Government agrees to public service reforms after inquiry finds Māori funding and outcomes are untracked

# What the committee found

A two-year inquiry by the Māori Affairs select committee looked at accountability settings and outcomes for Māori. The committee's central finding was that it is difficult to see whether the significant money and resource allocated to Māori development is delivering measurable results.

Outgoing committee chair National MP David MacLeod said the committee struggled to gain the optics needed to hold the executive to account for delivery of outcomes important to Māori. He raised questions about how to identify where investment is working so government can scale successful programmes and stop ones that fail.

Labour's Willie Jackson, the committee's senior Labour MP and a former Minister for Māori Development, described Te Puni Kōkiri's position as constrained. After agency service delivery functions were shifted to general agencies in the 1990s, Jackson said it became unclear who was spending what for Māori and what outcomes that spending was meant to achieve. He described Te Puni Kōkiri as wanting to make agencies accountable but lacking the visibility and funding to do so effectively.

# The recommendations

The committee delivered a report in November with 14 recommendations aimed at reforming the public service to better track and achieve outcomes for Māori. Key proposals included:

• Strengthening Te Puni Kōkiri's role so it can perform accountability functions more effectively.
• for Māori across government.
• Creating a whole-of-government "map" that links funding allocations to expected outcomes, identifies accountable agencies, and sets clear performance metrics that are publicly reported and periodically updated.

Those recommendations crossed over with a separate Finance and Expenditure Committee inquiry into performance reporting and public accountability.

# Government response

This month the government responded to the committee's report by agreeing or partially agreeing with all 14 recommendations. The government said it would treat recommendations that overlap with the finance committee's work as part of its response to that separate report.

Government officials signalled that implementation is not a single-step fix. MacLeod described the work as a journey likely to span multiple governments and terms, but said the committee was pleased the government had largely accepted the recommendations and was prepared to start the process now.

# Why this matters

Current arrangements split policy and service delivery across general agencies and a smaller Māori-specific agency. That structure makes it hard to aggregate total investment aimed at Māori or to identify which programmes produce good results.

Without a clear picture of who is accountable for what, the committee said ministers and officials cannot make informed decisions about where to increase investment, which programmes to scale, or which to stop.

# Immediate implications and next steps

• Te Puni Kōkiri may receive a stronger statutory or operational role to hold other agencies to account, although exact changes were not detailed in the response.
• Where recommendations overlap with the finance committee's findings, the government will consider changes through that parallel process.

MacLeod and Jackson framed the response as a practical start rather than a completed reform: the government accepted the need for clearer transparency and accountability, but implementation will take time and cross-agency cooperation.

# Bottom line

The select committee found insufficient tracking of Māori-targeted spending and unclear accountability for outcomes. The government has accepted or partially accepted the committee's 14 recommendations and signalled that the Treasury and Te Puni Kōkiri will have central roles in creating clearer reporting and accountability mechanisms. The work will proceed over time and could extend across multiple parliamentary terms.