The good news you didn’t hear

They say that no news is good news, but last week we saw an example of good news being no news.

The latest ‘Kiwis Count’ survey was released with little fanfare and even less media attention. That’s a pity because the survey showed, yet again, that New Zealand has world class public services, that New Zealanders trust public servants and that their direct experience of public services is a positive one.

The survey shows lots of reasons to be proud of our public services:

• The level of trust in public services has gone up since the first survey in 2007. The main reason for this is the public’s confidence that public servants do a good job.
• The most important single reason why New Zealanders value public services is that the services met their expectations. Performance of staff were the next two reasons – competence and keeping their promises.
• Local government services rate highly and public libraries get the highest rating.

The NZ survey is based on a Canadian model that has been operating for a number of years. The Canadians have used the survey to identify where their public services need to improve. NZ started this survey in 2007 and the initial results showed NZ’s public services at the same level as the Canadians had reached. So we are starting from a high point and it’s to the credit of public servants in central and local government that they have improved on an already good result in the past two years.

The survey showed that New Zealanders have high expectations of public services – higher than they do for privately provided services. It’s great to know that public servants are up to the challenge of meeting those expectations and that they do so day in and day out.

I hope all cabinet ministers read the survey and take on board the high level of value New Zealanders place on their public services. They are too important to lose.

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