Conclusion and next steps

The Public Service has had a dedicated diversity and inclusion programme in place since 2017. Significant progress has been made across the system, with the Public Service more diverse now than ever before. With strong leadership commitment to ensuring diversity and inclusion across the system, agencies are more focused and connected as they plan and deliver a range of diversity and inclusion initiatives at pace. 

Te Tuatini State of the Public Service report published in December 2022 highlighted “Disability is a critical area of focus for us”.  The Disability Deep Dive helps to build a better understanding of diversity in the Public Service workforce. It will help inform policy developments based on the data analysis and help build trusted partnerships with the disabled community across the Public Service.   

The data we have tells us that the diversity of the Public Service workforce is increasing, and most public servants feel included in their workplace. But alongside this, it also shows that people from some communities within our workforce, do not. This cannot be overlooked.  It is important that the information will help us work with disabled communities to improve working life for our disabled workforce. We want the whole of the Public Service, as well as each agency, to reflect and value all the communities across all the areas of diversity including disabled people.   

A range of work programmes are underway. Papa Pounamu continues to evolve and embed five focus areas to guide Public Service agencies towards further progress on diversity and inclusion. It is committed to supporting agencies to collect and understand their workforce data and to planning and delivering initiatives to effect change. This programme of work is aligned to other key work programmes such as the Positive Workplace Cultures programme and Kia Toipoto, the pay gap action plan. 

Alongside the Papa Pounamu programme of work, a foundational disability four-point plan to create opportunities for tangata whaikaha Māori and disabled people in the Public Service is has been developed in collaboration with We Enable Us.  This four-point plan has been based on much of the data informed from Te Taunaki and contains actions to encourage Public Service leaders to create further opportunities and progress development for disabled people in the Public Service and will bring together agencies across the system to work in sync to create opportunities for disabled public servants. 

We expect to continue to build on this work with data insights in future from Te Taunaki Public Service Census and other data sources. With a strong system foundation in place, we are well positioned to place collective focus on inclusion for public servants from these communities.

For more information: 

• Papa Pounamu priority areas
• Te Taunaki Public Service Census 2021
• Te Taunaki Public Service Census: Inclusion deep dive

• Workforce data
• We Enable Us
• Employee-Led-Networks