EMPLOYMENT IS STILL a critical issue in our communities that needs action and results. A Regional Commissioner for Work and Income can achieve a great deal to bring focus and effectiveness to this major public challenge.

The leadership required here is one that is also able to reach out beyond the boundaries of any one government department. It is a leadership that can inspire and encourage a variety of local groups and individuals to play their part in the overall solution to local unemployment.

Employment is an issue within which no-one is "in charge". It is an issue where each area of action — government, business, community and individual — sees the problem differently and offers different parts of the solution. This diversity of perspectives can be seen as an obstacle for co-ordinated action ... or it can be seen as a creative asset that has the potential to generate many innovative solutions.

The establishment of Regional Commissioners has come from a desire to capture this sense of local innovation. The regional focus comes from the acceptance that nationally-driven solutions to unemployment will not be sufficient on their own. The employment issue exists within a "shared-power" environment in which diverse groups and individuals need to get on with their part of the wider challenge.

This is a deeper understanding of the title Commissioner where it confers the authority for "co-missioning" — a leadership that brings together the goals and strategies of a variety of people and organisations, in order to foster an overall mission.

The leadership skills at work here are not those of command and control. They are the professional skills that understand the process of fostering co-ordination, collaboration and co-operation in order to achieve a common good.

THE NETWORK OF Local Employment Co-ordination groups were set up by the National government in 1996 in response to the recommendations from the Prime Ministerial Taskforce on Employment. The initial goals were to:

Local Employment Co-ordination (LEC) groups have become an important resource in developing "local solutions to local employment problems". The Regional Commissioner can play an important role in further developing this mission.

The results that can be achieved with local employment co-ordination include:

PARTNERSHIPS, ALLIANCES, NETWORKS, clusters, co-operation and collaboration are all common objectives in strategic and business plans of the 1990’s. Throughout New Zealand, these initiatives have included examples from the private sector (Joint Action Groups, "hard business" networks and regional clusters); the public sector (the Strengthening Families project, Safer Community Councils, The Foresight Project of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology); and the community sector (Councils of Social Services, Runanga committees, informal networks, local authority facilitated liaison committees).

This range of initiatives illustrates the growing understanding that co-ordination of activities and developing working partnerships have the potential to improve economic prospects, strengthen social cohesion and increase sustainability.

The LEC groups have been one more example of these growing partnerships. They have assumed that flexibility and responsiveness is best achieved by involving local communities in decision making and allowing autonomy at the local level. They have also set out to prove that this flexibility and responsiveness will deliver better outcomes for employment policy.

At the time of writing, there are forty-two groups around New Zealand (38 geographic-based, two Maori, and two Pacific Island) with 750 participating members from the public, private and community sectors. These groups are serviced by contracted, part-time co-ordinators.

All LEC groups have been expected to develop and maintain local employment and labour market profiles, agree on goals to improve employment opportunities, provide better information about employment assistance to members of their communities and plan for collaborative action to improve the employment outlook at the local level.

The groups have worked on a number of successful initiatives which have included :

As soon as the LEC groups were established, it became very clear that co-operative ways of working needed to be developed before any real progress could be made. Generally speaking this involves developing trust and building relationships across the cultural boundaries that define central government, local government, private sector and community sector agencies. Working on joint initiatives, sharing agency information and hosting local events have all aided this process. But the skill development and support for these activities needs to be on-going.

IN 1998, AN EXTERNAL evaluation of the LEC groups was undertaken by the WEB Research Team. In their final report, they pointed out that LEC participants were seeing the tangible benefits of the co-ordination, including :

The Local Employment Co-ordination initiative is still relatively new. The integration of LEC into the new WINZ department provides an opportunity to develop further strategies for effectiveness on the employment issue. The Regional Commissioners have plenty of opportunities for action and results.

Jan Francis and vivian Hutchinson

March 1999