Cabinet paper appendix details Government plan, indicators for defining success

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Greens co-leader James Shaw speak to the media on Sunday after outlining the Government's next steps. Photo / Greg Bowker

A leaked Government document has revealed a new level of detail on its work programme and achievements to date but no mechanisms for accurately measuring progress.

The document is an appendix to a Cabinet paper on implementing and monitoring the Government's priorities.

The Cabinet paper itself was proactively released on Sunday when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern set out the Government's blueprint for the country at an event which drew together the leaders of Labour, New Zealand First and the Green Party.

But the appendix, which is referred to numerous times throughout the Cabinet paper, was withheld because it contained policy that had not yet been signed off by Cabinet, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said on Sunday.

The appendix, which has been leaked to the New Zealand Herald, contains a list of 133 policies or actions that have already been implemented or flagged since the coalition Government took office after the election last year.

It is a much more detailed version of information provided in a publication released by the Government on Sunday titled Our Plan, which outlines the Government's 12 priority outcomes in the areas of the economy, wellbeing and Government leadership.

According to the appendix, among the policies underway or expected to be advanced over the 2018 calendar year include a review of KiwiRail, which was flagged by the previous government; an overhaul of the Biosecurity Act; annual free health checks for seniors, which is a New Zealand First initiative; and the proactive release of the Open Government Strategy.

The document also contains high-level indicators for defining success, but not for measuring progress.

Indicators for success include "New Zealand's prosperity grows and is shared more fairly when: The gap between the highest and lowest income and wealth deciles reduces".

Another is "The Government aims to build confidence in democratic institutions which can be seen in: Strong trust in government survey results."

The Cabinet paper says the indicators are intended to define success as opposed to measure activity.

"By tracking and regularly assessing progress against the overall objectives we set ourselves, we will be able to identify the policies that are succeeding, change those that are not working, align our resources with priorities, and get the results we really want for New Zealanders," it says.

One of the work streams is to develop a broader set of success measure, and includes the Living Standards Framework, Indicators Aotearoa, the Wellbeing Budget and child poverty indicators.

Ardern announced in January that the Government would be scrapping the previous government's specifically focused Better Public Service Targets, saying they didn't give it the systemic change required for the big challenges facing the country.

In Sunday's speech, Ardern said the public would be able to track how the Government's priorities were progressing, and she proposed in the Cabinet paper to regularly publish progress updates setting out what had been achieved, what had changed in key work programmes and why.

The framework will be reviewed twice a year, with the first review due in February. Until then, Ardern is able to make minor amendments herself.

Ardern said Sunday's speech was more of a presentation.

"It was very much verbalising what we have discussed as a Government," She told reporters on Monday.

She said it was unusual to release Cabinet papers in a speech but she wanted to demonstrate how the Government was working and that it was working to a plan.

"Detail sits within that. Some of it's policy announcements we might make in the future, some of it's still to be worked through, particularly the measures."