Activating Trust in Government: An analysis of public engagement guidelines' potential to foster trust-enriching participation processes in New Zealand

Abstract

Trust in government institutions is important to legitimate decision-making. Concern for trust in government filters through media commentary on contemporary issues including the Covid19 response and arming police. In this thesis, I aim to determine how, and to what degree, public participation guidance for New Zealand government organisations encourages trust-fostering processes. To do so, I review traditional trust in government literature, with a focus on defining and explaining trust, trust’s treatment as a variable, and how trust intersects with public participation in decision-making. I then expand the discussion of trust to better address the New Zealand context, primarily by including the perspectives and experiences of Māori, who have been marginalised in decision-making through colonisation. From the literature review, I turn five broad themes into criteria for assessing the trust-fostering capacity of public participation guidance: ‘treating Māori as Tangata Whenua’; ‘fair access and treatment’; ‘spirit of public benefit’; ‘reflection of ethnic and cultural diversity’; and ‘focus on relationships’. I assess the following sets of guidelines or tools: ‘Public Participation’ and ‘Design Thinking’ from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC); ‘Good Practice Participate’, ‘Kia Tūtahi Relationship Accord Engagement Guide’ and ‘Online Engagement’ from the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA); and relevant documents from Auckland Co-Design Lab. My analysis finds that Good Practice Participate and Kia Tūtahi Relationship Accord Engagement Guide reflect the criteria most highly across the board and are, therefore, the most conducive to trust-fostering participation processes. It finds that the DPMC’s two tools reflected the criteria least, offering the weakest contribution to trust. The criterion most strongly reflected between the tools was ‘spirit of public benefit’ and those reflected most weakly or inconsistently were ‘treating Māori as Tangata Whenua’ and ‘focus on relationships’. I conclude that, while the selected tools and guidelines were inconsistent in their fulfilment of the criteria, their existing elements of trust-fostering guidance provide a starting point to expand from. I recommend the tools be strengthened with a focus on fostering and sustaining trust in the public sector, by incorporating my five criteria into the guidance they give.