Principales Acuerdos Comerciales del Mundo

Part One listed many reported shortcomings of the social services system. These shortcomings have been known for a long time. They remain despite well-intentioned attempts to address them. Some, perhaps many, of those attempts treated symptoms, rather than identifying and addressing underlying causes that arise from the way the overall system operates.

Part Two explores what is needed to make the social services system more effective.

 Chapter 5 sets out and explores the strengths and weaknesses of two broad institutional architectures that can be used to commission and deliver social services. It finds that decentralised approaches offer significant advantages over the status quo.

 Chapter 6 explains and explores commissioning – the set of important inter-related tasks that need to be undertaken to turn policy objectives into effective social services.

 Chapter 7 makes the case that improving social services requires a system that learns – one that tries a variety of innovative approaches, selects what works, ditches what does not, and expands successful approaches.

 Chapter 8 describes the opportunities increasingly offered by expanded datasets, new information technologies and data analytics to track the value add of services for different types of clients, and how this can greatly improve return on investment. It explores ways to expand data sharing safely to increase innovation and effectiveness.

 Chapter 9 explains the Government’s Investment Approach, and argues for it to be extended. It explains social insurance, using the Accident Compensation Corporation and Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme as examples.

 Chapter 10 explains how different types of service integration affect outcomes for clients, and why lack of integration is a common problem. The chapter reports evidence of positive effects from efforts to integrate. Devolved, bottom-up approaches offer the most promise.

 Chapter 11 makes the case that greater devolution of choice and control to individual service users will produce better outcomes in many situations. The chapter explores the mechanisms and models that could empower service users, increase choice and spark innovation.

 Chapter 12 proposes ways to improve purchasing practices and the design and management of contracts between government agencies and non-government providers of social services.

 Chapter 13 explores the inquiry’s themes and findings from a Mäori perspective, including Mäori concepts of respect and caring, Treaty obligations, and what the Treaty means for partnership and devolution in social services. It describes the governance arrangements of several Mäori-Crown collaborations on social services.

Part Three covers the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.

5 Institutional architecture

Key points

 Responsibility for the social services system is shared. Individuals and those in their natural support networks (family, friends, workplaces etc.) have responsibility for social outcomes. Collective responsibility for supporting people in need is expressed through a plethora of organisations and institutions, including government.

 Governments have paid considerable attention over the years to developing programmes and initiatives aimed at specific social services or client groups. Relatively little attention has been paid to the overall system design. The current arrangements may not be the best of available options.

 This chapter adopts the term institutional architecture to describe the design of a social services system. It focuses on the design choices available to government. Two broad architectural designs are applicable to social services. The main distinction is who has the responsibility to design and commission services.

- Top-down control means that primary decision-making power sits with the relevant minister or chief executive of the agency.

- Decentralisation transfers substantial decision-making power to semi-autonomous

organisations with separate governance. It is used to varying degrees, particularly in health and education. Social insurance is a special case of decentralisation that assigns both decision-making power and liability for future costs to an insurer.

 The crucial consideration in choosing between architectures is under which architecture decision makers have authority, information, capability and incentives to make and implement decisions that maximise social returns.

 No architecture performs well for all needs and in all circumstances. And similarly, no architecture always performs poorly. However, the social services system would be improved by greater and smarter use of delegation and devolution.

 Because of the need to accommodate services and clients with highly varied characteristics, the social services system is likely to comprise several different architectures. This creates a need to manage the boundaries between different architectures.

 There are some important roles that government cannot delegate. Government is the major funder of social services, and only Parliament, led by the government of the day, can legislate and assign regulatory powers. Government has responsibility for the “enabling environment” for the social services system.

 Institutional architecture and the enabling environment require active management if social services are to be effective. This active management is the role of a system steward. The current arrangements fall somewhat short of what is required of a system steward.

Government has a unique role in the social services system. It is the major funder of social services, and has statutory and regulatory powers unavailable to other participants. Government needs to take responsibility for system stewardship, and for making considered decisions that shape the system.

Chapter 6 introduces the concept of commissioning – making informed, deliberate choices about service design. Effective commissioning is fundamental to well-functioning social services, and that chapter

examines the best ways to commission services, and the capabilities required by commissioning organisations.

But there is an important conceptual and practical question to be answered before commissioning

commences – who is best placed to commission social services? That question is the primary subject of this chapter.

Such decisions can result in the creation, re-arrangement and removal of government and sometimes non-government organisations. Those organisations, and their roles, responsibilities and interactions, largely define the institutional architecture of a social services system.

Splitting the who and the how of commissioning into two chapters may appear somewhat arbitrary. This split may be less-than-obvious in real-life examples of policy development. However, the split emphasises that:

 Two decisions are being made, even if one is implicit or made by default.

 These decisions have different natural lifetimes. Decisions about institutional architecture may be expected to last a decade or more, while commissioning decisions may be re-visited every few years.

 The responsibilities of commissioning organisations vary. One may be responsible for commissioning a single service, while another could manage a commissioning “pipeline” with hundreds of services.

Government also has responsibility for the “enabling environment” for the social services system (section 5.5). Three enablers are particularly relevant to improvements in social services: budget appropriations, data infrastructure and regulation.

5.1 The broader context of social support

Responsibility for the social services system is shared. Individuals and those in their natural support networks (family, friends, workplaces etc.) have responsibility for social outcomes.

…it is hard to consider the effectiveness and efficiency of government funding for the production of social services without looking at the interface between government production and family production, and government production and community production. (John Angus, sub. 109, p. 5)

Whilst few NGOs will report this, the most vulnerable people in NZ will not go to them for help. The most vulnerable will turn first to a family member or friend. (Richard Wood, sub. 18, p. 1)

Collective responsibility for supporting people in need is expressed through a plethora of organisations and institutions, including government. While the decentralised arrangements discussed and recommended in this chapter move decision making further away from ministers and departmental heads, they do not go very far towards answering the more basic question of where the boundaries of responsibility best lie. It is clear that these boundaries have shifted over time (Chapter 2).

Some demographic and social changes will likely lead to increased pressure on government and government-funded social services (Chapter 2). For example:

…the trend for more women participating in the paid workforce is reducing the number and calibre of people available for volunteering. (Waimakariri District Council, sub. 75, p. 3)

While most would agree that social problems are usually best resolved by individuals and their families, the reality is that not all individuals and families are functional or capable, and sometimes others – such as communities or the state – need to assist.

Some inquiry participants felt that this could best be addressed by local communities, and the providers associated with them, taking a leading role, with government as a largely passive funder. The Commission believes that the social services system would be improved by greater and smarter use of delegation and devolution. Yet this decentralisation cannot be entirely unfettered, because democratic principles mean that there must be appropriate accountability to Parliament for how funds are spent.

No simple solution is likely to suffice. There is a complex nexus of expectations and responsibilities that link individuals, families, social networks, voluntary/collective organisations and the public sector. There are a variety of views about those expectations and responsibilities, and some are politically contested.

Government should be cautious in extending its responsibility, and do so only where there is evidence of wide community backing for such an extension, and reasonable expectation of being effective. A wider debate may be required about where the boundaries of responsibility for social services best lie.

There is a need for careful consideration and open dialogue of the responsibilities that should be tagged to volunteers and community groups, vis-à-vis families, non-government social service providers, and the state. (Social Sector Trials leads, sub. 126, p. 3)