On Wed, 17 Feb 2016 12:50:16 +1300, Anymouse <someone@somewhere.com>
wrote:

Rich80105 wrote:

On Wed, 17 Feb 2016 12:14:39 +1300, Mutlley <mutley2000@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:

Bullying is becoming endemic in the public sector - led by Ministers >>>>>who have everyone knowing that their employment depends on pleasing >>>>>the Minister ahead of achieving results >>>>>http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/76957685/Government-agencies-inventing-numbers-to-meet-targets-says-report

Optics over substance - that is the extent of the ambition of the >>>>>current government.

Nothing has change in 40 years then. When I was in the public service >>>>the department heads all bowed down before the minister of what ever >>>>and all the underlings had to do the same if they wanted any sort of >>>>promotion..

When I was in the pubic service there was pride in being honest and
consistent and providing information that was nt misleading. There was
a pride in independence from the political party of government - and
generally that was understood and appreciated by politicians.

From the article:

"The report says agencies have been using a number of "subtle and
ingenious approaches" to improve their performance against targets.

They include changing the definitions behind indicators to make
results appear better, "inventing new numbers" that are difficult to
verify, and changing the way figures are reported without improving
the reliability of information provided.

"This can cause us to slip into a 'moveable feast' mentality, where we
find any reason to celebrate success or progress, even though we have
lost our sense of the purpose behind it all."

The report says the "political capital" invested by the Government in
meeting targets, such as its Better Public Services goals, puts
pressure on public sector managers to come up with favourable results.

Previous calls for greater transparency had been met by a "quite
disingenuous" government response, with claims that the public, rather
than auditors, should scrutinise the targets it had set.

The report cites Child Youth and Family's statistics for child abuse
and neglect as an example of particular concern, with a large gap
between its recorded cases of abuse in 2014-15 and those recorded by
police.

Changes to the way CYF investigates allegations mean "there is no way
of knowing if the background level of abuse or neglect is falling,
rising or staying the same", the report says.

'BIT OF A SPIN'

The report's author, Salvation Army social policy analyst Alan
Johnson, said the organisation supported the idea of targets, but not
the way they were being reported.

"The problem you really have is there's no independence of how they're
reported: the agency responsible for the targets are also responsible
for measuring them and then reporting on them."

While some government figures could be trusted, Johnson said others
had "a bit of a spin on them" which would undermine public confidence
in all the numbers."

________

And there is the longer term problem - if we can no longer trust
figures put out by the public service, it is no longer a public
service, but a tool of the political parties in power. Using public
money for partisan political purposes used to be srictly prohibited -
that common understanding is weaker than it ever was.

If you are right - and I'm not saying you are, necessarily - the problem >>can be sheeted home to the Lange Government which, in a fit of >>Humphrey-phobia, required that Department Heads be bound to their
Ministers by performance
contract. With no second House or other machinery to provide checks and >>balances on Executive powers, this opened the field to a politicised
Public Service.

I'm not familiar with the detail of when various changes were made,
but I believe that the State Services Commission was suppose to be
ensuring the neutrality of the Public Service, that appointments were supposed to be independent and made by the State Services
Commissioner, and that all contracts with Chief Executives were
supposed to be with the Commissioner. On that basis I had thought that
our current Commissioner was particularly weak in stopping such close
linkage between political objectives and instructions to departments, including requirments to exclude advice on politically unpalatable (to
the Minister) alternatives to the chosen political decisions..

I suspect the State Sector changes in July 2013 weakened the emphasis
on independent advice, but I didn't follow that legislation closely.
The Duties of the Commissioner are set out here:
http://www.ssc.govt.nz/sscer
There does not seem to be much of a focus on political neutrality in
specific responsibilities, but it does include:

"The office of State Services Commissioner (the Commissioner) is
central to New Zealand's politically neutral, professional and
permanent Public Service."

I know that many public servants are concerned at the extent to which department reports are in effect edited by politicians before release
- some Ministers are well known for removing anything that may reflect
badly on them.

So while you may not have the technical machinery right, I agree with
you that the field has been opened to a politicised Public Service -
and I believe that has been taken advantage of by the current
government.

Bullying is becoming endemic in the public sector - led by Ministers
who have everyone knowing that their employment depends on pleasing
the Minister ahead of achieving results http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/76957685/Government-agencies-inventing-numbers-to-meet-targets-says-report

Optics over substance - that is the extent of the ambition of the
current government.

Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:

Bullying is becoming endemic in the public sector - led by Ministers
who have everyone knowing that their employment depends on pleasing
the Minister ahead of achieving results >>http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/76957685/Government-agencies-inventing-numbers-to-meet-targets-says-report

Optics over substance - that is the extent of the ambition of the
current government.

Nothing has change in 40 years then. When I was in the public service
the department heads all bowed down before the minister of what ever
and all the underlings had to do the same if they wanted any sort of promotion..

On Wed, 17 Feb 2016 12:14:39 +1300, Mutlley <mutley2000@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:

Bullying is becoming endemic in the public sector - led by Ministers
who have everyone knowing that their employment depends on pleasing
the Minister ahead of achieving results >>>http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/76957685/Government-agencies-inventing-numbers-to-meet-targets-says-report

Optics over substance - that is the extent of the ambition of the
current government.

Nothing has change in 40 years then. When I was in the public service
the department heads all bowed down before the minister of what ever
and all the underlings had to do the same if they wanted any sort of >>promotion..

When I was in the pubic service there was pride in being honest and consistent and providing information that was nt misleading. There was
a pride in independence from the political party of government - and generally that was understood and appreciated by politicians.

And there is the longer term problem - if we can no longer trust
figures put out by the public service, it is no longer a public
service, but a tool of the political parties in power. Using public
money for partisan political purposes used to be srictly prohibited -
that common understanding is weaker than it ever was.

Okay. Which Rich have we here? One of the others claimed some time ago to have never worked in the public service.

<Rich failing to provide proof snipped>

On 2/19/2016 8:50 PM, Pooh wrote:

Okay. Which Rich have we here? One of the others claimed some time ago to >> have never worked in the public service.

<Rich failing to provide proof snipped>

The rich is probably run out of the back rooms of Liebor offices in the >Beehive.
Something like the propaganda you get from Russia and China and North
Korea when you watch newsgroups and blogs connected and some-one asks >questions