Customs' organisational health and capability

Customs operates in an increasingly complex and changeable environment. Over the next three years we will need to manage increasing and changeable risks despite fluctuating trade and travel volumes. We will also respond to changing overseas and domestic requirements with fewer resources within the current economic climate.

At the same time, we will look for new and innovative ways of doing things. We want to improve trade and travel facilitation, and provide value-for-money in what we do, while ensuring risks to New Zealand are identified and managed. We need to manage increasing risks and funding pressures while preparing for the eventual upswing in the economy. We need to be innovative, agile, and flexible – if we are to get the most value from our response to emerging changes in global border management practice.

Regardless of economic pressures we will not compromise the high standards of professionalism and integrity we expect of our people. While we expect to retain staff within the current job market, we will still need to hold on to quality staff. Over the next three years, with fluctuating volumes and increasing risks, we will need to have the ability to align our people with shifting workloads as pressures change. We expect to retrain some staff for more highly skilled frontline roles facing increasing demands. More generally, we seek to deploy staff to other areas of high risk to ensure we gain the most efficient use of resources.

We will also need to draw upon the strength and capability of our managers over the next three years – and will therefore refine and continue to implement leadership programmes for managers.

Customs recognises the need to work with others to manage and protect New Zealand’s border in the best way possible. Overseas links enable Customs to advance the Government’s trade agenda, and also strengthen our intelligence information to best counter the threats to New Zealand’s border. In the trade environment, New Zealand along with other advanced customs administrations seeks to improve the efficiency of international trade and travel supply chains. The efficiencies are to be achieved through increased process integration based on common standards.¹⁷ This includes implementing a trade single window – an electronic portal between government agencies and traders.

Some trading countries have increased their security requirements – driving up trade costs. Increasing integration of global supply chains based on common standards helps to reduce trade costs. Customs seeks to implement these standards through the Joint Border Management System to enable shared systems compatibility across customs administrations overseas. We will also pursue bilateral arrangements with other administrations to provide mutual trade security assurance at a low cost to trade.

Advancing integration of trans-Tasman border clearance, to achieve faster and more seamless passenger facilitation – is Customs’ highest priority – with trade as a focus in the near future. Customs will invest in new kiosk technology as an alternative to traditional customs booths for Australian and New Zealand passport holders crossing New Zealand’s border.

In New Zealand, Customs and other border agencies seek continued integration of border processes and capabilities.¹⁸ Expected gains include greater efficiencies for both traders and border agencies, and reduced compliance costs for traders.

More sophisticated information systems are necessary to enable increased integration.

CusMod – the current border management system – is now a major whole of government asset. Nine government agencies use the system and 20 agencies overall rely on the system to meet their border needs. The system is reaching the end of its economic life and needs to be replaced. It is unable to meet some current and emerging needs – such as implementing international data standards. In 2009/10, Customs and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will present a Stage 2 business case to Cabinet for approval to replace CusMod with the Joint Border Management System and Trade Single Window.

HOW WILL WE MEASURE OUR SUCCESS?

The key measures of Customs’ organisational health are set out below:

Capability	Indicators	Measured by:
People	» Client and public perceptions of the integrity, respect, commitment, and agility of Customs » Customs’ staff engagement with their work.	» International travellers and commercial customers will have the same or greater satisfaction with staff demonstration of Customs’ core values compared to the 2008 baseline ratings across the four core values as measured by Customs’ stakeholder survey. » Customs maintains the same or better rating for high trust and confidence, compared with the previous surveys as measured by the public sector trust and confidence surveys. » Customs’ aggregate score on the employee engagement index will be higher than the 2008 baseline score as measured by Customs’ workplace survey.
Systems, Technology	» Customs’ information systems readiness and availability.	» CusMod is available at least 99 percent of the time on a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis. » 99 percent availability of Customs’ websites and call centre on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis.
Relationships	» Customs’ working relationships with stakeholder groups, including border sector and other government agencies, and industry in New Zealand   » Customs clients’, particularly traders’ and travellers’ satisfaction with Customs’ service at the border.	» Stakeholders rate their working relationships with Customs the same or better than the 2008 baseline rating of working relationship as measured by Customs’ stakeholder survey.   » Stakeholders will have the same or greater satisfaction with Customs’ overall performance compared to the 2008 baseline as measured by Customs’ stakeholder survey. » Customs is rated as good or better for helpfulness in the Business NZ and KPMG Compliance Cost Survey.

OTHER INFORMATION

Measures of cost effectiveness
As signalled in our last Statement of Intent, work is underway to develop meaningful measures of cost-effectiveness for Customs. This work focuses on determining suitable measures to quantify cost-to-outcome relationships for our outcomes of Protection, Facilitation, and Revenue.
 
Developing meaningful measures presents several challenges. These include identifying and measuring contributions to Customs’ outcomes that can be attributed to our interventions, as opposed to other factors. A further challenge is developing comprehensive measures of our impact on those outcomes.

We expect to progress this work over the next three years, which includes working with other agencies facing similar challenges.

Equal employment opportunities
Customs’ focus on equal employment opportunities is guided by the State Services Commission’s Equality and Diversity New Zealand Public Service Equal Opportunities Policy. Customs collects information on ethnicity, gender, and disabilities information for staff, and analyses data on its ethnicity and gender to inform our people capability strategy.¹⁹

Over the next three years, our focus will be to retain existing capability. This focus will require our managers to support an effective career pathway for their staff and the Career Development Board processes. Our managers and the Board will continue to raise awareness of ethnicity, gender, and disability issues related to recruitment, career development. They will also identify leadership and technical ability, and encourage and provide support for staff to further develop critical competencies.





¹⁷ Customs seeks to adopt common standards such as the World Customs Organisation (WCO) SAFE Framework of Standards to secure and facilitate global trade – referred to as the SAFE Framework.
¹⁸ The border sector is comprised of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Transport, Department of Labour, Food Safety Authority, Department of Internal Affairs, and Customs.
¹⁹ In terms of ethnicity, as at 31 December 2008, 9.2 percent of Customs employees were identified as Māori, 8.0 percent as Pacific peoples, 10.5 percent as Asian, 60.0 percent as New Zealand Pakeha (New Zealand European), and 15.2 percent as European (non-New Zealanders). The proportion of female staff was 39 percent, as at 31 December 2008, the same for the previous time last year.