Shortcomings in planning N.Z.’s future

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 20

Shortcomings in planning N.Z.’s future

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

Forward planning in New Zealand is inadequate. Over the last 10 years there has been more forward planning then ever before, with several agencies being set up specifically to do the work, but it is still inadequate. This inadequacy is widely recognised within the Government, Public Service and universities. A number of people are now devoting a lot of thought to how it might be improved.

As it is election year, the political parties themselves are beginning to think about the mechanisms for forward planning, and none more than the National Party whose members in the Government are more aware than anyone how inadequate it is.

The most obvious candidate for scrapping among the planning agencies is the Commission for the Future. Its task was the hardest — to plan for the medium and long-term future. But it has not givensatisfaction. Its work has been considered too vague, its areas of concern too esoteric, its methods of work either too liberal or too airy-fairy, its approach too academic, and its publications too prone to lose themselves in jargon. It owed its inception largely to the fervour of its chairman (Professor James Duncan). But the use he has made of the Commission has not, finally, squared with the hopes the Government had for it. The indefinite nature of its work and predictions has not matched the need of the Government for concrete options.

Planning for the medium and long-term future is indefinite, but still the feeling of dissatisfaction persists. Finally, the Commission's chief executive (Commander Dick Ryan) has attracted the ire of the Government. He has resigned to contest the General Election as a candidate for the Social Credit League. Even if the Government could have forgiven the Commission for Commander Ryan’s politics, it is unlikely to forgive the Commision for the critical things Commander Ryan said of how New Zealand's future was shaping. Speculation is now rife around Wellington over whether the Commission for the Future will be permitted to continue, disbanded, or given over to ■ the Planning Council for incorporation within its larger structure and wider brief. The odds appear to favour incorporation with the Planning Council. But the Planning Council itself is attracting a growing body of criticism. It began bolstered by the reputation of its chairman (Sir Frank Holmes) as an economist and administrator. Its early work attracted generally favourable comment, but more recently it has come under fire for vague and/or long-winded reports, and also from experts in the fields in which it is reporting for failing to recognise the complexities of those fields. A striking and recent example was its report on unemployment. Not only was this report both vague and long-

winded, but it was bitterly attacked by numbers of people working with the unemployed for its wrongness (in their opinion) and for oversimplification. Even members of the Government have been heard to slight the value of Planning Council work. But the fault, if blame is to be apportioned, lies more with the Government than with the Planning Council. The Planning Council is doing what the Government. set it up to do; the Government now finds that it wants something else. It is increasingly obvious that the answer to this problem is for the Government to alter the terms of reference for the Planning Council, or to keep it on doing its present work while setting up another body to do what else the Government wants.

The Prime Minister’s Department has done very valuable work, both for the Prime Minister and everyone, in bypassing the normal tortuous chain of communications from industries to the Prime Minis-

ter. The Prime Minister now has immediate access through this small group of people to what industries need and how these needs might be met.

But the Prime Minister's Department has not acquired a significant planning function. There were thoughts that it might, when it was first set up. It is good that it has continued to restrict itself to collating and synthesising information and opinion, and then presenting them to the Government in a practical form. Most Government departments do forward planning in their own fields. This is usually technically competent but seldom wide-ranging. When the narrowness of this work or its duplication becomes embarrasingly obvious, co-ordinating bodies are set up to overcome the embarrassment. Thus, for example, there are co-ordinat-ing advisory bodies such as the National Research Advisory Council, the Agricultural Review Committee, the Forestry Council, and others in their specialist fields.

Yet the work of these bodies, although useful, is not adequate. If it were adequate, the Planning Council and Commission for the Future would never have been set up. They tend to rationalise conflicts, to overcome duplication, but they lack the facility to take a broad view and produce forward plans. The plans they do produce are limited in effectiveness by the narrow professional and industry base from which each plan has sprung. One co-ordinating body which is beginning to spread its wings is the National Re-

search Advisory Council. This body is now ill-named because, even though in theory supposed to concern itself with research only, it is arrogating to itself a much broader brief. It is well placed to do so. It is based on a very small executive staff (about half a dozen) who service talents and professional skills drawn from any quarter. Thus, when the N.R.A.C. was asked to look into wildlife research, or farm fertiliser research, or hill country farming research, or fisheries research. or research into unemployment — all of which it has done over the last five years — its working parties contained the expertise to look at the whole field and not just research. The N.R.A.C., in fact, points the way to providing forward planning in New Zealand.

What New Zealand needs, as Is becoming widely recognised, is a strategic planning unit. Like the N.R.A.C. it would have a small administrative executive. Like the N.R.A.C. it would have access to any personnel it wanted for its projects. But unlike the N.R.A.C., it would not be mainly responsible for its own initiatives.

A strategic planning unit would be assigned specific projects; to look into specific areas where a forward plan was needed. Such areas might range from a naval policy, to a plan for Southland’s vast lignite deposits, or to a fisheries plan, or indeed any other field of national importance. The unit could be given authority to hire overseas experts where considered necessary, and certainly have authority to draw

experts from universities. Government agencies or industry, where needed.

The most detailed suggestion along these lines so far has come, surprisingly, from the Federation of Labour. For several months now the F.O.L. has been circulating privately among its affiliates (and to other sympathetic groups) a draft document proposing a major reorganisation around a trade union strategy for economic policy. It attacks “ad hoc planning,” and specifically attacks the present Government and the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) for their “ad hoc” attitude to planning. The F.O.L. might be surprised how much sympathy within the Government, and even from Mr Muldoon, there is for strategic forward planning along the lines the F.O.L. suggests. If the F.O.L. adopts a plan at its annual meeting during May to establish a strategic planning unit for itself — and plenty of people within the F.O.L. would like to see it — then that will put extra pressure on the Government to move more vigorouslyinto forward planning.

No Government is going to abdicate its responsibility to make decisions to a strategic planning unit, but the Government is becoming more mindful of the desirability to be able to base its decisions on the work of a strategic planning unit preparing specific forward plans at the behest of the Government. The Government needs better forward planning than it is getting. Noone knows that better than the Government.