22 July 2010

Notes from the 14 July 2010 ANGOA Roundtable Discussion

Kia Tutahi Draft Relationship Agreement, between Government and the Tangata Whenua, Community & Voluntary Sector

The Kia Tutahi Standing Together Steering Group was appointed by Minister Turia to develop a relationship agreement between Government and the sector. ANGOA invited the steering group to present a progress report at the Roundtable, and Hori Awa and Don Gray, the two Co-Chairs, were both available. The invitation proved timely as the first draft of an agreement is now out for comment and the Steering group is running a series of Hui around the country.

Representatives from 22 organisations took part in a frank and open discussion, and afterwards asked the ANGOA Coordinator to distribute notes that highlight the key issues raised.

Strong disappointment

As announced the draft is very high level but many people expressed disappointment and frustration at this. Here are some of the comments:

• Previous consultations had expressed strong calls for a document more specific than the original 2001 Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship (the SOGI).
• This document is less specific than what we had - its statements were summed up as "we should all be nice to each other" - but Aotearoa New Zealand needs something more substantial than this.
• "Like motherhood and apple pie", several people said - no-one could disagree with it, but we need something practical that addresses current issues, with accountability in both directions, and this document is no help at all.

We need something practical

• For the document to be of any use, practical accountability between the parties needs to be spelled out - this requires agreed goals, a way of measuring progress in achieving them, and a regular assessment or review schedule.
• Several examples were given of circumstances where the relationship between government and the sector has broken down and is so dysfunctional that delivery of services by community organisations is undermined. Two mentioned were the current problems for the sector with the Charities Commission's narrow and legalistic definition of "charity", and the fraught relationship between DHBs and the community organisations they purchase services through, especially when funds are being cut. Their lack of a working relationship means the cuts are being made arbitrarily, without any insight as to how impact on communities might be minimized.
• This draft does nothing to address such problems. ANGOA has been putting such examples in front of government, and calling for government to fund and be party to a review of SOGI and give it more teeth since 2005. This draft makes no progress on the real, known, issues.
• The state of the relationship was analysed in depth in ANGOA's 2009 report "Good Intentions" an Assessment of the Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship". The report included 15 recommendations on how the relationship could be practically improved. These included for example a proactive role for the Office of the Ombudsman in analysing and helping resolve problems.

Parties to the agreement

• The sector's call to government for over 10 years has been for an improved way of working, between the sector and government. This document proposes that "Communities of Aotearoa New Zealand", rather than Tangata Whenua, Community & Voluntary Sector, be the non-government partner to the Agreement. It also talks about families and individuals and this further confuses the issues.
• Several people commented that if government wants to make a more formal relationship with families and individuals, the place to do that is in a review of the nation's Constitutional arrangements. This is already scheduled as part of the Government Coalition Agreement, and work on it has begun.
• The working group, in adding "families and individuals" to this document, has failed to recognise that sector organisations are a practical response by individuals and families to issues that they want to do something about, together. Community organisations may be informal or may become formalised as an association or trust, but they should be recognised by Government as having a special role - they are representative of the aspirations of the community they arise from.
• It is not helpful to make an artificial distinction and claim that community organisations are different from, separate from, and not representative of "Communities of Aotearoa New Zealand". The commitment of community organisations is to their own vision, but their roots are in their community.
• The work on the SOGI, on "Good Intentions" and a series of other joint sector-government working groups over the past decade has been intended to advance the cause of a strong well-connected and informed sector. This draft does not assist in that goal.

Implementation

• The Kia Tutahi Co-Chairs and the Working Group's vision statement both indicate measurement and accountability will come under this Agreement. However no work has been done to document what this will mean in practice. Participants in the discussion expressed they would be reluctant to sign up to an Agreement when the detail of what it would mean is not yet defined.
• The Co-Chairs indicated there is no work scheduled beyond completion of the current document, partly because of the tight schedule imposed by Government, but without this detail people felt the draft is somewhat hollow.
• We're aware of various other important documents - such as the Code of Funding Practice, Reference Guide about Consultation, and Cabinet Guidelines on Consultation - which are all in different stages of development. These will join existing Guideline documents from Treasury and the Auditor General, but these all need to be brought together as part of the presentation of the Relationship Agreement, so it has some substance. If they all remain in isolation, the effectiveness of them all is reduced.
• We think monitoring and review is essential and must be included with the base document. There is the need for an annual review process to be clearly spelt out, and an appeal process through an Ombudsman was stressed by many people at the forum.

Who is involved from the Government side?

• The question was raised whether Local and Regional Authorities will be party to this agreement. ANGOA has consistently called for an improved relationship from all levels of government with sector organisations, but the most pressing need is for an improved working relationship at the national level, with central Government.
• The community and the community organisations that Local and Regional Authorities must work with are not national - these bodies must work with and be accountable to their own communities. To this end Local Government New Zealand is considering developing a template or framework for their members to use as a basis for their own local Agreements.

Options from here

• One possibility is for sector organisations to say to Government "thanks, that's nice, but it's not the document we have been calling for and working towards over the past decade, so can we please have a joint working group to address that?"
• The other possibility is that sector organisations continue to work with Government to try and achieve an outcome through the Kia Tutahi process that does address the real, known problems in a practical, constructive way.

Tell us what you think! ANGOA would appreciate your response, and that will help shape our actions from here on. Contact Dave Henderson, ANGOA Coordinator; dave.henderson@angoa.org.nz

To see ANGOA's 2009 report "Good Intentions" an Assessment of the Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship".

To find out more background; www.ocvs.govt.nz/work-programme/relationship-agreement/

For the consultation hui; See the timetable for the hui nearest to you

Online consultation underway about Community-Government Relationship Agreement

Read the draft Agreement