Expand your mind
A curated list of readings that Frank collects to stretch your policy thinking.
Parliament’s financial scrutiny cycle
This one-page resource includes a diagram showing Parliament’s financial scrutiny cycle, which lasts two-and-a-half years. The cycle starts with the Budget Policy Statement, steps through other parts…
More effective social services at a glance
This is a summary diagram the 2015 Productivity Commission report, More effective social services, that looked into social service provision in New Zealand, asking why – despite the hard work and…
Social Investment Unit: Briefing to the Incoming Ministers
This 2017 Briefing to the Incoming Minister sets out why social investment matters, and what a successful social investment approach could look like. The components to enable a social investment…
Place-based public service budgets: Making public money work better for communities
In the context of austerity, public services in England have been focused on short-term crises rather than long-term solutions. This report argues that pooling central government funding in local…
Social sector commissioning: Progress, principles and next steps
In 2018, the then-Government tasked social sector Chief Executives to look into the way their agencies worked with social service providers. This 2020 report sets out some of the outcomes from that…
Let it go: Devolving power and resources to improve lives
New Zealand’s system of social supports does not meet the needs of some people, and significantly fails a small group of people. More resources are not enough to address this failure. Instead,…
Early investment: A key to reversing intergenerational disadvantage and inequity in Aotearoa New Zealand
New Zealand has a persistent problem with child poverty and its intergenerational consequences. Intergenerational disadvantage plays out in a number of ways, including through physical and mental…
More effective social services
This 2015 report took an extensive look into social service provision in New Zealand, asking why – despite the hard work and commitment of service providers – social services were not always…
Demonstrating the complexities of being poor; an empathy tool
This 2014 research report came out of the Families 100 project, which involved extensive research with 100 families experiencing poverty in Auckland. The report uses ‘composite characters’ to…
Speaking for ourselves: The truth about what keeps people in poverty from those who live it
This 2014 research report came out of the Families 100 project, which looked into the lives of 100 families who use foodbanks, to understand what prevents them from moving out of poverty. Eight key…
