Ros
Rice,
Executive
Officer
Community
Networks
Aotearoa,
talks with
Edridge,
Ros
Rice,
Executive
Officer
Community
Networks
Aotearoa,
talksMurray
with Murray
Edridge,
Deputy
Chief Executive
Community
Investment,
MinistryMinistry
of SocialofDevelopment
– on
Deputy
Chief Executive
Community
Investment,
Social Development
‘Collaborative Voices’, Wellington Access Radio, 1 September 2015
- a transcript from ‘Collaborative Voices’, Wellington Access Radio,
1 September 2015
Transcript:
We’ve got lots to talk about because we’re going to be talking about Community
Investment the organisation, the Community Investment Strategy and what it’s
aiming to achieve, and where we’re going to go with it. Thank you for coming in
and giving me your time.
Thank you, Ros, it’s lovely to be here and have the opportunity
to have the conversation.
First of all, you oversee the Ministry’s purchasing of social services for
vulnerable children, young people and adults – but you are also responsible for
moving the social sector into results-focused and evidence-based purchasing
strategies, and this is really what we’re talking about here, isn’t it?
That’s right. The government has created a Community Investment Strategy
which was launched by Minister Anne Tolley on the 4th of June. The purpose of
the Community Investment Strategy is to think differently about how
government purchases, acquires and engages with communities in buying
social services. And the intention is to get better value for the people who are
recipients of those services. So MSD as a whole spends just over $600 million a year
buying social services; $330 million of those are services that traditionally would have
been within either Child, Youth and Family or what was Family and Community
Services. Which are the sorts of things that people would experience around work
around families, work around parenting, some intense work with families and
communities, and some social change initiatives. And the intention is to government
and to communities and to community providers, to think more intelligently about
what it is that should be bought, how that should be delivered, and how we ensure
that people get the maximum benefit out of the things that are being contributed to.
And the question I pose people is, if you think about those amounts of money, if you
started the year with $330 million in your back pocket – what would you spend it on,
what would you buy, who would you buy it from, where would you buy it? And we
need to have clear thinking and clear strategies that enable us to make those
decisions effectively.
Right. And, prior to this Strategy coming into place, MSD had Work and Income,
it had Child, Youth and Family, it had Family and Community Services and a
couple of offices like, I think, the Disabilities Office was there – and now the
whole of MSD has undergone a bit of a restructure and a change to try and
achieve this Strategy. Can you explain how the MSD of old has changed into
Community Investment now.
So, MSD of old was a number of key parts of government and public service
that people would recognise - so Work and Income, Child, Youth and Family
as you’ve said, student loans, administration of the superannuation system,
Family and Community Services. Where our approach goes now is saying,
actually people don’t care too much about those boundaries or those demarcations,
and as MSD we have a purpose statement that says we help New Zealanders to
help themselves to be safe, strong and independent. And the important thing is:
safe, strong and independent is what we aspire to for people, but it’s not our job to
get people there. And the last thing people want is government in their lives
generally, so how do we help people to equip themselves to be stronger in what
they do? As the new MSD we’re thinking about all of those social levers. If we think
about the benefit system and income support, and we think about employment, we
think about social housing, we think about the child protection system, we think
about community engagement and community investment – how do we start to get
a focus around the customer or the client whereby the customer has choice, and
the customer has centrality of thinking and therefore people don’t need to navigate
their way and find their way around this massive organisation, but actually we gear
ourselves around the customer. So that people get a better deal out of government,
get a better deal out of the social service provision that’s made available to them.
And so Community Investment was formed. It was formed 11 months ago in
October 2014 and the purpose was to draw together what was the social
engagement, the social purchasing that came out of Child, Youth and Family and
what was Family and Community Services, and to put that together and to say
okay, let’s think about how we can buy more effectively, how we can engage more
effectively, with our community partners, so that people can benefit more from the
money that’s spent and the services that are purchased. And the Community
Investment Strategy is the manifestation of that thinking. And so Community
Investment’s job is to implement the Strategy so that we work more effectively
with community organisations, charities, NGOs, not-for-profit organisations
throughout the country, and some for-profit organisations as well, so that people
get the best possible delivery of services. That will apply for all of the money that
MSD spends, but in the first instance we’re focused on this Child, Youth and Family
and Family and Community Services space.
The very name – Community Investment – is an interesting choice of name. Can
you explain what it actually means, because if I listen to the words ‘community
investment’ I think it means that you’re investing in communities – but there’s
more to it perhaps than that simplistic point?
Yes, I think the risk with Community Investment is for people to think
about it in fiscal or monetary terms, and it’s not just about money of
course. If we’re serious about investment in communities - and that’s a
responsibility of all of us but government has a particular set of
responsibilities within that - we need to think about what does it look like if
communities develop capability, if the providers in communities have enhanced
capability, if we think about how do we give communities some choice, and some
ownership over the things that are important to them. And as we think about the
purchase or the procurement models, rather than government making all the
decisions, how do we think about government priorities in the context of
community need, and how do we talk to communities about what that looks like;
how do we ensure that communities develop that capability for themselves so that
they in fact can support their citizens, their community people, and be part of the
solution for the issues that people have?
A big question that I hear a lot out of the community is about the government
priorities. What is the commitment from Community Investment the
organisation to not just looking at government priorities but ensuring that people
that fall outside the priorities that need help can still achieve somehow or other
some sort of success in finding support.
I mean, it’s one of the constant dilemmas of government – how do you use
the resources you have in the best possible way? Is there enough money to
go around? Well that depends on what you do with it, I guess, and it’s kind
of a rhetorical question. But the responsibility we have is to say,
government has a series of focuses - and you see those specified most clearly I
guess in the Better Public Service targets; there’s 10 of those. But if you wanted to
look at some catch-alls, the government has a particular focus on vulnerability.
Vulnerable groups in our community. And you see that reflected in the Community
Investment Strategy by defining those groups as vulnerable children, vulnerable
young people, and then vulnerable adults, which tends to be in the family violence,
sexual violence space. So it’s thinking about who are the groups who most need
help from government and the community and how do we support the availability
of services and the availability of support to give people what they need.
And we have to remember here that we’re not talking about health or justice or
education, which have their own portfolios.
Yes, but perhaps we should be, and this is one of the challenges - that
actually the demarcation lines between the government agencies are
important to the government and to public servants, but not necessarily to
the community. And if we’re serious about supporting people with what
they need, we need to think about what that looks like in a whole-ofgovernment context. So increasingly Ministers are very serious about pushing us to
say - how do we find seamless approaches to services, so that whether they come
out of Health, or Education, or Justice, or the Ministry of Social Development, they
are wrapped around the client and the end-user in a seamless way.
Because, I think, feedback that I get is a lot of frustration at siloes in
government where they’re dealing with someone who has a whole lot of
problems and maybe – I didn’t really think we’d talk much about this – but the
children’s action teams for example is one way that the government’s looking at
breaking some of those siloes down and bringing people together to answer the whole
of a family’s problems.
Absolutely, the children’s teams are a perfect example of where the
philosophy of wrapping services around an individual child – so regardless
of where they come from in the community or from government that child
gets the services they need – that’s the sort of model we’re thinking about
in government. What do the populations look like, and what do they most
need from government? And unfortunately government is not structured and
designed in that way; it is designed in chunks and pieces, and we’ve got to find
how do we work more effectively together so that people providing services in
community have an easier, more effective engagement with government and as a
consequence how do we get services that are most appropriate for people’s needs
in our communities?
When we come back a couple of things I’d like to talk about is, very briefly, the
six key elements to the Community Investment Strategy, and also the direction
of travel – where are you at and where are you going, to put some of these
things in place. And perhaps at the very end we could have a little talk about the
one-year contracts for all of those listening out there who have just renewed their
contracts and are getting one-year ones and what they involve.
(Break) Welcome back Murray. Tell me, why do you do all this stuff?
Well, as you know Ros, I’m a relatively new public servant, having spent
just over nine years as the Chief Executive of a major NGO in New Zealand,
so I’ve had first-hand experience about what it feels like to work with
government, and some of the frustrations and the challenges of that are
what motivate and drive me as we think about where should the
Community Investment Strategy be and how does the government work more
effectively with NGO partners to ensure we get the best outcomes for them, and for
their clients.
This brings me directly to the six key elements of the Community Investment
Strategy because those sorts of things are mentioned in there, and I wonder if
you could talk about those six key elements.
Absolutely, Ros. The Community Investment Strategy has six key elements,
or backbone pieces, that are really important. The first of those – and we’ve
already talked about this –is about focusing on priority results. Of all the
things the government spends on at the moment, thinking about where are
the key areas of investment that the government’s most interested in, what does
community need look like and how do you match those things together. So what
are those priority spends that we need to be thinking about.
Secondly, it’s building the evidence base for effective services. At the moment the
government buys an awful lot of things and doesn’t really have a good enough
understanding of do they work or not. Are they good things, are they useful things
– yes, probably, but do they really impact on people’s lives? Do they make the
maximum difference of all the other things that we might be able to be doing with
those people or for those people, and that’s the challenge. So we’ve got to
understand, of the 97-odd activities that we buy, which ones really make a
difference or are there other things that we should be doing. So getting clear about
the evidence base for services and what that looks like.
That’s, in my mind, going to be a really hard, tricky thing for your providers to
provide. It’s already quite tricky to provide proof or attribution for results-based
accountability, so you’re looking for something extra?
Well, some of the providers have better information or more interesting
ways of measurement and evaluation than we do. So it’s about saying,
where do we get the best information from. And the reality is, taxpayers will
want us to spend public money as well as we possibly can. So how do we
know the investment we are making is doing, firstly the right things, and then the
optimal spend of that resource to ensure that people get the best value out of it.
And remembering, of course, Murray, that we’re all taxpayers – even the people
who are providing the services.
Absolutely. And when people ask me I describe my role in two ways. I have
responsibility for ensuring that people get what they most need, and I have
responsibility for spending public money. And the Strategy’s about both of
those things – spending money well but ensuring that when we do invest
money, we get good results for the taxpayer and for the individuals that
are recipients of those services.
So that goes directly onto the third …
The third one is about building the quality of our data collection. We get a
lot of information from our providers – in fact, I would argue far too much
information - but we’re not clear enough about what it is we’re asking for,
and what it is that’s going to make the most difference as we think and
refine our purchasing into the future. So, going forward we’re likely to ask for less
things, I think, but we’ll ask for different things, and more highly-defined things
and collect data from providers and social service deliverers that is more helpful for
them and for us as we think about services going forward.
Fourthly, we’ve talked in the Strategy about setting out a clear direction for future
funding. That’s really important, because we’ve got community agencies that don’t
know where government’s going and therefore can’t plan their own organisations
sufficiently to make best value of the resources they have.
Fifthly, we’ve talked about simplifying compliance, and that’s a big win for
everybody because if we can make doing business with government easier and
simpler, then that’s a great thing.
And sixthly, and certainly not least important, is continuing to build provider
capability. Social service delivery is fundamentally built on the quality and
capability of the providers that deliver those services, and government has a
particular responsibility, I think, to ensure that the capability of the sector is
maintained and developed so in fact those services can be delivered well.
And the sector, when it’s undergone long years with no increase in funding,
tends to lose capability, so it’s good to see that the Community Investment
Strategy is aware of the loss of capability and the need to build it to ensure that
what you pay for, you actually get.
Yes, the Strategy’s about a partnership between government and
community providers, so that in fact we can do the business together and
do it more effectively, and both parties need to be in the game and capable
in the way they deliver.
So let’s go back to the direction of travel for the Community Investment
Strategy. So we’re now in 2015 and you’re putting some of this into action now
and people are feeling the effects of it. Where are we right now and where are
we heading?
Okay, so there are three key work programmes that are happening as we
speak. The first of those is a community engagement process, where we’re
starting to say - how do we have more sensible conversations with
communities, with local government, with providers, with other people who
play a key part in communities in terms of determining what priorities are for those
communities.
The second stream of work is working with providers. How do we think about our
contractual engagement, how do we think about the services we currently buy –
and we’ve talked about a line-by-line review of our 97 activities that we currently
purchase – and how do we think about ensuring that those contracts are focused on
delivering effective results or outcomes and have an evidence base and evaluation
methodology for that.
And the third piece of work is thinking about the other investments that happen
into communities, through community itself, through corporates, through
philanthropy, because it’s important that we become more deliberate about how
government investment sits alongside the other investments that are happening in
communities.
So, those are quite broad things that you’re looking at right now, and people are
seeing a real focus on vulnerable children and I would say that’s probably the
strongest focus – would that be wrong – at the moment?
No, that would be correct, and government has been clear about that for
some time now coming out of the Green Paper and the White Paper and
the Children’s Action Plan – that that’s a real area of focus for the
government because they see significant vulnerability and significant need
and the opportunity to change the direction of travel for some of those
children and families and young people.
This is a bit of a lateral question, but how does government define vulnerability
in children?
I think if we all think about what that looks like – if we think about the
family situations that some children are in, if we think about the community
and wider family that sit around them, and neighbourhoods, I think that we
can become clearer about vulnerability. Vulnerability is one of these things
– how long is a piece of string? And there’s already been a lot of conversation about
predictive modelling about vulnerability which has caused some challenges and
issues. But it is about thinking about those who are most vulnerable in our society
and how do we respond to them most effectively.
So, perhaps this is a good time just to very briefly meander back to the
children’s teams, because that’s going to be a way that vulnerability is defined,
really.
I think the philosophy of children’s teams, which is those wrap-around
services where you dispense as far as you can with the departmental
boundaries that otherwise get in the way of children and families getting
the services they need. So the model of the children’s team is a sound one, the
philosophy is correct, but we’ve got to think about that for all of the client groups
we’re focused upon – how do we wrap ourselves around them so that they get the
best value out of what government has to contribute.
It’s quite similar to the whānau ora idea, isn’t it?
Very similar – the idea that people have some control over their own
destiny and that government resources come together and community
resources come together in an effective way to support that.
My understanding is that the children’s action teams are primarily to try and
stop the inevitable move of a vulnerable child into CYF care. Would that be fair?
Well, not just into Child, Youth and Family, but if we look at the trajectory
of vulnerable children - and whether that’s into Child, Youth and Family,
whether that’s into the criminal justice system, whether that’s into a bad
health or education outcome - we all know if we can do better around
supporting and redirecting that pathway for kids, the longer term outcome’s
going to be better for them, better for their family, and better for society as a
whole.
So that’s an example of really direct intervention and investment in a child and a
family.
Supporting interventions, as opposed to doing it for people – enabling
people to do it for themselves.
Now, we’ve only got a few minutes left here, so I actually want to go on to
what’s happening with some of the organisations who are funded though MSD
and those that are up for renewing their contract - all those that are renewing
their contract this year have gone onto one-year contracts. Can you explain why
they’ve gone onto one-year contracts and what the likelihood is at the end of it?
The intention under the Investment Strategy is to move to longer-term,
more sustainable contracts. For all those contracts that expired on 30 June
this year, where we’ve rolled them over we’ve rolled them over only for 12
months. Which sounds counter-intuitive to what we’re trying to do, and it is.
But what it does, it provides a space or a time by which we can put some of
these changes and have some of this engagement in place, so that come 30 June
2016, we’re in a better position to move towards the implementation of the
Strategy, have better-focused contracts, be thinking more clearly about what it is
we’re purchasing, and working closely with providers to ensure that they’re
supported to deliver the best outcomes. And in fact those outcomes are honed and
defined a bit more clearly.
There’s a lot of fear out there, Murray, that at the end of the year a whole lot of
people are going to lose their contracts. Do you think that’s a likelihood?
I understand that. That’s not the intention per se. We are changing the
focus of investment and we are changing the way we work, and both sides
of the transaction need to think about what that means for them. So it’s a
change for government but it’s also a change for the provider community;
I accept that.
So everybody out there, you have a year to prove yourselves.
And to work with the people in government who are trying to put
this Strategy into place, and to work effectively and positively, because
we’re trying to achieve the right things.
So if you’re an organisation out there that’s just skimming along and not
achieving a lot, you need to take another look at why you’re there.
Absolutely.
Now, in these one-year contracts there is a clause that’s creating a wee bit of
discussion, and just briefly before we close I want us to talk about this clause.
It’s not a clause we’ve seen before, and I’ll just read it out – and I think it’s in
every one-year contract – it says: ”At the purchasing agency’s request the provider will
transfer all specified client information to either the Ministry or another designated
provider in accordance with that request. The provider, when it first enrols a client, will
ensure that it obtains suitable authorisation from him or her to allow a possible future
transfer of client files.”
Now, there is concern about this - signing up in a contract that when you’re asked to
you will just pass on client files and that you’ll ask people when they come into your
organisation to give you permission to just pass their files on when government asks
you to – that this goes against best practice and that it causes all sorts of problems.
What I really want to ask you is, why has this clause gone in here, what does it actually
mean, and how will people see this clause roll out?
Yes, and you know, it’s been legally drafted so it sounds like that – but
actually the intent is correct. What it says is, if we’re serious about
outcomes for customers, for clients, then a lot of the services that MSD and
government buys – we don’t know who those clients are. And if we have a
situation – and we’ve had some recent examples – where providers have
been unable to continue or have failed in some respect, ensuring those services
continue to be delivered to those clients is the priority. So this is government
saying – it’s not about us, and it’s not about you as a provider, it is about the
clients who are recipients of services. And if we don’t know who they are, because
we’re buying service delivery as opposed to individual service outcomes for people,
then actually we need to have an ability to continue on regardless of where people
end up. And so if we’re serious about being client-centric, then a clause like this is
really important.
So, really what you’re saying is – if it all hits the fan, then you have to be able to
make sure that the clients of a service continue to get their service.
That’s exactly right. And it’s very unlikely those details will come back to the
government. They will be transitioned to somebody else who can continue to
deliver those services effectively – all we need is the mechanism by which to
do that.
So you’re not actually asking for the details in the files, you’re just asking for the
ability for the files to be transferred?
- the ability for that information to be used by somebody else in order to
continue to benefit the recipients of those services.
So, we had a conversation last week or the week before where you were saying
– honestly, we don’t want to have to go into every file and read what’s
happened to a person on a personal level – this is about ensuring that they
continue to get services.
Yes, government’s not intending to invade people’s privacy, and it’s not
intending to go into people’s detail; what it is trying to do is to ensure the
services that they get and need, they can continue to get despite the fact that
the circumstances around providers and the community might change.
Just as we go, is there a possibility when people ask clients for permission for
future transfer of client files, that they could put something on the bottom to say
‘your information will be private to you and the provider’, or some way they can
reassure people?
I’m sure there are; contracts have legally-defined clauses in them so we
need to have that locked down reasonably tight; however the intention is
clear – it’s to ensure that service provision continues, not for someone to
look at somebody else’s information.
So my suggestion to anyone listening out there who has this clause and who is
concerned about it, is that when you get your client to sign over the
authorisation that you have a bit of a talk to MSD about ways that you can word
that authorisation.
Yeah, that’s fine. I mean, it’s not intended to be onerous or difficult; it is
intended to work in the best interests of the clients, and that’s what we’re
seeking to achieve at the end of the day.
So if you’ve got any questions about what’s happening with your contract,
what’s happening with clients, or if you just want to know what MSD is doing
about its Community Investment Strategy and the direction of travel that that’s
going in, you can always go to the MSD website – which is msd.govt.nz. You can
also go into any MSD office and ask someone to give you a hand getting through that,
but by all means, make sure that you keep yourself up-to-date with what’s actually
happening and what government is looking at at the moment so that you’re not caught
out suddenly finding yourself ignorant of what’s going to be happening with your
contracts, what government is asking of you when they give you funding, because
that’s why they give you funding – and you need to think about that.
But I would like to thank you, Murray, for coming in and giving us some of that info –
always appreciated.
Thanks Ros
Listen to the interview at http://accessradio.org.nz/Programmes/Collaborative+Voices