Todd Talks By Todd Muller

One of the biggest changes we have brought to Government has been driving the public sector to deliver better results from the $75 billion of your taxes we spend. These are our Better Public Services targets, where we share our progress against some really tough, but important, targets.The targets are aimed at reducing long-term welfare dependence, reducing assaults on children, increasing infant immunisation, increasing educational participation and achievement, reducing recidivist and violent crime, and improving interaction with Government.Good progress continues to be made in these difficult areas – and four years after the targets were first set a lower number of hard-core issues are left to be resolved.All targets have improved since they were introduced:

· The number of people on a main benefit is down from 295,320 at the end of March 2014 to 279,769 at the end of March 2016, a fall of 5.3 per cent and a saving of $3.6 billion.

· Participation in early childhood education is up from 94.7 per cent in 2011 to 96.6 per cent in 2016.

· Achievement in NCEA level 2 is up from 74.3 per cent in 2011 to 83.3 per cent in 2015.

· The number of 25-34 year olds with NZQF level four or above has increased from 51.9 per cent in 2011 to 56.5 per cent in 2016.

· More children are being immunised, up from 84 per cent in 2012 to 92.8 per cent.

· Rheumatic fever cases have dropped from 177 cases in 2012 to 112 cases in 2016.

· The number of people completing transactions with the Government online is up from 29 per cent in 2012 to more than 49 per cent.

These outcomes have been achieved by some long-term changes in the behaviour and approach of the public service. What we call our Social Investment approach uses integrated data to identify and understand the issues that drive, for example, long-term welfare dependence, low rates of early childhood education and low rates of immunisation. When you look behind the headline numbers of some of the results, such as reducing assaults on children, a trend is emerging that shows while incidences are up slightly due to increased reporting, agencies are starting to connect with the hardest-to-reach children and families. Some targets such as increasing participation in ECE and increasing infant immunisations, get harder to achieve the closer you get to them. To get to the core of these problems, government agencies now need to develop complex interventions with intensive wrap around services. However tough the targets are we don't back away from owning the problem and telling you the gap between where we are and what we have to achieve. In my view that transparency drives us to succeed.