The current state of decision making

The current state of decision making is reflected in my summary of government announcements about decision making since March 2022 here which consistently flags major shortcomings including:

  • poor-quality business cases hinder informed decisions by Cabinet and Ministers.

  • weak agency capability, over-reliance on consultants, and inadequate strategic and investment planning

  • the need for more coordinated, long-term, and evidence-based planning — using tools like the Better Business Case (BBC) framework, Living Standards Framework, and CBAx.

  • the lack of transparency, value-for-money, listening to communities,  and alignment between goals, and public outcome reporting

  • unclear investment goals, compounded by fiscal pressure, declining public trust, and fragmented planning across agencies.

It calls for a joined-up, capability-driven, and accountable public investment system that links strategy, planning, and measurable public value.

So, what will it take for Public leaders to develop a joined-up approach to provide free and frank medium to long term advice (strategic thinking and tactical planning) to address problems or achieve vision, with trade-offs using Treasury CBAx and Living Standards Framework?      

More specifically:

  1. How to draw on local intelligence, not just top-down approaches by having those difficult conversations about what the problem is and what the options are that could solve the problems?

  2. How to enable central and local government Public Leaders to think in a joined-up way to provide free and frank medium-to-long-term advice to consider options to achieve their vision for their district, region and nation:

    • economic (e.g. primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary)

    • environmental (e.g. minimum, moderate or maximum standard)

    • social and cultural (e.g. provider centric or citizen centric)      

  1. How to encourage and enable central and local Government Public Leaders to make decisions on those options with limited resources to maximize the delivery of more effective services and provide medium to long term public value benefits?

  2. How to encourage and enable central government Public Leaders to provide free and frank medium-to-date-med-term advice on those options (based on section 32 of the State Sector Act) and to provide that advice with trade-offs and using Treasury CBAx not just Living Standards Framework?

  3. How to encourage and enable central and local Government Public Leaders to measure and publicly report economic, environmental, social and cultural benefits, based on the NZ Treasury Living Standards Framework and CBAx, to ensure the options invested in are on track to achieve the outcomes/benefits and therefore their vision for their district, region and country?

 

Let’s make this even more tangible.  There are 2 problems:

 

1.Pre-determined decision-making.  And when it comes to decision-making, we all have blind spots — even the experts. One of my favorite quotes is by Daniel Kahneman (a behavioral economist who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences).“We think we're much more rational than we are and that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision”.

 

2.Making decisions on symptoms, not causes that are ‘too hard’. I am concerned we seem to publish reports on issues and symptoms, like the mental health report, but don’t grapple with the real causes.