Introduction

The Ministry for Women is the public service department of New Zealand charged with advising the government on policies and issues affecting women. It was formerly called the Ministry for Women’s Affairs. The Ministry has commissioned annual stakeholder feedback research from Research First since 2014 in order to understand where it performs well and where there is an opportunity for improvement. Seeking feedback from stakeholders who have interacted with the Ministry in the previous 12 months is an objective way of contributing to this learning. The measurement from the stakeholder research is incorporated into the Ministry’s annual report.

Research Method

Research First conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with two groups of stakeholders:

• those who sought advice about nominations and utilised the Ministry’s Nominations Service (“Nominations Stakeholders”).
• all other stakeholders who interacted with Ministry (“Main Stakeholders”) such as those working in government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector.

There were three main areas that the research sought to measure:

• Percentage of stakeholders that were satisfied with the quality of the Ministry’s evidence, analysis, and advice.
• Percentage of stakeholders that had incorporated the Ministry’s evidence, analysis, and advice into their policies and practice
• Percentage of stakeholders that were satisfied with the Ministry’s Nominations Service.

Outcomes

The main outcome for this project each year is that the Ministry is able to gain the data it needs for its own internal annual report. Each year we also provide insights into the areas that stakeholders particularly appreciate or which they feel could use some improvement. In 2020, the stakeholders were particularly enthusiastic about the Ministry’s evidence-based work, their attention to gender pay equity, and their work with the Mana Wahine inquiry.