Putting Well-being Metrics into Policy Action, 3-4 October 2019, Paris, France. More information at: http://www.oecd.org/statistics/putting-well-being-metrics-into-policy-action.htm

1. Embedding well-being into the policy
analysis toolkit: The experience of
supporting New Zealand’s Wellbeing
Budget
October 3-4, 2019
Presentation for an OECD Conference on “Putting
Wellbeing Metrics into Policy Action”
Tim Ng
Deputy Secretary (Chief Economic Adviser)

2. 1. Context
2. New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget
3. Issues and learnings
Outline
2

3. Context:
Complexity in the public policy
environment, and in government
systems
3

4. 4
Big challenges
Environmental degradation
Excessive resource drawdowns
Climate change
Technological disruption Social disconnection & disparities

5. 10
A complex nexus of actors and discourses
Source: Almaguer et al. (2014) Analyzing policy processes as complex systems: The case of Mesoamerican Sustainable Development Initiative.
J Sociocybernetics

6. • the big presenting challenges are multidimensional and
multi-generational, and require multi-agency responses
• tradeoffs and interdependencies are more salient
• reductionism and simple proxies have limits
• but certain fundamentals remain
– stable and sustainable macroeconomic framework
– productivity and innovation
– markets, price signals and incentives
• a common language would promote transparency and
coherence
Implications for wellbeing frameworks
6

7. • value for money
• sound financial management
• the need for choices and prioritisation, including over
interventions and strategies
The basics – better decisions and
outcomes!
7

8. The Treasury’s Living Standards
Framework
8
https://nztreasury.shinyapps.io/lsfdashboard/

9. New Zealand’s Wellbeing
Budget 2019
9

10. NZ Government’s wellbeing approach
10
THEMES
Budget and financial control
legislative requirements
public sector governance
LEVERS
(theory of change)
intergenerational wellbeing
agencies working across
organisational boundaries
embedding wellbeing in
official measurement and
government reporting

11. Wellbeing Budget
11
• Five high-level priorities for 2019 Wellbeing Budget:
– transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy
– supporting a thriving nation in the digital age
– lifting Māori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities
– reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing
– supporting mental wellbeing for all New Zealanders
• Budget bids, intervention logic assessed using revised process and
investment case template
• Groups of Ministers developed initiative packages
• Budget initiatives and narratives organised by priority, highlighting
multi-agency approaches

12. • diagnostic and proposal assessment tools were
developed and augmented
• proposal assessment was built on a foundation of
existing guidance including social CBA, Better Business
Cases, CBAx modelling tool, etc.
• increased rigour and transparency in process as well as
content dimensions – not prescriptive
LSF tools applied to Budget process
19

13. Issues and learnings
13

14. Improving policy assessment for
wellbeing
• Focus on function and analytical value-added to users
• Be pragmatic and do not over-promise – there are
scientific and philosophical limitations
• Be sensitive to capacity and capability
• process matters as much as content (evidence)
• decentralised information and knowledge, and narrow
performance measurement systems, may be problems
14

15. Improving policy development and
delivery for wellbeing
• If government systems are complex and adaptive...
• ... incentives, personalities and cognitive/information
limitations may generate self-protective behaviours
• top-down (political) pressure is helpful but seems
unlikely to be always and everywhere sufficient
• do we need to change the way we think about value
for money assurance and evaluation?
15