Tohutohu Hāngai

Free and Frank Advice

Kia ora my name is Ali. 

Maybe like you, I work in an operational part of our agency, and I don’t usually get involved in giving advice to Ministers.  But recently that changed a bit and I wanted to share my experience with free and frank advice. 

I was asked to support some work our agency was doing on improving how we provide services. A group of us researched options that could go into the briefing – I provided my experience from having worked in Operations. There were a broad range of options and we made sure that we were politically neutral, constructive and free from undue influence with the advice we provided. 

I later learnt that because our Minister felt more prepared and informed, she was able to have better discussions and decisions at the Cabinet level. 

This showed me the importance of free and frank advice in shaping policies that truly serve the needs of New Zealanders.  

I didn’t really know much about free and frank advice when I first got involved but one of my colleagues shared some learning with me, which helped. You might want to review this learning so that you understand how free and frank advice might impact your work. 

This infographic will help you to consider the principle of free and frank advice at each stage of the policy cycle.  It will provide guidance to consider risks and provide reflection questions to help you implement the principle of free and frank advice into your policy development. 

Applying free and frank advice to the policy cycle [this link opens in a new tab]

An accessible version of this information is available here: Applying free and frank advice to the policy cycle.

eLearning