Delivery of the Transformation Plan 2022-2025

The Transformation Plan 2022-2025's vision is to develop a thriving, fair and sustainable construction sector for a better Aotearoa New Zealand. This vision is supported by the following six mid-term goals:

1. Increased capabilities of leaders to drive change.
2. More skilled and diverse workforce that is future ready.
3. More thriving people and organisations.
4. Greater Māori construction economy success.
5. Reduced waste and embodied and operational carbon.
6. Increased productivity through innovation, technology, and an enabling regulatory environment.

The plan covers four main focus areas – People, Client Leadership, Environment and Innovation - while also reserving some of the Accord's resources for responding to the Emerging Issues and Opportunities of the day. The Accord work programme also covers two enablers - Knowledge and Networks.

The focus areas and enablers contain priorities, which provide more specific descriptions of what the Accord is working towards. Each priority contains a set of initiatives. Every initiative has been specifically designed to work towards at least one of the Accord’s mid-term goals, and the mid-term goals are not mutually exclusive to any of the priorities (i.e. initiatives from different priorities can be connected to the same mid-term goal).

As you read this report, you may notice that some things have changed since we published the Transformation Plan 2022-2025 last year. When we launched the plan, we had 11 priorities. Now, we have 15. Since publishing the plan, we have undertaken detailed project scoping and planning work across our work programme and refined our priorities. Changing conditions across the construction sector have also required us to reconsider where we are focussing our efforts. Several initiatives have been merged or split, moved to other parts of the plan, or in some cases simply renamed to better reflect the nature of the work. For example, nine initiatives from across the published plan have now become five newly named initiatives under the new Construction Activator priority (under Networks).

Monitoring the Accord's progress

The Accord has been tasked with tackling the challenges that are causing the construction sector’s underperformance. Transforming a sector as large and complex as construction requires long-term, system-level behavioural and cultural shifts. To understand whether these desired shifts are taking place, the Accord monitors a range of measures which track the state of the sector. The Accord's measures draw on existing external sources, such as Statistics New Zealand datasets, and our own data, primarily from the Accord Survey.  The Accord publishes its measures online via an interactive indicators dashboard.

However, it is hard to determine whether the measures reflect the Accord’s impact on the construction sector. This reflects the difficulty of attributing change, a common problem in monitoring and evaluating complex work programmes. The Accord's initiatives exist alongside many other government and industry programmes, all of which are intended to improve the construction sector. Alongside the problem of attribution, there can also be a lag between the time an initiative commences and when it has an effect. The initiatives from the Accord’s first Transformation Plan have only started to flow through the sector, and many from our current plan are still being established, so it will be a while before we can understand their impact.

To help address the problems of attribution and time lag, it can be useful to measure change at a range of periods when monitoring complex programmes - from the programme's direct outputs, through to short-to-mid-term outcomes and long-term impacts. While attributing the Accord's work to the mid-term outcomes and long-term impacts remains challenging, outputs and short-term outcomes are more directly attributable to the Accord and thus better at indicating whether the Accord is helping the sector head in the right direction. As a result, this report focuses on the outputs and short-term outcomes achieved over the past 12 months.

For a more in-depth picture of how the Accord tracks its progress over time towards the desired behavioural and cultural shifts, we have developed a monitoring and evaluation framework. The framework covers the Accord's measures, as well as anecdotal and observational feedback from the construction sector.

Over the past year, we have noticed early signals of positive progress towards the Accord's desired shifts. There is greater sector collaboration on key industry issues, which has reinforced the Accord's industry-government approach. By working with others on the Transformation Plan 2022-2025 initiatives, we have established stronger relationships with industry associations. We have noticed that these organisations are increasingly articulating their support of the Accord’s activities in public, which has resulted in a growing awareness of, and engagement with, the Accord. Industry associations are telling us that they are being heard and want to continue taking part in delivering the Transformation Plan 2022-2025. The Accord's input is also increasingly being sought to inform and influence policies relating to the construction sector. 

Across the plan's focus areas and enablers, we have noticed the following trends:

• People: There is good leadership being shown across the sector to address workforce capability and business leadership gaps. However, greater coordination throughout the system is still required.
• Client leadership: We have had positive sector feedback on initiatives relating to client agencies' contracting behaviours. A strong baseline of client practice has been established which has enabled a clear plan forward, but overall the sector still has low levels of satisfaction with client interactions.
• Environment: There is increasing engagement and momentum to deliver on environmental objectives. Climate events and future regulatory changes are driving awareness. However, there are significant environmental data gaps which are impacting our ability to measure longer-term impacts.
• Innovation: The value of new technology and systems, and appetite for large-scale investment, is not well understood. There is growing sector coordination to put plans in place to address innovation barriers.
• Emerging issues and opportunities: The coordination and collaboration role we have played in supporting the flooding response has further reinforced our industry-government partnership platform. The Accord’s role as a connector has assisted Ministers and decision-makers in understanding the sector’s needs.
• Knowledge and Networks: Steady progress has been made in using these two enablers to support the Accord work programme. There are opportunities to drive much greater benefits over the next two years.

To keep moving in the right direction, we think it’s important to highlight some of the good practice happening in the industry. Throughout this report, you will find several case studies which shine a light on new, innovative and exceptional work happening across the sector. These case studies showcase the types of practices which will contribute to the behavioural and cultural shifts the Accord is trying to achieve.