The Government has asked the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry into economic inclusion and social mobility – A fair chance for all – with a focus on helping those experiencing persistent disadvantage. The inquiry has focused on the overall settings of the “public management system”, taking a whole of system view, rather than assessing policies and services in one or two government sectors.
In September 2022, the Commission published an interim report. The report presented preliminary findings and recommendations about the drivers of persistent disadvantage in people’s lifetimes and across generations and how the public management system contributes to that. The Commission proposed four system “shifts” to improve the public management system’s macro settings, accountability, policymaking, funding, and learning to address the barriers contributing to persistent disadvantage.
Feedback on the interim report
The Commission sought feedback on the findings, recommendations and questions raised in the interim report, inviting submissions by 11 November 2022. The Commission accepted both written submissions and responses to a short survey based around the content of the interim report. We received 68 submissions (submitters are listed at the end of this report) covering a range of perspectives, and a broad spectrum of themes. Submitters were united in their passion for addressing persistent disadvantage. The Commission greatly appreciates the time taken by submitters to contribute to the inquiry process.
This document summarises the key themes from submissions on our interim report for the A fair chance for all inquiry and identifies the challenges and recommendations for the Commission to consider for the final report. In summarising, we have focused on the most commonly raised issues and grouped these thematically.
Direct quotes are provided to illustrate the summarised feedback and to show the range of submissions and ideas received by the Commission. Each quote is referenced by the submission number (eg, sub. DR141) and all submissions are publicly available on the A fair chance for all inquiries page on our website.
The quotes presented in the report are not an indication that the Commission agrees with or endorses these views.
The Commission has also engaged with a wide range of stakeholders, including social service providers, professional industry organisations, academics, and government agencies. Haemata Limited were commissioned to run a series of wānanga engaging with Māori communities on the issues covered by the interim report, and the Ministry of Pacific Peoples hosted a talanoa session involving the Commission and Pacific community leaders. Summaries of the wānanga and talanoa sessions are published separately alongside this report and are available for reading on our website.
Wānanga Feedback Report, Prepared for Te Kōmihana Whai Hua o AotearoaNew Zealand Productivity Commission, for the inquiry A Fair Chance for All: Breaking the Cycle of Persistent Disadvantage (November 2022)
Talanoa Feedback Report, for the inquiry A Fair Chance for All: Breaking the Cycle of Persistent Disadvantage (October 2022)
Next steps for the inquiry
The report does not provide a response by the Commission to the submissions made on the interim report. Submissions received will inform the final report for this inquiry. We expect to release our final report at the end of May 2023.