Commerce Minister Simon Power has announced the delegations for the Hon. Craig Foss, the new Associate Commerce Minister.
In addition to his other delegations, Mr Foss will oversee the three institutions involved in standards and conformance infrastructure in New Zealand, including the Standards Council and Standards New Zealand.
See http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/commerce-minister-announces-delegations-associate-0 for the full media release.
New tools and support for Standards development committee members
Standards New Zealand relies on committee members to participate in and champion Standards development. We are very well supported by over 2,000 technical experts and advocates and they are integral to our Standards development process for virtually every sector.
Committee members contribute their time and technical expertise to the development of Standards, making an immense contribution to their sector and to New Zealand as a whole.
'We really value the ongoing contribution of our committee members, their employers, and their nominating organisations – they are the lifeblood of Standards,' says Standards New Zealand's Acting General Manager Solutions, Michelle Wessing.
'We're looking at ways to make it easier for individuals and nominating organisations from all sectors to become involved in the Standards development committee process. Our committee members come from all walks of life. They include consumers, community group advocates, industry association advocates, employees, and sector specialists, along with local and central government representatives.
Michelle says 'We want to help new committee members understand how they can participate in a Standards development committee, and we're looking at establishing an online tool where technical experts and advocates can indicate their interest in participating in a development project. We're also developing a new committee member toolkit, and planning on putting a mentoring programme in place.
'We want to ensure continuous representation from our nominating organisations on committees across a range of sector Standards. As some committees run for several years, we'll be encouraging succession planning by our current participants. It's also important for employers and nominating organisations to remain up to date on their nominees' participation in committees, and we want to improve our communication with them by ensuring all this information is accessible, online, and in one place.'
More information on the new resources and support mechanisms for development committee members will be available in future issues of Touchstone.
If you would like to provide any comments on these ideas, please email enquiries@standards.co.nz by 5 August 2011.
2010/11 Standards New Zealand annual performance survey results
High stakeholder satisfaction continues across virtually all measures
I am delighted to share the results of this year's independent web-based performance survey of stakeholders. The survey was conducted between 15 February and 1 March 2011 through independent research company, Andrew Fletcher Consulting. More than 9700 stakeholders were invited to participate – this year, responses totalled 1131 and the margin of error was + 2.7%.
The results from this survey are integral to our key performance indicators which are included in our Statement of Intent (as targets), and in our Annual Report (as results against those targets). All our staff also have team-based stakeholder satisfaction targets included in their personal performance objectives.
In the 2010/11 survey, we maintained satisfaction with our performance among development clients and purchasing customers on the majority of measures – this is a credit to my team here at Standards New Zealand, to our development committee members who generously contribute their time, talent, and effort, our funding clients who enable the development process to continue, and all our customers who continue to be a delight for us to provide service to.
These performance measures are the result of our individual and collective focus on maintaining and improving what we do for stakeholders and I am proud to say these results show our efforts continue to make a difference.
View this graph, Perfomance ratings for purchasing Standards, 2010 and 2011, as a larger image.
Summary of results
- Overall purchaser satisfaction with the supply of Standards rated 6.01 out of 7, compared with 6.12 last year
- Overall sponsor satisfaction with the quality of service received for Standards development rated 5.91 out of 7, compared with 5.97 last year
- Membership rated 5.17 out of 7 for providing value for money, compared with 5.12 last year
- The Standards used rated 5.12 out of 7 for providing value for money, compared with 5.07 last year
- Ordering of Standards through our webshop climbed to 77% of all orders placed by respondents (compared with 73% last year)
- Those purchasing overseas Standards through Standards New Zealand's webshop increased to 54% (compared with 50% last year), along with another 21% purchasing through us by phone, email, mail, fax, or Asset Plus.
Huge response to questions on barriers to young professionals and consumers participating in Standards development
In this year's survey, we asked respondents for their opinions on barriers preventing young professionals and consumers from participating in Standards develoment committees. We also asked for suggestions on how we could overcome these barriers. We received hundreds of comments and suggestions and these have been summarised under these groupings: time, cost, knowledge, inexperience, promotion, financial support, IT, publicity, and simplying the process.
We have started a project focusing on this – see New tools and support for Standards development committee members.
What we could do better, what we should do more of
'Standards development' and 'Public awareness' were ranked as the most important areas Standards New Zealand could do better and do more of. This was followed by 'Existing products and services (for purchase)' and 'Committee participation'. We also noted comments regarding this year's survey being too long so we will be taking steps to ensure next year's survey is more succinct.
What we did well
It was particularly pleasing for our team to read the many positive comments about our staff and service over the past year – we were frantically busy implementing our new enterprise management system and, after many months of preparation and training, everyone was gratified to see such positive perceptions about our service.
In the past 12 months, we have been using the 2009/10 survey results and your feedback in a number of ways, including:
- working with regulators and industry to enable the timely review of current Standards, including working towards having 3 year planned work programmes in place where possible
- conducting research on the contribution Standards make to New Zealand’s GDP and productivity
- informing and supporting improvements to our online service and support, webshop functionality, web usability, and Standards development process – this work will continue in the coming year
- raising industry and public awareness about Standards and standardisation – this will continue in the coming year (budget allowing)
- scoping the development of a national standardisation strategy
- introducing new tools to increase efficiency in our organisation starting with our new enterprise management system
- providing useful inputs to our future planning and development processes.
Please accept my sincere thanks to everyone who took part in this year's survey.
Debbie Chin, Chief Executive
Standards New Zealand