Statement of Intent 1 July 2009 - 30 June 2012
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. We cannot be successful without well-qualified and motivated staff, sound management of resources and an effective working relationship between staff and stakeholders.
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 an economic recession the Ministry, with only 54 permanent staff1 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 (Standards of Integrity & Conduct issued by the State Services Commission).
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.
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. They require superior communication skills and must be able to demonstrate leadership in these roles.
Evaluation analysts
In our Evaluation team we seek to maintain a broad range of skills, disciplines and backgrounds. We maintain links with other defence auditors for professional information exchange.
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.
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 collects comprehensive information to capture key indicators of organisational health and capability. This is reported monthly to Senior Management. The Ministry also participates in the State Services Commission annual HRC survey of all Government departments which provides further Ministry human resources capability information and comparator reporting with other public service departments.
To promote employee health and well-being, the Health & Safety Committee meets monthly, the Accident Register records all accidents, all new staff work environments are assessed, and all staff are offered flu vaccines paid for by the Ministry.
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.
Environmental impact
The Ministry will continue to take practical action to reduce its impacts on the environment, where it makes economic sense. This will include taking a “whole of life” approach when procuring goods and services; minimising waste sent to landfill; using resources, including energy and water, more efficiently; improving planning, design and construction when commissioning and operating buildings; and adopting transport policies that minimise environmental impact.
Equality and diversity
The Ministry is committed to the State Services Commission’s Equality and Diversity Policy which means that we:
- treat people fairly and with respect, ensuring equality of access to opportunities (equality)
- understand, appreciate and realise the benefits of individual differences (diversity).
Figure 2 illustrates the structure and roles of the Ministry of Defence.
Figure 2: Structure and roles of the Ministry of Defence
View text equivalent of above image.
Departmental capital intentions
To be incurred in accordance with section 24 of the Public Finance Act 1989.
The Ministry’s actual capital expenditure over the past 4 years was:
2004/05 |
2005/06 $000 |
2006/07 $000 |
2007/08 $000 |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual | Actual | Actual | Budget | Budget | |
| Property, plant and equipment | 429 | 821 | 2,615 | 122 | 103 |
| Intangibles2 (software) | - | - | 19 | 116 | 61 |
| Total appropriation | 429 | 821 | 2,634 | 238 | 164 |
The Ministry’s forecast capital expenditure for 2009-2012 is:
| 2008/09 $000 |
2009/10 $000 |
2010/11 $000 |
2011/12 $000 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property, plant and equipment | 275 | 125 | 50 | 235 |
| Intangibles (software) | 100 | 120 | 40 | 50 |
| Total appropriation | 375 | 245 | 90 | 285 |
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 the need for replacement in order to maintain an effective asset base to allow the Ministry to function as planned.
- Source, SSC Statistics based on 2008 HRC survey of all Government Departments.
- Prior to the introduction of the new International Financial Reporting Standards, intangibles were included within plant property and equipment.
