General Publications
WORKING BETTER: Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2007
VOTE EMPLOYMENT
Summary financial performance
| Year ended 30 June 2007 | Actual $000 | Voted[13]*$000 | Variance Fav/(Unfav) $000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Crown (GST excl) | |||
|
Labour market information |
9,713 | 9,713 | - |
|
Policy, research and evaluation |
5,050 | 5,050 | - |
| Sub Total | 14,763 | 14,763 | - |
| Revenue Department (GST excl) | |||
|
Labour market information |
31 | 92 | (61) |
|
Policy, research and evaluation |
29 | 75 | (46) |
| Sub Total | 60 | 167 | (107) |
| Revenue Other (GST excl) | |||
|
Labour market information |
85 | 1 | 84 |
|
Policy, research and evaluation |
38 | - | 38 |
| Sub Total | 123 | 1 | 122 |
| Total Revenue | 14,946 | 14,931 | 15 |
| Departmental Output Expenses (GST excl) | |||
|
Labour market information |
8,896 | 9,806 | 910 |
|
Policy, research and evaluation |
4,923 | 5,125 | 202 |
| Total | 13,819 | 14,931 | 1,112 |
| Non-Departmental Revenue (GST excl) | |||
|
Programme recoveries] |
22 | - | 22 |
| Total | 22 | - | 22 |
Output class: Labour market information
This output class involves the provision and analysis of labour market information, analysis and validation of regional labour market information, participation on regional and sector labour market focused groups, and making connections back to and across government to inform and influence the national perspective.
The Department will identify the opportunities and constraints within New Zealand's labour market and work with key stakeholders to identify, broker and facilitate local and sector ownership of the best response to these opportunities and constraints.
Contribution to the long-term goals
These services contribute to all of the Department's long-term goals:
- Our place in the world: New Zealand will prosper through its connections with the rest of the world.
- Our workplaces: New Zealand workplaces will lead the world in maximising the value of work while providing a high-quality working life.
- Our workforce: The skills of our workers will ensure New Zealand enterprises are leaders internationally.
- Our people: All New Zealanders will be able to grow and develop through access to well-paid and meaningful employment.
Contribution to the medium-term priorities
These services contribute to the following medium-term priorities:
Supporting and promoting the transformation of New Zealand workplaces to become high-performing workplaces, and to achieve high-quality working lives by focusing on the drivers of workplace productivity, including skills, safe and healthy workplace cultures, decent work, and excellent employment relationships.
Influencing the supply of skilled labour by:
- better targeting the immigration programme
- working with industry and education sectors to match educational services to the needs of our workers, employers and the economy.
Supporting increased labour market participation by leading the Government's work programme on:
- enhancing parents' and other carers' choices about work and family arrangements
- assisting transitions for youth into employment
- enhancing employment for groups under-represented in the labour force.
Activities
We do this by:
- collecting, integrating and analysing a range of qualitative and quantitative data and information to provide a profile of New Zealand's labour market at the national, regional, industry and sector levels, now and into the future
- reporting on employment (including occupations) and labour market trends at the national, regional and sector level, as well as responding to requests for tailored labour market information
- translating information to a regional/local and/or sector level to ensure local knowledge informs policy and appropriate interventions are designed, and feeding this information to decision-makers so that local knowledge can inform policy
- progressively building an up-to-date knowledge and understanding of New Zealand's labour market dynamics, including forecasting of future trends, opportunities and risk areas at a local, regional, sector and national level to inform the Department's ongoing service delivery
- building relationships with sector bodies such as industry training organisations, employee associations, employer associations, economic development agencies and local government
- developing an understanding of sector/region needs and opportunities and providing contextual and comparative information on their labour market, including providing knowledge about similar labour markets
- working with key players to identify issues impacting on the operation of the labour market at a national, regional and sectoral level and working with them to design responses
- ensuring the Department's service delivery is aligned to its authoritative labour market information base
- providing ministerial servicing.
Performance information
| Performance standard | Performance to 30 June 2007 |
|---|---|
| Customers and stakeholders are satisfied with the Department's information on labour market issues at national, sector and regional levels. Customers will be surveyed during 2006/07. Results from 2006/07 will be used to inform a baseline measure for future years. | The Department undertook research with clients and stakeholders to explore the value of the Department's labour market information and identify opportunities to improve our performance. The research told us that, in terms of our aspirations to be a sector leader and an exceptional and respected knowledge trader, we are starting from a good base. To further this work, we started exploring how to refine our information services and products to provide what is of most value. |
| The Department communicates the labour market story at a national, sector and regional level through a variety of media to a variety of recipients. |
The Department has increased its activity in this area over the 2006/07 year, as reported in other sections. Some examples include:
|
| Positive progress will be made towards labour market development in all regions. Results from 2006/07 will be used to inform a baseline measure for future years. |
The Department has contributed to positive progress towards labour market development in all regions during 2006/07. Some examples include the following:
|
The Department works with groupings of key labour market players to provide information and develop strategies for addressing labour market constraints and opportunities. This will include at least three experimental projects involving new ways of addressing labour market issues at a sector and/ or regional level. Three projects, which have:
|
The Department of Labour has worked with a number of different stakeholders to produce labour market information tools, which are accessible through the Department's website. The first of these projects involved working directly with Ngati Awa, an iwi in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. The project produced a series of labour market tools to enable the iwi to analyse labour market trends in their region and make comparisons with other areas. In the second instance, a labour market tool has been developed to enable a wide range of stakeholders to access the education and training data from the 2006 Census. This information is particularly valuable for regional stakeholders involved in tertiary education and training decision-making. |
Financial performance Figures are GST exclusive
| Year ended 30 June 2007 | Actual $000 | Main estimates $000 | Supp. estimates $000 | Actual as a % of supp. estimates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue: | ||||
|
Crown |
9,713 | 9,267 | 9,713 | 100.0% |
|
Department |
31 | 92 | 92 | 33.7% |
|
Other |
85 | - | 1 | 8,500% |
| Total Revenue | 9,829 | 9,359 | 9,806 | 100.2% |
| Total Expenses | 8,896 | 9,359 | 9,806 | 90.7% |
| Net Surplus/(Deficit) | 933 | - | - | - |
The increase in appropriation of $0.447 million in the Supplementary Estimates was primarily due to a fiscally neutral adjustment to reflect a new cost allocation methodology established across the Department.
The $0.933 million actual surplus includes an approved in-principle transfer of funding of $0.800 million to 2007/08 to ensure existing commitments can be fulfilled in 2007/08.
Output class: Policy, research and evaluation
This output class involve the provision of strategic advice and information about the role the labour market, and intervention in the labour market, can play in the economic transformation of New Zealand and in improving outcomes for families.
The Labour Market and Employment Strategy Better Work, Working Better is an example of this output, and outlines how the labour market and employment are important links between New Zealand's social and economic outcomes. A labour market that has improved participation in quality work, with growing productivity, enables the achievement of both sustainable growth and opportunities for all New Zealanders.
Contribution to the long-term goals
These services contribute to the Department's long-term goal:
- Our people: All New Zealanders will be able to grow and develop through access to well-paid and meaningful employment.
Contribution to the medium-term priorities
These services contribute to supporting increased labour market participation by leading the Government's work programme on:
- enhancing parents' and other carers' choices about work and family arrangements
- assisting transitions for youth into employment
- enhancing employment for groups under-represented in the labour force.
Activities
The Government's economic transformation objectives, which include developing a skilled and productive workforce and improving the number of globally-competitive New Zealand firms, begin with people. Enabling more people to participate in higher-value work (both in terms of productivity and pay) enables New Zealanders to achieve their desires for quality of life and good outcomes for families and dependents. Great strides in lifting overall levels of participation in work have been made, and it is important to maintain this. Labour scarcity is a key driver for enterprise to focus on higher-value work and lifting productivity.
As we work to transform our economy and improve outcomes for families by focusing on higher-value work, we need to ensure that our workforce has the key skills to enable them to deliver on that higher-value work. This means addressing skills development at all levels, from functional literacy to managerial and leadership capability to lift enterprises' performance. We also need to attract and retain key skilled individuals from around the world, and make better use of people's skills in higher-value work, enabling New Zealand to compete in the international marketplace.
Activities under this output expense in 2006/07 include:
- leading policy development and debate on workforce and labour market issues, to influence the actions of government agencies, employers, employees and others such as potential learners
- providing strategic advice on employment and skills issues, ensuring that policy matches, enhances and drives the achievement of New Zealand's workforce goals for a transformative labour market
- overseeing and coordinating the work-streams of the Government's employment and labour market strategies, ensuring they are linked to broader objectives for economic transformation and improving outcomes for families
- leading the Government's work programme on:
- enhancing parents' and other carers' choices about work and family arrangements
- assisting transitions for young people into employment
- enhancing employment for groups under-represented in the labour force
- influencing the supply of skills by working with industry and education sectors to match educational services to the needs of workers, employers and the economy
- leading Government initiatives to address skill and labour shortages by working with key agencies such as the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education Commission, Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Economic Development
- working with key agencies and industry groups to implement a series of initiatives to shift workplace practice to help employers improve the literacy, numeracy and language skills of their employees, and better utilise those skills in order to lift workplace productivity
- providing research and analysis of national and international workforce trends and the connection between local and international labour markets to improve understanding and inform decisions and actions related to employment. This includes the development of new statistical collections to support strategic policy advice, and research and evaluation
- providing ministerial servicing, including replies to correspondence, parliamentary questions, official information requests, speeches and briefing notes and other information requested by the Minister.
Performance information
| Performance standard | Performance to 30 June 2007 |
|---|---|
| The Minister responsible for employment, and related labour market Ministers, are satisfied with the quality of the Department's employment policy advice. | The Minister provided verbal feedback to the Department's Acting Chief Executive and was not fully satisfied with aspects of the policy advice. |
| The Minister is satisfied with the quality of the Department's ministerial servicing. | The Minister provided verbal feedback to the Department's Acting Chief Executive and was not fully satisfied with aspects of ministerial servicing. |
| The policy development process and resultant advice provided is assessed as high-quality through external and internal review of projects. | The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) is currently undertaking a review of the quality of policy advice provided to the departmental Ministers. It is expected to be completed in September 2007. |
Financial performance Figures are GST exclusive
| Year ended 30 June 2007 | Actual $000 | Main estimates $000 | Supp. estimates $000 | Actual as a % of supp. estimates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue: | ||||
|
Crown |
5,050 | 5,753 | 5,050 | 100.0% |
|
Department |
29 | 75 | 75 | 38.7% |
|
Other |
38 | 0 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Total Revenue | 5,117 | 5,828 | 5,125 | 99.8% |
| Total Expenses | 4,923 | 5,828 | 5,125 | 96.1% |
| Net Surplus/(Deficit) | 194 | - | - |
The decrease in appropriation of $0.703 million in the Supplementary Estimates was primarily due to an expenditure transfer to the 2009/10 financial year for the Skills Action Plan Initiative - Linked Employer-Employee Dataset (LEED) to ensure that the maximum long- term benefits are derived from the planned dataset enhancements over the next year and staffing constraints, which resulted in work progressing more slowly than anticipated ($0.205 million), an expenditure transfer to the 2007/08 financial year for the Workplace Information Survey due to other commitments by Statistics New Zealand, which delayed development work ($0.202 million), and an expenditure transfer to the 2007/08 financial year for Upskilling the Workforce Project due to delays in the development and approval of the associated work programme, which delayed establishing the associated Programme Office and the implementation of the programme of work ($0.820 million).
[13] Voted figures include adjustments made in the Supplementary Estimates and transfers under the Public Finance Act 1989.
[14] Community employment activities were repositioned to the Ministry of Social Development in 2005/06. Revenue relating to prior year contracts was still collected and will be returned to Vote Social Development.