No, I know there aren't. But I feel there should be. One of the quickest and most effective ways to get up to speed with what government agencies are doing, is to read their Briefings to the Incoming Minister. And that's what we've been doing for the past short while.
Here are some we've found particularly useful and would get a BIM OSCAR nomination if there were any.
Ministry of Education
Among other things, this includes a:
good overview of the whole education system
detailed run through of major strategic issues facing education's future
clear picture of savings and fiscal cliffs.
A word on that last item: savings. Looking in detail at savings needed, the BIM states the Ministry is looking at a 15 - 17% cut in its core spending "which is not likely to be possible without significant impact on our ability to deliver to our core role". A clear direction OSCAR nomination here.
Ministry of Health
The authors of this BIM have clearly read and digested the new government's agenda. Its section on Delivering on your immediate priorities comments on action to achieve National's 100-day plan. They'd win the OSCAR in the serving the government of the day category.
And here's an interesting statement: Overall, our health outcomes are in line with comparable countries. Our health system works well for most New Zealanders, and against many overall measures it delivers well when compared against other developed countries. This isn't the narrative we're used to and well worth a read.
As always, the life expectancy disparities are sobering. Life expectancy is 80 years for men and 84.5 for women. For Māori those figures are 73.4 years for men and 77.1 years for women. For Pacific men, the comparable figures are 75.4 years with 79 years for women.
The overall % of children in material hardship is 10.3. For Maori that's 18.8% and a huge 25.6% for Pacific.
Waka Kotahi
Like many people, I'm drawn to graphics. And this BIM includes a great graphic of capital projects broken down by region. An OSCAR nomination here for visual effects. The value of total projects on the go is $20,348b: 306 projects. Not surprisingly the largest amount - $7b - is earmarked for Auckland with 43 projects. Tasman has only 7 projects costing $27m. Well worth a look.
Any agency you're interested in, dip into their BIM. You'll find it's time well spent.