August 2007

Introduction

We have now completed the second year of activities contributing towards the Ministry's five-year strategic plan and this update provides an overview of the progress we have made over the past 12 months.

This update is organised into the four themes of our strategic plan:

• Putting service first

• Ensuring simple, connected processes

• Building knowledge and expertise

• Enhancing sector collaboration

Putting Service First

Me whakaaro pai ki te tangata, ahakoa ko wai

Goodwill to each person, regardless of who they are

We are a service organisation, here to serve the New Zealand community. The work we do is part of the fundamental infrastructure that underpins our modern, democratic society. Putting service first recognises that we directly, and indirectly, provide services to a wide range of people. Our service focus also extends to colleagues within the Ministry.

Chief Coroner Judge Neil MacLean, Coronial
Services Unit National Manager Karen
Vaughan and Special Jurisdictions General
Manager Stuart White.

Within the theme of Putting Service First are three strategies:

• improve our understanding of service needs

• enhance services to reflect our understanding of service needs

• enhance public understanding of the justice system.

Highlights over the past 12 months include:

• The Ministry took on responsibility for two new services within the court system – Coronial Services and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. We also supported four additional Family Violence Courts.

• We have continued our efforts to improve our contacts with customers including preparing to introduce service standards for jurors in District Courts and scoping an in-depth survey of Auckland District Courts users.

• Better services to the judiciary were a focus with implementation of the judicial libraries review, judicial decisions online and the Courts of New Zealand website.

• We are expanding the use of technology to improve the services we provide to the judiciary and court users. We upgraded audio systems in 44 sites and seven court sites now have videoconferencing facilities. We opened a transcription centre in Wellington to be the platform for enhanced evidence recording and transcription services.

• Improvements to the buildings from which we provide services also continued with refurbishments, and new courthouses in Greymouth and Queenstown.

• Work over the past few years to improve options for dealing with youth offending culminated in the opening of the Te Hurihanga residence for serious young offenders.

• Across the Ministry we have been dealing with record increases in the correspondence we process on behalf of our Ministers. We centralised our management of official correspondence and set up a new system and database.

• Enhancing services to voters continued with the Chief Electoral Office developing an accessibility action plan in consultation with community groups.

National office staff help the Chief Electoral Office test its
advance voting processes for the 2008 general election.

Ensuring Simple, Connected Processes

Kia pai ki muri, kia pai ki mua

Well organised behind-the-scenes processes help us succeed

Our systems and processes need to be simple and consistent, to make it as easy as possible for us to deliver excellent services. Where processes are complex in order to be robust, they can still be consistent, effective and transparent.

There are two strategies within this theme:

• operate effective systems and processes to enhance service delivery to users of Ministry services

• operate effective systems and processes to underpin Ministry work.

In 2006/07 we worked on the following areas:

Policy and Operations staff working together – Cassandra
Anderson, Senior Analyst (District Courts), Leigh McPhail,
Advisor Youth Justice (Policy and Legal) and Gerard Clark,
Principal Advisor (Justice Strategic Policy Unit).

• The Operations Group continued to deal with growing volumes of cases with significant increases in the District Courts and High Court. More work was done on improving how we manage court workloads and allocate resources, including rostering and scheduling.

• As part of service improvement initiatives, we created an online toolkit to help support District Courts to continue to improve their processes.

• In the collection of fines, improved processes and targeted delivery of services have enabled the Ministry to continue to slow the growth rate of outstanding debt while the volume of fines imposed continues to rise.

• Operations and Policy and Legal have been working together to implement the actions the Government has agreed to improve the effectiveness of the Infringement System.

• We successfully implemented the electronic filing of infringements – an initiative that will provide better information for fines enforcement and a better service for infringement authorities. It will also improve sustainability by reducing paper.

• Providing policy advice to our Ministers is a critical activity for us, and a range of policy development process improvements and quality monitoring were put in place in the Policy and Legal Group.

• In the Waitangi Tribunal Unit and the Office of Treaty Settlements the Ministry has been focusing on processing historical claims to expedite their investigation and settlement in line with the deadlines the Government has set.

Collections Bailiff Sean Matano from Northern
Area Operations.

Building Knowledge and Expertise

Whaowhia te kete mātauranga o tēnā, o tēnā

Fill each person's basket of knowledge

We aim to be the acknowledged expert on the New Zealand justice system, and on what works best to achieve positive outcomes for New Zealand communities. Building knowledge and expertise above all, means building the capability and skills of our people throughout the Ministry.

Our third theme of Building Knowledge and Expertise has two strategies:

• increase the Ministry's capability

• enhance our business and management information.

Court managers Chris Greaney (Napier), Kelvin
Smillie (Manukau) and Debbie Masani (Waitakere)
 at the District Courts managers' forum.

Within this theme, we have focused on the following initiatives:

• We launched our People Strategy that encompasses how we recruit, train and develop staff and acknowledge and recruit them.

• It was a big year for training – with a learning and development strategy for the whole Ministry and a training and development structure for our biggest business unit – District Courts – plus lots of training delivered. More resources have been developed, such as the Civil Registrars' Powers Handbook, and now, for the first time, we have a full set of registrars' manuals for all District Courts jurisdictions. We have also been building the capability of policy analysts with training and seminars. Management development got underway with a core skills programme and talent management pilots.

• We successfully worked with managers and staff to develop a new remuneration system for all field sites.

• We did further work on a set of measures that, over time, will help us see how well we are performing. We developed a comprehensive framework to make planning and reporting easier and more effective.

• The emphasis on improving information technology continued with further equipment upgrades for staff through the infrastructure upgrade programme.

• We published our first Information Systems Strategic Plan which looks at how technology can be used to meet the future needs of the business.

• Systems available for staff continued to improve with a new financial management information system.

The new Financial Management Information
System (FMIS) went live on 1 May. FMIS
Business Owner Glenn McStay (right) with
Change Co-ordinator Rosemary Jarmey and
Project Manager David Greening.

Enhancing Sector Collaboration

Mā koutou, mā mātou, mā tātou katoa te tāhū o te whare e toko ake

The ridgepole of the house needs all hands to support it

To achieve the justice sector outcomes, people within the justice sector need to work together to improve sector cooperation, collaboration and communication at strategic and operational levels. Because the work of each agency impacts on others in the sector, taking an integrated approach will improve justice services overall.

Our final theme comprises two strategies:

• work with other agencies to deliver on justice sector outcomes

• develop a shared vision for the justice system of the future.

Ministry Chief Executive Belinda Clark with (from left)
Te Puni Kōkiri Chief Executive Leith Comer, Ministry of
Social Development Chief Executive Peter Hughes and
Corrections Department Chief Executive Barry Matthews
at the launch of Effective Interventions.

In the past 12 months, progress in this theme has included the following:

• Work has continued across the sector on Effective Interventions to reduce crime, provide alternatives to prison and make better use of prisons. This work is being led by the Ministry. One of our policy teams has been working on an organised crime strategy in partnership with other agencies and communities.

• A substantial piece of work was undertaken on the development of shared outcomes for the sector. These have been agreed by Ministers and provide a framework through which all the sector agencies contribute to the Government's priorities.

• Further work was completed on the pipeline project – a tool to help the sector anticipate the impacts of changes, for example, the flow-through effects of additional police on court workloads.

• We worked with other agencies, such as Police, on guidelines to streamline key activities in the criminal summary court process to reduce delays.

• Work continued on collaborative activities the Ministry coordinates, such as the Justice Sector Information Strategy.

More information

Most of the initiatives described in this brochure are ongoing. The annual report, which is tabled in Parliament in October, will have more information about highlights of the past year.

For more detailed information about next steps on major activities see the Ministry's Statement of Intent 2007–08 Introduction and Priorities.