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Chief Executive's overview
The 2002/2003 financial year was a time of change for the Ministry. Since the Ministry was established more than 16 years ago, there have been major changes within central and local government, and the community. Over that time there has been a shift in emphasis from environment protection to sustainable development. Many parts of government now include environment and sustainable development among their objectives. The time was right to take a close look at the Ministry's work programme and approach.
During the year, with the support of the Minister for the Environment, we went through a major review of our priorities and our organisational structure. Through discussions with our Ministers and a wide range of stakeholders, we identified three clear priorities for the Ministry's activities:
- leadership on environment across central and local government
- partnerships for action on environment
- fixing problems in the environment and in current processes.
We believe that we are now well placed to take action on these priorities. Our restructured organisation is focused on building partnerships with others and influencing behaviour. We have recruited excellent senior staff to lead us in new directions. Our new work programmes are in place and we are starting to deliver on them.
The major exercise of restructuring had an impact on the Ministry's work programme for 2002/2003. The Ministry has in the past been thinly stretched over a large number of work areas. To address this and to reorganise ourselves for the future, we had to make some choices about what we could deliver. This meant that the Ministry reduced or ceased work in some areas. However, despite the major effort that went into restructuring, we continued to deliver on important existing activities, as this report shows.
Barry Carbon
Chief Executive
