Our recommendations

We recommend that the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry for Primary Industries, and the Ministry of Education:

1. assess the need for additional capability and capacity to better support their Māori staff. This should include engaging with Māori staff to understand the additional demands they might face and working with them to provide appropriate support. In some cases, each Ministry might need additional dedicated staff to lead tikanga or provide expertise in te ao Māori;
2. assess how well all their work aimed at supporting improved outcomes for Māori is co-ordinated across the organisation and make any improvements needed to make it easier for iwi to engage with them, avoid duplication across initiatives, and be well placed to make informed decisions about where to invest funds; and
3. improve the way they measure and publicly report on these initiatives so there is:
   • better visibility of the outcomes sought and the progress being made; and
   • more effective public accountability through reporting about what has been spent and what has been achieved with that spending.

We have made these recommendations for the three public organisations covered by this performance audit. However, many of our findings are not unique to the initiatives we have looked at for this audit or to the responsible public organisations.

We encourage all public organisations to consider these recommendations and, where necessary, make improvements.