Organisational Capability

The 2008/09 Statement of Intent outlined LINZ's intention to improve performance in our current areas of activity, and to consider the capability needed to support changes to our strategic direction and operating environment.

In 2008/09, the newly appointed Chief Executive initiated a review of LINZ's organisational capability. The objective was to assess where and how LINZ needs to build capability to position for the future. Other factors contributing to changes were the review of governance in the geospatial area, and the further development of LINZ's strategic and business planning cycles. These reviews indicated that we need to place greater emphasis on strategic thinking and our future role in the land development market.

Improving our connectivity

To anticipate emerging business needs of customers and shape preferences in the land information market, LINZ needs to make connections among key industry players. LINZ is taking a leadership role in working with key industry representatives in the land development market. Our aim is to establish a shared view on how various professions and players can work together more effectively to meet the future needs of New Zealand and promote economic efficiencies.

In 2008/09, LINZ started to develop a strategic context for the cadastral survey industry with the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. We also continued to work collaboratively on a range of inter-agency projects, legislation, Treaty settlements and land information management activities, including:

• the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy, an all-of-government effort involving a number of agencies
• tenure review, with the Department of Conservation
• the natural resources inter-agency network led by the Ministry for the Environment
• a review of the Land Transfer Act 1952, with the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission
• a review of the Unit Titles Act 1972, with the Department of Building and Housing
• Treaty settlement work, with the Office of Treaty Settlements
• the Maori Freehold Land Registration Project, with the Ministry of Justice
• topographic and hydrographic areas with the Royal New Zealand Navy, New Zealand Defence Force, emergency services agencies and Maritime New Zealand
• Oceans Survey 20/20, an all-of-government effort involving a number of agencies, and
• establishing relationships with territorial authorities on land development markets.

Strengthening & building our core competencies

Talent management

Talent management is a comprehensive approach to the recruitment, management, development and retention of an organisation's staff. In 2008/09, LINZ agreed an approach for talent management and turned our immediate focus to building leadership capability and succession planning.

The first priority was to assess our current leadership capability and future requirements. A succession planning model was introduced in 2008/09, with the aim of reducing the dependency on some core staff. Capturing their expertise and knowledge will enable us to leverage off our current capability and build on this for the future.

This priority is supported by knowledge management strategies that have been trialled to capture key knowledge from staff close to retirement. Keeping the legacy of past experience and decisions available to staff will support the robustness of our systems and processes.

Progress has also been made on initiatives to ensure our information technology (IT) staff have the skill sets to respond to changing needs and support our outcomes. This will help ensure our IT standards and processes can support requirements for new delivery channels, applications or integration needs.

Driving retention initiatives

New entry surveys and exit interviews were introduced in 2008/09 to capture employees' views on their experience of working at LINZ. This information helps LINZ to improve as an employer, and exit data has provided information to drive retention initiatives. As at 30 June 2009, unplanned turnover was 9%, which is below the most recently published public sector average of 15% (as at 30 June 2008).

Strong employee engagement is widely accepted as key in improving organisational performance. In 2008/09, an employee engagement strategy was agreed and work has commenced on LINZ's first engagement survey, planned for March 2010. This initiative aims to help us create an environment for staff where they can give their best.

Māori responsiveness

A new Māori responsiveness programme has been developed and implemented, to teach Māori concepts of land and culture, as well as raise awareness of historical and contemporary Treaty issues for New Zealand.

Reinforcing our values

The set of values we seek staff to model are emphasised through our induction programmes, as well as ongoing leadership and skills training. These programmes are also used to reinforce our code of conduct and build the competency and professionalism of staff. Guidance on appropriate behaviour and integrity issues has been provided through regular briefings and intranet postings.

Leveraging our knowledge

Information, by definition, is a key asset. Capturing, organising, refreshing and sharing information relevant to the performance of business activities and to expert decision-making is practical business knowledge management.

Implementation of enterprise knowledge management is progressive, as it involves changing culture, perceptions and processes. In 2008/09, we continued to implement our knowledge management strategies, focusing on knowledge retention, knowledge sharing, and embedding knowledge in processes and systems.

LINZ is the custodian of a large collection of historical land records. In 2008/09, work to improve the descriptive information used to retrieve records, their storage, and the archiving of those identified as heritage records, has readied these historical land records for relocation and archiving in 2009/10.

Strengthening a culture of value for money

Since LINZ was established 12 years ago, we have maintained a focus on creating better value within current baselines. LINZ has never made new funding bids to cover increases in staffing costs or inflation. These costs have always been absorbed within our baseline funding. In 2008/09, in response to the current fiscal environment and spending constraints, we built on our existing work to reprioritise and reduce costs, while maintaining services and identifying improvements for customers. We offered back $18 million of Crown (taxpayer) funded savings over 2008/09 and the following three years. This will continue as an ongoing area of focus for us over 2009/10.

We started to develop a strategic research and evaluation framework in 2008/09, to help us develop performance measures and evaluation processes that improve our effectiveness in monitoring and reporting on our outputs and their impact on our outcomes.

Transitioning information technology to meet changing needs

LINZ is heavily reliant on information technology (IT) to improve access to information and service delivery through electronic products and services. We have invested heavily in technology to support an electronic lodgement environment, and have recently implemented new electronic systems for capturing, storing, processing and delivering hydrographic and topographic data. This means we need to ensure ongoing support and maintenance for our existing infrastructure, as well as developing our IT capability in areas of the business that are changing.

In June 2008, we agreed an approach to guide the direction in which IT for the organisation will evolve. As part of this, we refreshed the IT architecture principles that guide our decision-making. Our approach looks out over seven years and will guide the development of infrastructure, processes and systems to support our business direction into the longer-term. It sets out the streams of work required to improve our capability, including governance, modernisation of Landonline, shared technology infrastructure and data management.

In 2008/09, we started work on our first projects from these work streams to update core infrastructure to improve the stability, reliability and currency of our technology. These included:

• increases to storage capacity and a replacement programme to ensure our hardware components remain current
• development of strategies for specific technology applications, and
• a review of the governance model for IT across LINZ.

We also established a project running to June 2010 that will review our existing IT processes, with the aim of improving the overall effectiveness of our IT service delivery.

Development goals for the state sector

LINZ has an ongoing commitment to the goals for the state sector. We support them through our focus on:

• human resource policies and practices that support our objective of being a good employer
• our commitment to working collaboratively across government
• our work on improving the accessibility, responsiveness and effectiveness of our services, and
• reviewing the logic of our regulatory interventions.

In 2008/09, LINZ met these goals by:

• providing survey and title customers with the ability to lodge all land transactions electronically
• supplying hydrographic customers with charts in electronic format
• improving application processing times for overseas investors
• continuing to rationalise the regulatory frameworks used to define and transact land, and
• taking a leadership role in coordinating government agencies involved in the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy.