Together Alone: A Review of Joined-Up Social Services (Feb 2022)

This report by the Productivity Commission reviews the evidence around collaborative initiatives intended to reduce persistent disadvantage in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It updates the findings of the Productivity Commission’s 2015 More effective social services inquiry as it relates to collaborative initiatives, and is intended to provide background information for the Commission’s A fair chance for all inquiry.

The report provides an overview assessment of whether a broad range of collaborative initiatives have met their objectives in Aotearoa. It summarises critical success factors and enablers and systems barriers, and explores the potential to scale and transfer collaborative models before concluding. The evidence used to reach the conclusions in the main report is summarised in the Appendix. The initiatives examined include flagship government programmes such as Whānau Ora and the Government’s PBIs (including the South Auckland Social Wellbeing Board); other government-led initiatives with completed evaluations; new cross-sector initiatives; and some examples of shared service models that operate outside government (although they may receive funding from central and/or local government).

This report is not intended to provide a comprehensive assessment of a very large area. Rather, the aim is to examine a broad range of initiatives, and to identify common themes, critical success factors and enablers, and systems barriers in order to draw out lessons that will help guide the work of the fair chance inquiry.

See the full report here.