Team struggled to be the “sum of its parts”, and there was a high level of frustration among managers.

The review’s authors stressed that MBIE’s performance was adequate but said there were “concerns for future performance”.

One of the core functions of MBIE is to provide cohesive and future-focused policy advice to the Government.

The average rating ministers gave to its policy advice was 7.1 out of a possible 10 and the report’s authors expressed concern about the “variable service across ministerial portfolios”.

They said ministers were having to chase MBIE to find out who to speak with about their own portfolio.

“This is evidenced by a perception that the responsibility for manoeuvring across different parts of MBIE is now the responsibility of Ministers, rather than MBIE presenting with a senior leader who can deliver all of the relevant parts of MBIE to each portfolio Minister.

This report comes as little surprise to those in the beltway who have been hearing grumbles about MBIE for some time. There are some very good staff there, but it is far from functioning as one unified ministry, rather than a series of silos.