12. CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this
to the Minister for Economic Development
Is he satisfied with the operations of all the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise programmes covered by the evaluations released over the last week?
Is a further, in-depth review necessary of the Escalator programme, which has failed to meet its capital-raising targets, has received 85 percent negative feedback in a survey or participants, and has been described by participants as a gravy train for brokers?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I think some of the messages out of that evaluation are getting through.
Mark BlumskyIs the Minister satisfied with the Beachheads programme, 4 years after its inception, when a review just completed showed that it had little impact on participating firms’ performance, and had incomplete policy objectives, and that the Ministry of Economic Development conducted little oversight of the programme’s development?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I think it is too early to tell whether Beachheads will work really well. The feedback I have had from a number of individual firms is very positive, although it is fair to say that some of the people who are working in this policy area have been diverted to work through large Official Information Act requests and an extraordinary number of questions from that member.
Is the Minister satisfied with the Sector Projects programme, when the review found that there was not sufficient information available to determine whether the programme met its policy outcomes, and that the efficiency of the programme could not be measured because New Zealand Trade and Enterprise did not record staff time spent on projects?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
I think the honest answer to that one is that I do not know, because we do not have the information yet. I think the evaluation was done too early, and the information was incomplete, as the member has pointed out. Is it not wonderful to have a Government that is very clear and has done a whole range of evaluations? Most of those are positive, but, of course, there are one or two organisations that are not doing as well as they could.
Is the Minister concerned that, more than 3 years after the establishment of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the September 2006 overview report by the Ministry of Economic Development states that there is no mechanism currently in place to measure explicitly and routinely the success of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise programmes against intended policy outcomes?