Good practice in action: Kanohi ki te kanohi
This first example of Code 2 Cultural context, is a ‘currently active’ high trust contract and is ‘work-in-progress’. The following comments were provided by the Chief Executive Officer of Ngāti Awa Social and Health Services as an example of the results achieved through investing in upfront discussions.
In negotiating a High Trust Contract, a priority for Ngāti Awa Social and Health Service was the need for its work to express Ngāti Awa's aspirations, its values and its principles. While Ngāti Awa valued its reputation as a trusted manager of public funds, the need to preserve kaupapa remained a priority.
From the government funder's perspective, this emphasis represented a different but effective way of maintaining a focus on outcomes. This has resulted in reduced compliance costs and a focus on results, and allowed for increased flexibility in achieving those results through a process of dialogue.
Ngāti Awa Social and Health Services entered into a high trust contract with the Ministry of Social Development in July 2009
Key contract features included:
Initial kanohi-ki-te-kanohi meetings were held to jointly discuss and consider what the contract and outcomes of the contract may look like. There was no predetermined outcome or prescribed contract agreement, which enabled immediate trust and dare I say it creativity around the outcomes that were being sought.
The underlying message of the meetings was that the provider should know what outcomes were to be achieved and how. This placed the emphasis on the provider to be very clear about what it was their organisation was wishing to achieve on a long-term sustainable basis. It also meant that the provider needed to revisit their long-term vision and strategy for the future and see how that fitted with the department’s intentions.
The tenor of the document is about outcomes and systemic change and recognises that this is about the developmental and incremental changes that are required in service providers over time. You will note that the goals and objectives are about building better outcomes for whānau as opposed to listing whānau outputs. This requires a change in output/outcome measurement and reporting.
Outcomes are a lot more difficult to report than outputs. Outputs are a numbers game and outcomes are about behavioural shifts and changes. Significantly, the high trust contract gives room for providers to make the shift from output to outcomes which will take time.
