Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is responsible for coastal surveying and charting within New Zealand’s maritime zones. As part of New Zealand’s Aid Programme, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) asked LINZ to support a hydrographic programme in the Pacific, focusing on Cooks Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga (where LINZ is the Primary Charting Authority) and Vanuatu. Compliance with new International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations was critical for the tourism cruise boat industry in Vanuatu. Based on a successful Phase I that developed and approved a ‘proof of concept’, MFAT engaged Kirsty Burnett to develop a business case and supporting documentation to expand the scope of work and depth of engagement under a second phase commencing in 2015.
What was done
With a contract for a new NZD5 million programme LINZ recognised that, while it had the technical capability, it needed support to comply with MFAT’s business processes and management systems. So it engaged Kirsty to support the development of workplans and monitoring tools and templates, and to compile annual reports to MFAT that demonstrated progress against a results framework.
How it’s done
Kirsty met with the implementation team at Toitū Te Whenua to determine roles and responsibilities and work through the level of effort (days) and costings for each stream of work, by task and by country.
To strengthen the M&E work plan in the project design, Kirsty helped with collecting missing baseline information, set up data collection methodologies and ensured that those responsible for tasks were trained for these.
In preparing for progress reporting, Kirsty asked the hard questions. Did indicators and targets still make sense? Was funding allocated to get the agreed results? Was LINZ sure their Pacific colleagues had the right skills? Were risks being managed? MFAT did a mid-point review of the Results Framework and found it to be fit-for-purpose and provide sufficient information to make informed management and governance decisions.
The benefits for the client
LINZ’s progress report to MFAT was accepted without time-consuming and ongoing Q&A transactions.
Kirsty could provide LINZ with a fresh and credible perspective given her early involvement with and background knowledge of the project.
What did they say
Kirsty has an ongoing and satisfying engagement with LINZ to track implementation, provide advice, and complete progress reporting. According to Kirsty, this is the dream job. “I get to work with a highly competent team and tell their amazing stories.”
Land Information NZ (LINZ): Pacific Regional Navigation Initiative, 2015 and ongoing
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